FOG pxe boot menu, Client System Information, Option 4

The new Active Directory Based Activation (ADBA). It uses the same KMS host key and Generic Volume License Key that KMS uses, but it activates Windows 8 and Server 2012 and Office 2013 when you join them to the domain, rather than having to manage a KMS host. It also has no minimum host count requirements, so the first host out of the box is fully activated when it joins AD. If you remove a host from AD, it deactivates all the products that are activated against the domain.

It requires 2003 functional level on the forest and domain, and either a Windows 8 client running remote server admin tools (RSAT) and Volume Activation Management Tool (VAMT) or a Windows 2012 server. You have to adprep the forest to add the ability to have Active Directory Based Activiation Objects in the schema, but you don’t have to be at 2012 functional levels.

What if I install Windows 8, boot to audit mode at the welcome screen, then just select generalize and oobe at the sysprep prompt. No unattend.xml, no skip rearm settings etc.

I have also tried rearming after the oobe runs, but I don’t get a CMID there either, even after a reboot. I’m just not sure that a CMID is generated for Windows 8 activated against AD and I am looking for confirmation of someone that has does a Windows 8 sysprep image and used AD activation and has a CMID when they run slmgr /dlv

make sure the web UI doesn’t show any active tasks for the machine you are testing. Then go into the /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/ folder and remove any files that are 01-[mac address of test machine].

Then try a client system info task and fog compatibility test from there.

I have not added netdom to windows 7 and the wiki documentation says this is not required as of FOG 0.28. I use the basic FOG client from 0.32 and Windows 7 professional and it joins our domain.

What is your forest and domain functional levels? We are at 2003 on both.

Generally, when using the PXE boot menu to register hosts, it has a built-in check to see if the MAC is already associated with a host. If you manually enter MAC addresses, I think it does in the Web UI also. The only way I think you can get duplicate MAC’s would be in a host import.

I’m trying to move forward with Windows 8 on our tablets. I have done a fresh install and joined to a domain that is Active Directory Based Activation enabled. Windows and Office 2013 activate against the directory, Office 2013 creates a unique CMID, but Windows does not. I can’t seem to get a CMID at all. Running slmgr.vbs /dlv does not show a CMID at all.

I have also tried installing, going straight into audit mode, and running sysprep /oobe /generalize, rebooted and joined to domain for activation, still no CMID.

What am I missing about this?

check to see what version of PHP you are running now. If you are on 5.4.X or later, you may be running into a pass by reference problem in the function calls. You can search the forum for “blank task” for more information.

The way groups work in FOG is it’s a just a label for applying settings to multiple devices, or to start actions on multiple hosts at the same time. It does not store any settings related to the group other than group membership. If you set a property on a group, it updates all the host records. It does not store the settings in the group. This behavior is under review and may change in future versions of FOG.

Have you made sure that all mysql components are uninstalled before you try to rerun the FOG setup? Maybe there is a pid file blocking you? I’m not sure what logs you might look at, but /var/log/syslog would be a start. Tail the log file in another terminal or console session while you try to run the installer. You can check all the mysql components installed using dpkg and grep.

Is your switch managed or unmanaged? Multicast slows down because it waits on all clients to respond before it can move on to the next batch of data. I’m not a multicast expert, but it’s the slowest client determines the speed. Usually I would say check the networking driver on the client, but since they unicast in 8 mins, I think the driver is OK.

Can you give the HW specs of your server, specifically the RAM and CPU?

What version of FOG and Linux are you using? What model and OS is the laptop? Is this a new laptop or an older model? Windows 7 or 8?

You might be dealing with UEFI/GPT and secureboot issues. Some laptops with Windows 8 are using these features and FOG has not caught up to them yet. I think Linux in general is still struggling with SecureBoot, so a lot of laptops give the option to disable it and revert back to BIOS/MBR.

thanks for finding that one.

Please do not cross-post or resurrect old threads. It’s best if you start your own thread if a significant amount of time has passed since the last response. Feel free to reference the threads containing pertinent information.

Do they freeze at a particle error or just a blank screen? Sometimes I have machines hang if the tftp service is not running.

If FOG dies early in the imaging process, it may indicate that you have extra partitions that FOG cannot process. Did you install Windows 7 clean, or are you trying to image a computer that was loaded by the OEM (HP, Dell, etc). Most PC’s imaged by big companies have an integrated recovery partition that is incompatible with the partition clone package used by FOG.

Do you have some of the same model that do work and just 8 that do not? If so, check the BIOS settings to see if the disk mode is set the same for all of them. AHCI, IDE, RAID, etc.

You can also enter debug mode to see what is happening. The wiki has some good information on troubleshooting driver issues.

What version of FOG on what Linux? After you schedule a deploy task to the second computer and reboot that computer, what do you see on the screen? Do you get the FOG menu or does it load bzImage and init.gz and stop?