We recently upgraded to Altiris ITMS / SMP / Deployment Solution / 7.5 SP1 HF4 (coming from HF3) and have issues with Network Boot Services (NBS)
In services.msc, the Symantec Network Boot Service (PXE and BSDP) and (TFTP) services are both present and started.
Although PXE boot is working (we can actually deploy images or SOI's by booting from PXE in a task!!), the SMP itself denies to have NBS installed.
No problem even to re-create the preboot environment, however it's not possible to check the status as no NBS show up.
Usually we check with a tool called diskpulse.exe anyway to see what's going on in the Altiris folder, plus we watch for bootwiz.exe being active in the task manager.
The issue also manifests itself in SMP -> settings -> notification server -> site server settings,
then in the left-pane Site Management -> site servers -> <name_of_our_smp> -> services.
Here we see for example "task service" is installed and "green", but "Network Boot Service" is not present.
When (in the same screen) attempting to "Install/remove services", the Network Boot Service checkbox is greyed-out.
Under Site Management -> Settings - Network Boot Service -> Advanced, there are a few filters, like Computers requireing NBS site server upgrade on Windows x86/x64, Computers with NBS Site Service Installed, Computers with Deleted Network Boot Service entries, NBS Potential Site Servers, and so on.
All filter memberships have been updated and still all filters empty, except for the "NBS Potential Site Servers", which shows a lot of "potentials", except for our intended SMP/site server.
Also ran a full hw/sw inventory of our smp again, reboot a few times and even waited it out for a couple of days. No change..
A similar thing once happed for the Task Service and there reinstalling the msi + running the Windows Task Sheduler -> NS.Restore Task Servers did the trick. Unfortunately a similar task for NBS doesn't seem to exist.
Articles already looked at:
http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH211634 and
http://www.symantec.com/connect/videos/installing-network-boot-service-site-server-video
Any help would be greatly appreciated ;-)