Two different boot images?

Question

_{Thursday, April 11, 2019 10:15 PM}

Hi All - We currently have Windows 10 1803 as our boot imaging for PXE boot.  Could we have another one, 1809 Windows 10 boot image?  We would like to selectively image some machines with one version or the other.  I know in a task sequence, you can pick the WIM file you want to load the task sequence with, but not sure if we load in 1809 as a boot WIM file, will it use that as the default and then we can't image systems with 1803?

Thanks!

All replies (6)

_{Friday, April 12, 2019 8:53 AM}

Hi,

Yes, we can have different boot images in SCCM. However, we could not manually select which boot image is used during PXE process. Microsoft MVP Jason has done an awesome job about boot image selection in SCCM.

If there are more than one boot image associated with task sequence deployments targeted at the system being PXE booted, ConfigMgr does not know which task sequence is going to be run so has to make a choice about which boot image to deliver for PXE boot purposes. The logic for boot image selection is actually contained in relatively small stored procedure named NBS_GetPXEBootAction.

The boot image order firstly is stored in SCCM ,then sent to the client. After the task sequence is determined (usually based on user input and well after the PXE boot has happened), if the boot image associated with that task sequence is different from the one used to boot, then ConfigMgr will pre-stage that boot image to the system and reboot to it.

For the detailed information, please refer to this blog:
Boot image selection in ConfigMgr

Thanks for your time.

Best regards,
Simon Ren

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_{Friday, April 12, 2019 2:29 PM}

> We would like to selectively image some machines with one version or the other. 

Why? The version is WinPE used is irrelevant for nearly all scenarios.

Jason | https://home.configmgrftw.com | @jasonsandys

_{Friday, April 12, 2019 2:41 PM}

> We would like to selectively image some machines with one version or the other. 

Why? The version is WinPE used is irrelevant for nearly all scenarios.

Jason | https://home.configmgrftw.com | @jasonsandys

1803 has been tested and verified to be okay in our environment.  1809 has not.  We are in the midst of a Win 10 upgrade project and would like to switch to 1809 mid-strem.  But do some testing initially of course, while 1803 is going out.

_{Friday, April 12, 2019 2:58 PM}

The only way to truly control which boot image is used is to use boot media. This will get tricky though because as soon as you deploy the new task sequence (presumably a copy of your production task sequence) with the new boot image associated with it, this new boot image will become the "default" boot image. You can then simply redeploy the original production task sequence though.

Keep in mind that the "default" boot image has very little impact in most cases because as soon as the TS engine starts a TS, it checks to make sure that the system is booted to the boot image corresponding to the TS. If this is not the case, the correct boot image is downloaded and the system reboots into this downloaded boot image.

Are you worried are about missing drivers in the boot image? That's really the main possibility here of something breaking by swapping out boot images.

Jason | https://home.configmgrftw.com | @jasonsandys

_{Friday, April 12, 2019 4:44 PM}

The only way to truly control which boot image is used is to use boot media. This will get tricky though because as soon as you deploy the new task sequence (presumably a copy of your production task sequence) with the new boot image associated with it, this new boot image will become the "default" boot image. You can then simply redeploy the original production task sequence though.

Keep in mind that the "default" boot image has very little impact in most cases because as soon as the TS engine starts a TS, it checks to make sure that the system is booted to the boot image corresponding to the TS. If this is not the case, the correct boot image is downloaded and the system reboots into this downloaded boot image.

Are you worried are about missing drivers in the boot image? That's really the main possibility here of something breaking by swapping out boot images.

Jason | https://home.configmgrftw.com | @jasonsandys

Thanks, great points!  Big help.  I always thought/assumed that as long as there is a higher # boot image (1809), then it would be compatible with a task sequence trying to use 1803 WIM file, or older god forbid.

As for missing drivers with 1809, that's possible.  We are a lenovo thinkpad shop and I don't recall ever having any of our previous task sequence fail or hang because of a missing driver.  The stock, generic, vendor agnostic hardware drivers in Win 10 install files is pretty good.

_{Wednesday, April 17, 2019 3:07 AM}

Hi,

Thanks for your reply. 

May we know the current status of the question? If there is any other assistance we can provide, please feel free to let us know, we will do our best to help you.

Please feel free to feedback and if the replies are helpful, please kindly click "Mark as answer". It would make the helpful replies to the top and easier to be found for other people who has the similar question.

Thanks and regards,
Simon

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