WDS Server Service Not Starting

I ran into an issue after I had a server go down. I found that my WDS Server Service would not start. The issue with my server was a bad system board, I replaced it and was able to boot the server no problem. Everything else came up. This server (Windows Server 2008) is a DNS, DCHP, and AD domain controller to go with WDS. I tried to start WDS in Server Manager and wasn’t getting anywhere. I first had to turn on logging to try and get a better understanding of what was going on. To do so, you need to make some changes to the registry. An article from Microsoft can be found here on the process of turning on the traces. I started by uninitializing the WDS Server first with this command…

wdsutil /Verbose /Progress /Uninitialize-Server

then I initialized it with this command…

C:\Windows\system32>wdsutil /Verbose /Progress /Initialize-Server /REMINST:c:\RemoteInstall

I then got…

Starting Windows Deployment Services services...

An error occurred while trying to execute the command.
Error Code: 0x41D
Error Description: The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion.

So it was then on to look at the errors and traces.

The event log looked like this…

So my issue seems to lie with the WDSMC provider for WDS (Event ID 513 - WDSServer), but let’s take a closer look at the trace files.

[5464] 09:26:14: WDS Diagnostics Initialized

[5464] 09:26:14: [Profiles] Initialized.

[5464] 09:26:14: [MCSCOPE] Address Range=239.0.0.1-239.0.0.254, Count=254

[5464] 09:26:14: [UDPPorts] Dynamic Port Range: 64001-65000.

[5464] 09:26:14: [RPC] Using Tcp Port 5040 for Rpc Calls.

[5464] 09:26:14: [RPC] Client Impersonation Logging=Disabled

[5464] 09:26:14: [RPC] Host Name: server.domain.com

[5464] 09:26:14: [RPC] NTLM/Kerberos Spn: ldap/server.domain.com

[5464] 09:26:14: [RPC] Initialized

[1732] 09:26:14: [RPC] Server Started.

[5464] 09:26:14: WDS VSS Writer Pre-Initialized

[5464] 09:26:14: [BINLSVC][RPC][Ep={5F4FB9F0-C0E3-41C1-AA00-9A7C690AC3A3}] Registered

[5464] 09:26:14: [BINLSVC] Provider Initialized.

[5464] 09:26:14: [437][WdsImgSrv] -> Initialize

[5464] 09:26:14: [656][WdsImgSrv] -> pInitializeManagement

[5464] 09:26:15: [1671][WdsImgSrv] <- pInitializeManagement=0

[5464] 09:26:15: [1671][WdsImgSrv] -> pWdsImgSrvRefreshSettings

[5464] 09:26:16: [2343][WdsImgSrv] <- pWdsImgSrvRefreshSettings=0

[5464] 09:26:16: [WdsImgSrv][RPC][Ep={D8DEEB5A-EFFD-43B2-99FC-1A8A5921C227}] Registered

[5464] 09:26:16: [2343][WdsImgSrv] <- Initialize=0

[5464] 09:26:16: [WdsImgSrv] Provider Initialized.

[5464] 09:26:16: [d:\longhorn\base\ntsetup\opktools\wds\wdssrv\server\src\wdsprovider.cpp:147] Expression: , Win32 Error=2148073483

[5464] 09:26:16: [WDSMC] Initialization Failed (rc=2148073483)

[5464] 09:26:16: [d:\longhorn\base\ntsetup\opktools\wds\wdssrv\server\src\wdsprovhdl.cpp:169] Expression: , Win32 Error=2148073483

[5464] 09:26:16: [WDSMC] Deleted.

[5464] 09:26:16: [d:\longhorn\base\ntsetup\opktools\wds\wdssrv\server\src\wdsservice.cpp:177] Expression: , Win32 Error=2148073483

[5464] 09:26:16: [Udp] Listen Shutdown.

[5500] 09:26:16: [NetMon] Network Interface(s) Change Notification

[1732] 09:26:16: [RPC] Server terminated (rc=0)

[5464] 09:26:16: [RPC] Listen Stopped.

[5464] 09:26:16: [BINLSVC] Shutting down

[5464] 09:26:16: [BINLSVC][RPC][Ep={5F4FB9F0-C0E3-41C1-AA00-9A7C690AC3A3}] Closed

[5464] 09:26:16: [BINLSVC] Deleted.

[5464] 09:26:16: [WdsImgSrv] Shutting down

[5464] 09:26:16: [2375][WdsImgSrv] -> Shutdown

[5464] 09:26:16: [WdsImgSrv][RPC][Ep={D8DEEB5A-EFFD-43B2-99FC-1A8A5921C227}] Closed

[5464] 09:26:16: [2390][WdsImgSrv] <- Shutdown=0

[5464] 09:26:16: [WdsImgSrv] Deleted.

[5464] 09:26:16: [d:\longhorn\base\ntsetup\opktools\wds\wdssrv\server\src\ifmonitor.cpp:174] Expression: , Return Value=1 (WSLE=10038)

[5464] 09:26:16: Timer Queue deleted successfully.

[5464] 09:26:16: WDS Vss Writer Shutdown

[5464] 09:26:16: WDS Diagnostics Shutdown?

The main error I saw was here…

[5464] 09:26:16: [d:\longhorn\base\ntsetup\opktools\wds\wdssrv\server\src\wdsprovider.cpp:147] Expression: , Win32 Error=2148073483

[5464] 09:26:16: [WDSMC] Initialization Failed (rc=2148073483)

One that happened it stopped everything else. So it was having issues starting the WDSMC provider, which is multi-casting provider.

A few things I checked were…

1) Reinstalling WDS

2)  Checking permissions for the local system account

3) Checking Registry

4)  I didn’t have over 20 processors either  

5) Throwing keyboard out the window

None of these worked. But this article got me thinking about what might be happening. It had to be something wrong with registry in the data. So I backed up the current registry entry for WDSMC by exporting the key (HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Providers\WDSMC). And then I deleted it, the whole WDSMC key there. I figured what the heck I knew it could really mess up something, but hey I have it backed up and can insert if need me. And I know most experts would say that it is dangerous and you shouldn’t do so, but hey I was frustrated and wanted the darned thing to work. The other reason was that I didn’t care if WDSMC (WDS Multicast Server) worked, I don’t use that. So I went for it. I then tried to start the service, and eureka! it started. I still do caution, that I do not highly recommend this solution but I thought my experience would help others investigating this issue and that the problem seems to lie within the registry settings for the WDSMC. Since I do not use WDSMC, I will not be investigating any further myself.