Integrating another (3rd party) boot menu for WDS in Windows Server 2008 R2 has changed compared with standard Windows Server 2008… here is how to do it…
- Download and extract syslinux-3.85.zip or later from http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/boot/syslinux (it contains pxelinux)
- Copy the com32\menu\vesamenu.c32 and com32\modules\chain.c32 files to your WDS Server, to both the D:\RemoteInstall\Boot\x64 and D:\RemoteInstall\Boot\x86 folders.
- Copy the core\pxelinux.0 file to your WDS Server, to both the D:\RemoteInstall\Boot\x64 and D:\RemoteInstall\Boot\x86 folders, then rename it to pxelinux.com
- Download a nice background image (http://www.deployvista.com/Portals/0/DeploymentBackground.png), and save it in D:\RemoteInstall\Boot\x64 and D:\RemoteInstall\Boot\x86
- In the D:\RemoteInstall\Boot\x64 and D:\RemoteInstall\Boot\x86 folders, make a copy of pxeboot.n12 and rename it to pxeboot.0
- In the D:\RemoteInstall\Boot\x64 and D:\RemoteInstall\Boot\x86 folders, make a copy of abortpxe.com and rename it to abortpxe.0
- Configure WDS to use the pxelinux.com boot file, in Windows Server 2008 R2 you have to do it through WDSUTIL, here are the commands:
WDSUTIL /Set-Server /BootProgram:boot\x86\pxelinux.com /Architecture:x86
WDSUTIL /Set-Server /N12BootProgram:boot\x86\pxelinux.com /Architecture:x86
WDSUTIL /Set-Server /BootProgram:boot\x64\pxelinux.com /Architecture:x64
WDSUTIL /Set-Server /N12BootProgram:boot\x64\pxelinux.com /Architecture:x64
- In the D:\RemoteInstall\Boot\x64 and D:\RemoteInstall\Boot\x86 folders, create a subfolder called pxelinux.cfg
- In the D:\RemoteInstall\Boot\x64\pxelinux.cfg and D:\RemoteInstall\Boot\x86\pxelinux.cfg folders, create a file named default with the following settings
DEFAULT vesamenu.c32
PROMPT 0
NOESCAPE 0
ALLOWOPTIONS 0
# Timeout in units of 1/10 s
TIMEOUT 300
MENU WIDTH 40
MENU MARGIN 0
MENU ROWS 12
MENU TIMEOUTROW 14
MENU HSHIFT 5
MENU VSHIFT 2
MENU COLOR BORDER 30;44 #00000000 #00000000 none
MENU COLOR TABMSG 1;36;44 #00000000 #00000000 none
MENU COLOR TITLE 1;36;44 #00000000 #00000000 none
MENU COLOR SEL 30;47 #40000000 #20ffffff
MENU BACKGROUND DeploymentBackground.png
MENU TITLE PXE Boot menu
MENU WIDTH 80
MENU MARGIN 18
MENU ROWS 4
LABEL wds
MENU DEFAULT
# MENU PASSWD P@ssw0rd
MENU LABEL Windows Deployment Services
KERNEL pxeboot.0
LABEL local
MENU LABEL Boot from Harddisk
LOCALBOOT 0
LABEL Abort
MENU LABEL AbortPXE
KERNEL abortpxe.0
Here is how it looks…