Since ZCM 20.2 is will out of support, getting to 23.4 would be recommended.

Note: ZCM 23.4 is a Long-Term Support Release so something i recommend for folks who do not like updating frequently.  Support for 23. will even last past 24.2, so may work well for schools who can only upgrade in a minor Windows during the summer.

There is a good chance 23.4 will address the issue.

A work-around may be to edit the StartNet.bat in your WinPE Boot Image and add a delay such as ....

"Timeout /t 30"

It's possible that it's checking for work before the network is up.

Over the years there have been timing fixes, though I don't recall specific versions.....

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https://www.novell.com/documentation/zenworks-23.4/zen_version_currency_2020_23.4/data/zen_version_currency_2020_23.4.html

The Upgrade to 23.4 is fairly simple and recommend taking a snapshot of all your primaries and DB before starting so you can roll back if need be.

Hey Craig, thanks for the input. I've done some searching and this seems to be the usual go to.

So I would need to modify the WinPE file that's uploaded at Device Management > Preboot Services > Third Party Imaging Settings then reuploading it to there?

I won't attest to the exact steps but you can test this process....

In short, you can use WinSCP to download/upload the WIM file used by imaging.

Tweak it to your hearts content.  For just editing the startup batch file this may be easiest.

https://kb.stonegroup.co.uk/working-with-windows-image-files-(wim)-how-to-mount-them-and-add-drivers_629.html

If you are adding components such as drivers, windows components, etc... there are DISM commands to do that.

This was the basic steps I was able to find.

I was able to mount using DISM, edit the startnet file and added a timeout /t 30 to the begining then commited the changes to the wim, uploaded that wim to ZCM as the WinPE file to use and was able to boot to it.

But when I booted into the new .wim file I see that the edit did not stay. The Zenworks commands were injected to the file but it seems that also wiped out the timout command I added.

I know our version is out of date so there may not be much else we can do but I was pretty confident that would work.

Don't Upload it through the ZCC.

Download the current WIm delivered by your Imaging Server to your PC using WInSCP.

Edit it and use WInSCP to copy it back.

If you upload using the ZCC, it will edit it back....

Not to be a complete novice but do you know the path to the wim? I'm looking through /opt/novell/zenworks/preboot and other places and can't seem to find where the .wim is located..

Edit: I'm an actual novice and didn't see the very hand "find files" option. I believe I got it and I'm waiting to test again.

Found the .wim file on the imaging server, was able to make the changes and reupload.

PXE Booted and confirmed that the startnet.cmd file now has the timeout /t 60 at the start but sadly it still just sat without starting the zenworkstodo

And the timeout was before the ZENWorksWorkToDO.exe?  

Sorry, That was about my only idea short of upgrading.....

Note: You could try putting 23.4 in a test lab......just so you learn about the upgrade process....Just need 1 PC with Vmware Workstation....Then test to see if that helps before upgrading...If nothing else....it lets you work through the upgrade process which is not all that hard before you touch production.

No worries, learning some things as I go so this is all good information.

I put the timeout on line 1 before wpeinit, didn't work.

Then I tried putting it after the wpeinit but before all the zenworks commands, still didn't work.

I even extended the time to 120 seconds just to be sure.

Sorry for the necro but I wanted to let you know I seem to have gotten it working.

I found the Unattend.xml and moved the litetouch synchro task to be the second task and added the first task to be zenworkstodo.

I've done a few test images and this seems to work like a charm and we can still get to our task sequences when creating new images.