Deployment Solution

We have 7.5 Client Management suite. Heavly use Ghost. I am uploaded some Winpe4 drives to the preboot. Done this before but havent had any issues until we started using X240. When I update the drivers in the preboot, it says uploading but goes on and on and never says finished. When I go to the following path in Altiris: c:\program files\altiris\Deployment\BDC\Bootwiz\platforms\Winpe\x86\Drivers\Custom\Driver

I see the new folders created and info in there. Anyone see this issue and have any resolutions?

Thank you,

The Bootwiz log will show you why it failed, but yes, we've seen that.  Make sure you are up on the latest HF.  Do NOT skimp on that.  The fixes coming out are critical.  For instance, DA driver injection took a MAJOR lift in HF5.

That said, if you can see the folders, don't worry about if it "finished" in the console or not.  Just run a rebuild of the preboot.

You may want to become familiar with the Bootwiz log anyway though, as we HAVE occasionally seen issues with DISM not compiling in the drivers that are in that folder.

Important: The folders are created.

Not Important: The console screen finishes.

Important: The drivers are compiled into the preboot.

And remember that just because BW finishes means nothing.  If DISM fails to compile the driver, BW continues on and finishes "successfully" anyway.

Soooo, just rebuild and see if it works.  GL!

Thomas,

Thank you for your response. I did add HF 5 after I started experiencing it. Are you suggesting to remove the one prebootsetup I have and completely restart it? I had recreated it several times?

Thank you,

no - just rebuild it.  That's all.  You can keep the preboot you have, just rebuild.

The simple truth is that once the folder exists, the drivers were "added" per the console.  That's all the console does when drivers are added - it creates that folder you found.  To get the driver into the WIM though for automation, you have to rebuild the preboot configuration, which launches BootWiz (again), which at some point launches DISM to add the driver into the windows files of the WIM.

So just rebuild.  Timing out in the console doesn't matter much in the long run, though it's stupid.  :(  I hate when we see that.  It's something we were tracking when I worked there.

When you say "rebuild" the preboot configuration is that the same as going to Settings->All Settings->Deployment and Migration->Preboot Configurations and clicking Recreate?

Yup.  If the drivers are in the folder, all you have to do is rebuild PE.  You don't have to wait for anything else.

Look, in the console, when you add preboot drivers, ALL it does is create that set of folders you said you saw.  That's it.  Nothing else.  For the DeployAnywhere drivers, yes, it does more, but for preboot, that's it.  In fact, you don't HAVE to even go into the console to add them.  For instance, if you were migrating from 6.9 to 7.5, you could just dump the custom folders from 6.9 into the 7.5 custom area and voila - done.  No need to even go into the console.

THEN however, you need to rebuild your preboot configuration to include the drivers.

At the point of rebuild, BootWiz will call DISM to inject the drivers.  NORMALLY this works just fine, but occassionally it fails, but that is only seen after the rebuild happens and only in the BootWiz logs.  USUALLY this will work just fine though, so simply recreate the preboot config and you should be fine.