Hello,

Recently we deployed Altiris 6.9 at our 4 locations for imaging. Each server is independant for PXE (DHCP is on a separate server for each location as well) but the database is centralized. Earlier today I was able to do the following fine:

PXE boot a machine that has never been in Altiris -- it would immediately boot with no boot menu to WinPE 2.1 which I had configured in the PXE configuration Utility to be the default action for machines that Deployment Console didn't know. After loading the Agent, it would wait on that screen, it would appear inside my Deployment Console by the Service Tag, and I would drop a job on it and it would immediately execute.

PXE boot a machine that had already been added into the DS Console -- It would essentially do the same thing as a machine that had never been there before, it possibly showed a boot menu, but the timer was set to 3 seconds and even if the menu showed up, it defaulted to the WinPE 2.1 like I had selected as the Default in the DS tab of the PXE Configuration Utility and would wait for a job (or run a job if it already had one).

About 4 hours after this I had 2 other techs come over for training none of this worked anymore. I know that no one had altered anything on any of the servers during that time frame. This is the current "functionality":

PXE Boot a machine that has never been in Altiris -- Boot menu shows up now, and if it times out (3 seconds) it goes to the local hard drive OS. If I hit F8 and select the WinPE option, it boots to WinPE, downloads the Agent, and then says "Connection Terminated. Session Ended." A few seconds later it restarts, and goes back to the local OS. The item never shows up in the Deployment Console by service tag, so I cannot drag any jobs to it.

PXE boot a machine that was already in the DS Console -- Boot menu is definitely there, and the same thing happens if I don't hit F8 and select WinPE it goes directly to the local OS. If I force it to WinPE, it will load and download the agent, then say "Connection Terminated. Session Ended."

I have verified that under the DS Tab that it is set to have the default WinPE 2.1, and for machines that are unknown to the console to immediately boot WinPE 2.1. It seems to ignore all entries on this tab. Poking around in the .ini files in the C:\Program Files\Altiris\Deployment Server\PXE (I think that was the path, I'm not in front of the server now)...the PXE.ini or PXEManagement.ini (I can't remember which right now) i noticed that the ini files do say to use boot menu option 130 for the default, which is this WinPE 2.1. I also noticed another spot that said InitialDeployEnabled = True, and the boot delay was set to 0 (which tells me it should do what it was doing in my first scenario for new computers).

I've used an Altiris KB article (The exact # escapes me at the moment) to do a clean uninstall/re-install of the PXE Management and PXE Server components, and while that did wipe out all of my settings, i recreated a WINPE boot Automation partition option, set it as the defaults, and tried to PXE boot. I still run into the same issues.

Sorry if any of this is unclear, I just finished a 16 hour day and i am exhausted. We are supposed to start imaging with this software tomorrow. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated...it worked fine this morning!!