WDS PXE-E32: TFTP open timeout
2013-03-20 8 Comments
Ever get this message when PXE booting? I did again today. The PXE Server was running Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, and PXE boot had been working perfectly until I applied some updates to the server last week. Following the server update, clients were unable to PXE boot, and the above error was displayed.
The fix? In my case I stumbled upon it in an online forum.
- Open registry editor on the PXE server (regedit.exe)
- Locate HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\WDSServer\Parameters
- Right-click UdpPortPolicy, and then click Modify.
- In the “Value data” field, change the value to 0, and then click OK.
- Exit the Registry Editor.
- From the Services console, restart the “Windows Deployment Services” service
Problem solved! PXE boot is now working!
More details on this issue at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/977512.
About Douglas Griffin
Yet Another System Center Blog 
Thanks for your input here. I was having the same issue and this corrected my issue as well. Again, thanks.
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Be careful with this. If I understand it correctly, that registry key should be 0 if, and only if, your WDS server is also your DHCP server. Setting it to 0 when your WDS server is not also your DHCP server will break it even worse.
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I think that in this case the registry setting should only be modified if your server running WDS is also a DNS server, and the update specified in the kb article has been applied.
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Worked for me thanks for the info, my WDS server is the same as my DHCP server so unable to comment on the last reply.
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FYI, I have DHCP and WDS on the same server. Ran into the PXE-E32 message and simply rebooted my server. When it came back up, everything was functional again. I checked the UdpPortPolicy key as suggested and it is set to 1, despite your suggestion. Just a heads-up.
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The issue with DNS and WDS on the same machine is that DNS will bind to 2500 ports in the ephemeral port range (49152-65535). Since the 2500 ports are randomly chosen, there’s a chance that those 2500 ports will completely cover WDS’s port range (which is 6400 to 65000 by default). Since the DNS ports are randomly chosen each time the DNS service starts, it’s possible that rebooting will fix the problem now, but next time the machine restarts they will conflict again.
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thanks!
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Yes, Thanks For Right suggestion………………….Like It…………..
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