Skipping F12 when PXE booting from a WDS server

These days, I’ve been deploying my Windows OS’s with Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010 in the lab.

The benefit of doing this, is that I can customize the deployment process to install just what I need, customize OS Settings, have it auto-join the domain, etc, etc.

Anyways, since all of my lab is built on VMware vSphere deploy OS’s using the vSphere Client. Now, when using PXE in this environment it’s a PITA when you have to hit F12 every time the VM boots. Often I’ll power on the VM, then open console – and guess what? You already missed the F12 boot and the VM skips right by PXE.

So, a simple solution. Just need to modify the properties of the WDS server, and change PXEboot.com to PXEBoot.n12 in the ‘Default Boot Program’ section. Do this for both x86 and x64 versions if you deploy both OS types. Here’s a screenshot:

And there you have it. You no longer have to hit F12 to PXE boot directly into WDS menu!