Distribution Point Pre-Requisits

Installing a Distribution Point for ConfigMgr (SCCM) can be as simple as adding a site server and selecting the distribution point role, most of the time the install is flawless but it can take what feels like as ice age to complete as ConfigMgr will install IIS and the other pre-requisits.

Myself, I prefer to pre-install the pre-requisits myself to speed up the installation process.
If, like me your impatient then add the features/roles below for a basic distribution point.

• Remote Differential Compression
• Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) 
• Web Server (IIS)
• IIS Configuration:
• Application Development: 
• ISAPI Extensions
• Security: 
• Windows Authentication
• IIS 6 Management Compatibility:
• IIS 6 Metabase Compatibility
• IIS 6 WMI Compatibility.

If you intend to also have PXE support on your distribution point, also add the Windows Deployment Services role but DO NOT configure it.

Configure PXE in SCCM 2012 (R2) failing with error 0x80041001

When configuring a DP as a PXE point you might see this line in the distmgr.log file stating SCCM failed to configure PXE. “CDistributionManager::ConfigurePXE failed; 0x80041001″

 Now, in SCCM 2012, config manager itself will usually want to do all the configuring of WDS and creating the RemoteInstall folder on the DP, but may not in all cases be successful.
If you see WDS is being installed, but no RemoteInstall folder and the error above in the log, try the following:

1. Deactivate PXE on DP from the Management Server and choose to not automatically uninstall WDS
2. Uninstall WDS from DP and restart
3. Install WDS from Server Manager and restart
4. Activate PXE on DP.

You should now soon see the RemoteInstall folder being created and boot images that you have specified as PXE bootable will be populated in the SMSImages folder.