Fix No Response from Windows Deployment Services Server

I’ll explain how to fix the no response from Windows Deployment Services server error in this article. This is a very common error that you will encounter during SCCM OSD and there are multiple solutions associated with this error.

My last week has been mostly busy in fixing the distribution point issues. Most of the time was spent on troubleshooting the client agent installs on distribution points. I always record the issues and solutions and publish it. So, this will also help others who come across the same issues.

For the organization that I work for, there are many distribution points at various locations. There are around 50+ distribution point servers and managing them is a big task.

One of the issues that I came across was related to window deployment services. During the operating system deployment, the error “no response from Windows deployment services server” appeared for multiple computers. Looking at the errors, you may assume it could be a WDS service issue, but there is more to troubleshooting this issue.

After configuring the distribution point, the PXE client showed a SCCM BCD error 0xc000000f. Even though the fix for this error has already been published, there was still something else that needed to be done. Let’s look at the problem and what needs to be done to fix it.

Fix No response from Windows Deployment Services server

After setting up a new distribution point server on a Windows server, it was time to PXE boot a client machine and test if the OSD worked well. However, when I booted up a VM to test the OSD, the PXE client showed multiple errors. The below log shows some of those errors.

Downloaded WDSNBP from 10.3.3.12
WDSNBP started using DHCP Referral.
Contacting Server: 10.3.3.12 (Gateway: 0.0.0.0)..
No response from Windows Deployment Services server.
Launching pxeboot.com...
Press F12 for network service boot

From the below screenshot, we see the PXE client is trying to contact the WDS server however in return there is no response from Windows Deployment Services server. The PXE client gets stuck at Launching pxeboot.com for a long time.

No response from Windows Deployment Services server — No Response from Windows Deployment Services Server

In the next few seconds, you are asked to Press the F12 key to begin the operating system deployment, but that immediately fails with error code 0xc000000f. The boot configuration data for your PC is missing or contains errors.

The boot configuration data for your PC is missing or contains errors.
File: \boot\bcd
Error code:0xc000000f

Solution 1: Recreate files within RemoteInstall Directory

If you are seeing no response from windows deployment services server upon PXE boot, you could try the below solutions.

Login to the distribution point server. Open the services console and stop the “Windows Deployment Services Server” service.
On the SCCM content drive, navigate to the Mgmt folder under RemoteInstall.
Create a new folder, specify the name as backup (or some other name). Move all the contents of the Mgmt directory to the backup folder.
Now open the services console and restart the Windows Deployment Services Server service. This will recreate the files that were in the Mgmt directory.
You shouldn’t encounter the Windows Deployment Services Server error when PXE booting the client.

Solution 2: Verify the Boot Images

When you have multiple boot images enable for PXE support in the Configuration Manager console, you may encounter issues with PXE boot. Therefore, you must enable only one x64 boot image and one x86 boot image. To avoid the confusion, move the other boot images to a separate folder in the Configuration Manger console.