KB ID 0000310 I do a lot of deployment testing for things like WDS, Ghost and SCCM. Now my test bed is entirely virtual, so any new
technology testing, or proof of concept work is a lot easier. Anything that involves PXE booting the VM’s is not turned on by default though. 1. Either from the VM itself, or from its entry in your
VI client “Edit the VM’s Settings”. Problem
Solution
2. Options tab > Boot Options > Tick “The next time the virtual machine boots, force entry into the BIOS setup screen”.
3. Reboot the VM, and the BIOS will open, use the arrow/cursor keys go go across to the boot menu, then down to the network card. [Note your network card may be an Intel E1000].
4. Press the + “Plus Symbol” on the keyboard to move the network card to the top of the list > Press F10 to Exit > Select “Yes” to save the changes.
5. Now when the VM boots simply press F12 when prompted and the guest VM will attempt to boot from the network.
Note: If you having trouble booting to WindowsPE with VMXnet3 network cards see here.
Related Articles, References, Credits, or External Links
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VMware Workstation can perform a PXE boot over the local network, as version 4.5. PXE stands for “Pre-boot eXecution Environment” and is a standard developed by Intel to allow a device with PXE capabilities to load an operating system from a Local Area Network, or LAN, instead of an internal storage device, such as a hard drive or flash drive. A popular usage for PXE is for the rapid deployment of desktop and server systems within an enterprise. Set up a VMware Workstation virtual machine to attempt booting from PXE as its primary boot method.
Open the desired VMware virtual machine, or create a new virtual machine, if necessary.
Click "Edit virtual machine settings."
Click "Network Adapter." Ensure the virtual machine's network settings are configured to use the same LAN as the PXE server. For example, if the PXE server is located on a physical device elsewhere on the LAN, as is usually the case, click "Bridged" to enable the virtual machine to connect directly to the LAN instead of using the virtual LAN that is internal to VMware itself.
Click "OK" to save the settings.
Press the green "Play" button to power on the virtual machine. A new virtual machine that has not yet had an operating system installed automatically attempts to locate a PXE server on the network. After an operating system has been installed to the virtual machine, it no longer attempts to perform a PXE boot upon startup. To perform a PXE boot every time the virtual machine is powered on, regardless of an installed operating system, proceed to the next step.
Press the "F2" key immediately after powering on the virtual machine.
Press the right arrow key three times to enter the boot settings.
Press the down arrow key thee times to select the virtual network card.
Press the "+" key three times to set the virtual network card as the first boot device.
Press the "F10" key to save the setting. The virtual machine now attempts to boot from a PXE server as its primary method every time the virtual machine is powered on or restarted.
When I try to install Windows 10 on a VM, this appears:
Network boot from Intel E1000
Copyright [C] 2003-2014 VMware, Inc.
Copyright [C] 1997-2000 Intel Corporation
CLIENT MAC ADDR: 00 0C 29 EC 19 17 GUID: 564D036B-A131-62B4-9CG4-4BAAEEEC1917
PXE-E53: No boot filename received
PXE-M0F: Exiting Intel PXE ROM.
Operating System not found
or
Network boot from Intel E1000... [etc.]
Looks like PXE...
I recreated the VM, and it gave me an EFI boot message.
Attempting to start up from:
-> EFI VMWare Hard Drive
-> EFI Network Boot...
->...
Ramhound
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asked Nov 14, 2017 at 15:43
6
I had the same issue. My solution was to recreate the VM, select Advanced when installing, and choose BIOS instead of UEFI.
If you don't want to have to recreate your VM, just click on it in the sidebar, press 'Edit virtual machine settings', go to the tab 'Options', click 'Advanced' at the bottom, and change the 'Firmware type' to BIOS.
answered Aug 28, 2018 at 3:19
4
Browse to the folder containing your VM and open the .vmx file in Notepad or the editor of your choice. Then, scroll to the bottom and add this line to the config
file.
firmware = "bios"
Works like magic!
zx485
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answered Nov 29, 2019 at 19:13
1
I had the same issue today and my fix was going to the VM configuration and under OS, changing Windows 7 to Windows 7 x64.
Then it booted into Windows 7 Installer ISO in UEFI mode [with secure boot unticked].
answered May 18, 2018 at 12:51
1
As we see in the screenshot, your VM is attempting PXE boot and failing. What is likely happening is that you're not able to connect to the VM quickly enough to respond to the Press any key to boot into Windows Installer screen.
To fix this, set the boot delay to 6 seconds or higher to give you time to click this. Browse to the folder containing our VM and open the .vmx file in Notepad
or your editor of choice. Then, scroll to the bottom and add this line to the config file.
bios.bootDelay = "6000"
This should provide enough time to start the VM, then hit ESC to choose your boot device. Pick the Windows 10 ISO and then hit a button to when you see the prompt for Press any key to boot into Windows installer.
If this still doesn't work, then ensure that you set the disk image as the first boot device.
answered Nov 14, 2017 at 15:58
FoxDeployFoxDeploy
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7
The same issue with me when installing W10 VM using Workstation 16: But it worked out when I downloaded VMWare WorkStation 16 Professional. Shutdown VM, edit VM settings-->options-->Advanced-->change firmware type to BIOS
answered Apr 26, 2021 at 1:55
Same issue with Windows 2016. I tried a lot of things i've seen on various forums, but the only way I got it working by configuring the following VM settings:
- firmware type: BIOS
- CD/DVD[SATA]: use ISO image file : my_iso_path.iso
answered Feb 25, 2020 at 12:06