Unmanaged computers booted to WinPE immediately reboot after automation agent checks in

Products

• Deployment Solution

Issue/Introduction

One or more computers without a production Symantec Management Agent installed, reboot immediately after the automation agent loads in WinPE

Environment

Deployment Solution 8.x.x

Cause

Initial Deployment menu for unknown machines has a 'boot to' task set to boot to production OS. The task is set to be automatically selected or has been manually selected during previous boot to PXE or automation.

A 'boot to - production' task by design will not complete until a production Windows agent checks in to inform the NS that the machine is in a production OS environment

If a 'boot to - production' task runs in WinPE on a computer without a production agent, the task will not complete until it times out. Subsequent boots to WinPE will cause an automation agent to check in and receive the same 'boot to - production task' 

Resolution

To prevent unknown/unmanaged computers from booting to PXE, you can limit them in 'NBS General Settings' rather than forcing them to reboot to production once in WinPE

There is also an option in Initial Deployment to shutdown the computer after x number of seconds or wait indefinitely for user selection

It is not recommended to run a 'boot to - production' task on unknown/unmanaged machines in automation due to possible task completion issues.