When deploying Windows 2008 Server with SCCM I recently had an issue with a HP Blade that just wouldn’t load the task sequence I had advertised, and going for a reboot shortly after loading the network preferences. The task sequence log files kept complaining that the client could not be identified. I found this very strange since the task sequence worked fine for other machines in the environment.
I reveived the following in my task sequence log:
Failed to get client identity (80004005) TSPxe 4/3/2008 12:06:42 PM 1372 (0x055C)
ClientIdentity.RequestClientIdentity (), HRESULT=80004005 (e:nts_sms_fresmsclienttasksequencetsmbootstraptsmediawizardcontrol.cpp,793) TSPxe 4/3/2008 12:06:42 PM 1372 (0x055C)
failed to request for client TSPxe 4/3/2008 12:06:42 PM 1372 (0x055C)
Exiting TSMediaWizardControl::GetPolicy. TSPxe 4/3/2008 12:06:42 PM 1372 (0x055C)
I was pretty convinced that this was a certificate issue, but since my CA was correctly configured and the deployment worked for other machines it lead me to believe that the issue was with this particular client.
I finally found a forum post where someone had a similar issue with the client BIOS time and date not being correct. I checked this for my server, and after setting the time correct my task sequence would load!
Seems that the client reports the BIOS time when talking to the Certificate Authority, and when the time is wrong the client is not allowed to go on.