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ZXM PXE Menu with Winpe Documentation

mrosen
 

Hi.

Out of a handful current (24.2 with ftf) ZCM Servers I have, 80% of those can no longer succesfully load "WINPE Maintenance" from the Zenworks Boot menu. The result of chosing that is an immediate single white cursor on a black screen, and a hard stop.

OTOH, all of those servers can succesfully do automated Winpe Imaging based on work to do, no issues whatsoever.

So I tried starting to debug why this happens, and quickly got stuck in trying to figure out how the ZCM PXE process even works when it comes to Winpe.

What I know is: There is a pxemenu.txt which contains the following line:

"option = "execute;WinPE Maintenance Mode;Launch WADK WinPE environment;efi/x86_64/bootmgfw.efi;efi/x86_64/winpe.conf"

Which one would think is what is executed when chosing the "WinPE Mainteance Mode" in a the ZCM menu.

*However*, that doesn't seem to be the case. For one, the file "efi/x86_64/bootmgfw.efi" that is referred in this entry in pxemenu.txt does not exist (there). There *is* a bootmgfw.efi in /efi/microsoft/boot though, *and* that is indeed the actual file that get's loaded when winpe maintenance is working.

So, I wonder where is the real configuration stored what the "WINPE Maintenance" actually executes?

And a related question: How does Zenworks actually do automated winpe imaging? According to the existing PXE documentation, PXE executes z_auto.conf in /efi/x86_64. But that file clearly is for linux only, and does and know nothing about winpe.

So, how what exactly does PXE work with WinPE? How does it determine if it's supposed to boot linux or winpe in automatic mode, and where is the configuration *which* wim it loads from where in case on winpe? And how exactly does it even do winpe maintenance mode? How does it *not* run worktodo.exe from the same winpe.wim it also uses in automatic mode?

TIA,


  • 0

    I believe the crux of the issue is that the /srv/tftp stuff is not located on the /vastorage partition so it doesn't get "upgraded"  when you migrate or upgrade the appliance. Instead it throws down all new stuff and you have to rebuild everything. The winpe menu item is not there by default. Having an old appliance you can reference that was working can be handy for looking at the various files and syntax that was in place before the upgrade.

    I'm not terribly well versed in the ins and outs of the winpe function specifically, but am working on a system right now where I'm dealing with that. I had to add this line in the /srv/tftp/efi/x86_64/pxemenu.txt file in order to get the boot menu to show the WinPE imaging opton:

    option = "execute;WinPE Maintenance Mode;Launch WADK WinPE environment;efi/x86_64/bootmgfw.efi;efi/x86_64/winpe.conf"

    This is working despite the issue with the files not being where they seem like they should be.  There is more to the winpe config than just this, but this gets the initial boot up part going. 

  • 0   in reply to 

    Marvin.

    I know all that, I'm afraid. The Issue(s) I describe occur on absolutely properly "rebuilt" Servers, with a freshly uploaded current winpe.wim. Like you said, otherwise, the Wimpe Maintenance Menu wouldn't even exist at all.
    But it *does* exist, but it doesn't work when selected, despite automated WINPE Imaging working fine (which too, wouldn't work on an "just" upgraded Appliance without reuploading everything.

    . And you describe the same thing as I do, and which is my question: How come, that WINPE Imaging works with an so obviously wrong Menu Entry, pointing to a non-existing file in the first place?

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