When trying to open the PXE Configuration utility, getting error "The PXE Configuration utility could not obtain access to the PXE Manager"

Products

• Ghost Solution Suite

Issue/Introduction

Problems connecting to the PXE Configuration utility. Error:

"The PXE Configuration utility could not obtain access to the PXE Manager.  The Altiris PXE Services may not be installed properly. 
Verify that the PXE Manager Service is running using the Windows Computer Management utility
If problems persist:

Please uninstall all Altiris Deployment Solution products and reinstall, or contact
Altiris Support:  [email protected]"

Environment

GSS 3.x

Cause

Unknown but believed to be related to timeouts from PXE requests.

Resolution

One of the following suggestions may help.

1. In one case of this problem, the IP address of the DS had changed and running ipconfig /flushdns fixed the problem.

2. In a second case of this problem, latency between the PXE server was believed to be causing the problem which eventually cleared itself up as soon as the servers were able to sync up.

3. In a third case, enabling PXE logging by changing the following highlighted fields fixed the problem.  (this may also have been attributed to latency)

from: PXEManager.ini

[PXEServer\Shared\DataLogs]
LogFileBasePath=""
PxeManagerLog_Enabled=False
PxeManagerLog_OutputThreshold=1

to:

[PXEServer\Shared\DataLogs]
LogFileBasePath="c:\PXELogs"
PxeManagerLog_Enabled=True
PxeManagerLog_OutputThreshold=1

Note:  The PXE logs do not have a size cap, so make sure if this work around is being used that the logs are manually cleared if they get too large.

Also be sure that the IP address for the Deployment Server is correctly reported in the following files. Run an CMD > ipconfig /all to be sure. Modify each file if necessary, then restart the Altiris PXE Manager Service and the Altiris PXE Config Helper Service.

• PXEManager.ini
• PXE.ini
• RPC.ini