Lewan Technology Blog

This post is for users who start a new PXE (Preboot eXecution Environment) Client to connect to a Microsoft WDS (Windows Deployment Services) server and receive the following error: WdsClient: An Error occurred while obtaining an IP address from the DHCP Server

You’re probably thinking, “What changed? My image worked just fine on the last laptop!”

Most likely, it is your NIC driver on the new PXE client.

Normally you can inject the drivers through the WDS server. However, sometimes (especially with Windows 10) injecting drivers through WDS doesn’t work.

If that’s the case, you’ll need to manually inject drivers into the Boot.wim file to allow PXE client computers to recognize their network card. This is also true for any other types of drivers that you need to add to the image as well.

Here’s the steps to setup and inject the drivers into the boot.wim file with DISM:

Prepare:

1. Create the following folders on the root of the C drive:
   1. C:\mount
   2. C:\mount\drivers
   3. C:\mount\BootWim
2. Copy the drivers you wish to inject into the C:\Mount\Drivers folder
3. Copy your wim file from your WDS server into to the C:\Mount folder.

 Execute:

1. Open a CMD prompt as Administrator
2. Navigate to C:\Mount
3. Use the following DISM commands to mount the boot.wim:
   1. DISM /Mount-Wim /WimFile:C:\Mount\boot.wim /Index:1 /MountDir:C:\Mount\BootWIM
4. Use the following DISM command to add the driver:
   1. DISM /Image:C:\Mount\BootWIM /Add-Driver /Driver:C:\Mount\Drivers /recurse
5. Use the following DISM command to unmount the Boot.wim:
   1. DISM /Unmount-Wim /MountDir:C:\Mount\BootWIM /Commit

NOTE: You must inject the drivers into both indexes – index:1 and index:2

Deploy:

1. Copy the newly updated boot.wim file from the mount folder to the \\server\remoteinstall\images folder (or where you store your boot.wim)
2. Redeploy your PXE Rep.
3. PXE boot your client and verify the drivers are being correctly recognized now.

Lewan is a Microsoft Silver Partner, and a Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert (MCSE) and Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP).