Hyper-V VM running WinPE cannot acquire DHCP address

Question

We are setting up the MDT to image Windows 11 machines. I have a Windows Server 2016 physical host running MDT v6.3.8456.1000, Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit v10.1.22621.1 and Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit Windows Preinstallation Environment Add-ons v10.1.22621.1. I have installed Windows Deployment Services on the machine and Windows Update says machine is up to date. I also installed Hyper-V on this machine with the default Network switch.

I have created the LiteTouch boot image and added to WDS.

When I boot a Gen2 Hyper-V virtual machine to the network, it gets a DHCP address, it connects to the PXE server, I select the LiteTouch image and the computer downloads the LiteTouch WinPE image. The MDT background appears and then I get a command prompt window. IPConfig shows an APIPA address assigned to the "Ethernet" network adapter. If I boot the VM with the LiteTouch ISO, I get the same thing. For some reason, the machine can get a DHCP address when booting to the network, but WinPE cannot get a DHCP address. I have tried ipconfig /release and ipconfig /renew. The command returns "An error occurred while renewing interface Ethernet: The RPC Server is unavailable." I have tried setting a static IP address for the Ethernet IPv4 interface using netsh, the command which also returns "The RPC Server is unavailable." One of the reasons I use Hyper-V to test my MDT setup is it should eliminate driver issues, but this machine acts like it has no ethernet adapter (Microsoft Hyper-V Network Adapter). Howerver, I can ping the APIPA address and the loopback address.

I have also tried using a Gen1 virtual machine with a legacy adapter. This configuration gets a similar result, only no adapter is listed in ipconfig /all.

I have been searching the interwebs for someone who has had the same problem, but no luck so far. I am fairly certain this is a WinPE issue, since the machine can get a DHCP address when PXE booting, and it does not matter whether WinPE is downloaded from the WDS server or it loads it from the ISO mounted as a DVD. Obviously, I need another set of eyes.

Thanks,

Tom

Answer 1

Boy is my face red. I'm posting this so in case others make the same bonehead mistake I made, they won't waste multiple days tracking down this mistake.

I was following the guidance in this article to avoid script errors when using the MDT to deploy Windows 11: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/1182796/script-error-when-imaging-with-windows-11-22h2-in

Instead of copy the entire Unattend_PE_x64.xml file, I edited the one already on the MDT host, except I didn't make the change to the order in the RunSynchronousCommand section.

I tracked this down by reviewing the wpeinit.log which showed WinPE unable to validate unattend.xml: 2023-12-07 10:40:32.074, Warning Validation of WinPE unattend settings failed with status 0x8022001b

Although the xml file was well-formed, the content was bad. I replaced the Unattend_PE_x64.xml file in total with that in the article, updated my deployment share and things worked just fine.

GEEEEEEZ!

Answer 2

Hello,

It's really appreciated that you could post in Q&A forum and share experience here.

Dealing wth MDT and unattend.xml files sometimes can be complicated and bring some small oversights, and your sharing will be helpful to others who might encounter a similar problem.

If you have any more questions or run into further challenges, feel free to ask. Thanks.