Deployment Solution

Hi all, I've been chewing on this problem for several days, and have not had much success.  We recently upgraded to 7.5 HF5 from 7.1, and have implemented Deployment for the first time.

The issue we're running into, is that Managed computers that have pre-existing records in the SMC image fine, either by assigning the job in the SMC, or using the deployment menu in the WinPE boot.  No issues there.

However...

With PC's the do NOT have a pre-existing record in the SMC, they can be booted into WinPE manually (F8), and the Initial Deployment menu comes up.  You can select a job, and a record is created in the SMC, and assigned to the deployment job.  However the job stays in the "waiting for agent to get task" status.  Looking at the SMP.log file on the client, it is attempting to register with the Task server, and the status is "PENDING".

Now, if you reboot the workstation (and cancel the scheduled job), you can then boot it back into WinPE PXE, and you now get the "Managed Computers" menu instead of initial deployment, so it's obviously seeing the computer record that was created on the previous attemp.  However you get the same result as during the initial deployment boot.

If you take that same PC, boot it into windows, install the Symantec Management Agent on it, let it send a basic inventory, then reboot it into PXE, the PECTAgent registers with the task server just fine, and jobs execute without a problem.

​So where I'm at right now, is I have to boot all new PC's, install the agent, and have them check in, before they can be imaged.  I've found lots of articles on both Symantec and the web in general that are sort of similar, but so far every fix, suggestion, and wild theory I've tried has yielded no results.  Does anyone have any ideas?

I'll open a support ticket on Monday, but figured I'd post this article in the meantime.

Hello Trav531,

Looks like the issue

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH227363

BR

Indrek

Yes, I was really hoping that was the fix as well, however I've already applied that pointfix, and have verified that the version of AEXBasicInventory.dll being pushed down by PXE is in fact the correct version (7.5.3300).  I even deleted all previously created records (created by 7.5.3200), and started over as a new machine with no change.

hmm, actually the 3300 should also have the same problem, looking at the PF it has the 3300.

What I would suggest, open a ticket with Support, request for those files from Sp1 HF2-3, as those worked fine.

That was also a workaround at some point to use the DLL from previous versions.

Or Open the PF backup folder, those already contain older version DLL that should not have the problem.

Place them to correct location, Run Package refresh and we-recreate the WinPE

Hi guys,

I was experiencing the same issue and the fix did work for me.

trav531,

Don't forget that you need to copy or enforce the new AeXBasicInventory.dll on you Network Boot Servers and then recreate your preboot environment.

Because, after applying the fix and doing a Package Refresh (NS task scheduled), BDC is going to be replicated through out your environment to every NBS. And that could take a while.

Yep, I've verified that the .dll's in the fix got replicated out.  I opened a support ticket on it this morning, it's currently "Under investigation" according to the automated emails.  As always, I'll keep you all posted.

Yep, Support gave me the 7.5.3193.0 version of the AEXBasicInventory.dll file and everything now works correctly.