SCCM BIOS deployment

Question

I have created a basic vbscript and packaged it in SCCM. This script, along with a DCCU packaged BIOS executable, is pushed to the client and run locally. The script simply calls the BIOS update package and exits. The BIOS update has been set to restart the computer after 30 minutes. Due to the system administrator that is responsible for SCCM deployments, I had to set SCCM to perform the reboot. SCCM gives a 10 minute window before applying the 'required program' and an additional 10 minutes before the required restart. The PCs I am deploying to are all Optiplex 760s with either revision A00 or A02 of the BIOS. 87 out of 136 have completed the BIOS update. I'm not sure how many this affects, but some users have reported receiving a new hardware prompt after this update failed to apply. The hardware is the OpenManage Client Instrumentation device driver and we are required to point the hardware wizard to the c:\windows\system32\drivers folder for the omci.sys file. I would appreciate any assistance with this and the following are my issues: Why is the update being applied successfully on 87 of the 760s and not the other 49? The package is all inclusive and does not require the aforementioned piece of 'hardware' (omci to be clear) to be installed. Once the package is launched/executed the files necessary for flashing are immediately extracted and the update waits until the restart time has been breached then reboots. Although the user can select to perform the update and the restart without waiting the two ten minute time periods, I don't believe they could do so fast enough to prevent the package from being extracted and executed. If they were to restart forcefully the BIOS would still be in place to update. There are no logged successes or errors. Please let me know if further explanation or clarification would assist.

DELL-Greg R · Answer

I'll ask around and see if I can find some info - have you tried manually installing the bios using the standard windows .exe on one of the failed systems ? just curious to see if it installs successfully.

mikebutler · Answer

Testing was done on two 760s first with no problems. I then pushed it out to a whole department's worth of 760s, once again with no issues or complaints. I checked the SCCM execmgr.log on several machines, both failed and succeeded. SCCM sees them as Succeeded due to the nature of the script. It does not check the BIOS revision afterwards, just looks at if the script ran or not. I found out through a results file asocaited with the DCCU package that the BIOS update did not complete because the OMCI portion was not in place. Rerunning the package manually actually fixes any issues and updates the BIOS successfully. I believe I am going to package the OMCI installer and push the BIOS update to those that haven't received it again.

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