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Event ID 257 — PXE Provider Support

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Applies To: Windows Server 2008

The Pre-Boot Execution Environment (PXE) server is used by Windows Deployment Services to provide network boot programs to client computers. The PXE server receives and responds to PXE requests, and the providers contain the business logic that determines how and when the requests are answered. The PXE provider included with Windows Deployment Services is named Binlsvc.dll.

Event Details

Product: Windows Operating System
ID: 257
Source: WDSPXE
Version: 6.0
Symbolic Name: E_WDSPXE_PROV_REG_PROVIDERDLL_FAILED
Message: An error occurred while trying to read the registry key 'ProviderDll' for provider %1. This can happen if the provider was not registered properly.

Error Information: %2

Resolve

Ensure that the ProviderDLL registry key is valid

To resolve this issue, do the following in the specified order:

  • Ensure that the registry data is correct.
  • Reinstall Windows Deployment Services.

To perform these procedures, you must either be a member of the local Administrators group or have been delegated the appropriate authority.

Ensure that the registry data is correct

Caution: Incorrectly editing the registry might severely damage your system. Before making changes to the registry, you should back up any valued data.

To ensure that the registry data is correct:

  1. Open Registry Editor. (Click Start, type regedit in the Start Search box, and then press ENTER.)
  2. Verify that the registry key for the provider that failed exists at the following location:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\WDSServer\Providers. Note: The failed provider is specified in the event log message. To find the message, search Event Viewer for WDSServer events 257 and 259.
  3. If the registry key exists at the specified location, ensure that the ProviderDll subkey exists and contains a path to the .dll file. Then ensure that the .dll file exists at the same location. For example, the ProviderDll subkey for the BINLSVC provider is %systemroot%\system32\binlsvc.dll. If both the registry key and the subkey exist at the correct location, restart the server.
  4. If either the provider subkey (ProviderDll) or the file is missing, do one of the following:
    • If the provider is one of the default providers (WDSPXE, BINLSVC, WDSIMGSRV, WDSMC, and WDSTFTP), you will need to reinstall Windows Deployment Services by using Server Manager (see the following section).
    • If the provider is a custom or non-Microsoft provider, reinstall it. If that does not fix the problem, contact the vendor for troubleshooting information.

Reinstall Windows Deployment Services

To reinstall Windows Deployment Services:

  1. Open Server Manager. (Click Start, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Server Manager.)
  2. Under Roles Summary, click Remove Roles.
  3. Select Windows Deployment Services, and then follow the instructions in the wizard.
  4. After the role removal is completed, click Add Roles in Server Manager to reinstall Windows Deployment Services.

For more information about installing Windows Deployment Services, see https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=89222.

Verify

To verify that the providers are working correctly:

  1. Open the Command Prompt window.
  2. At the command prompt, run wdsutil /get-server /show:config, and ensure that the expected providers are listed in the output.
  3. Open Event Viewer. (Click Start, type Event Viewer in the Start Search box, and then press ENTER).
  4. In the left pane, expand Custom Views, expand Server Roles, and then click Windows Deployment Services.
  5. Click the Date and Time column heading to sort the events based on time and date.
  6. Check for WDSPXE events 262 and 267, which verify that a provider was loaded (or unloaded) and initialized successfully.
  7. Ensure that you receive events 262 and 267 for each provider.

PXE Provider Support

Windows Deployment Services