Make WDS Service account approve pending devices in WINDOWS DEPLOYMENT SERVICES

Question

Hi Technet and all other people reading this.
I am at the moment trying to get a Service account(WDSService) to approve pending devices in Windoes Deployment Services on a WDS server.
I have created a domain called LALALA.dk on a server(DNS is included in the domain), and installed windows deployment services on another server. The Deployment service is setup to prestage devices, and therefore devices needs to be approved before it can
be deployed.
My problem is that at the moment, we are using Domain Admin accounts to do the approving and i wish to change that to a service account, made specially for this job which ofc. should have minimum right. Because i have a very hard time understanding
why i NEED to grant domain admin rights or local admin rights to a person just so that he can approve pending devices. There has to be a way to use a service account to do the job.
I have done some research and found out that local admin, domain admins and enterprise admins are the only onces that have the permission to approve pending devices, and that a problem for me, when i want a service account to do it for me(Not automatically)
but a service account that can name and approve devices manually.
Here is what i have allready tried.
1. making WDSService run the Windows Deployment Services (service), but this didnt work because it lacks the permissions needed.
2. I have given the read+write permissions on the remoteinstall folder, even tried with full control.
3. Delegate control on the OU in active directory, to create computer object, with full write permissions. I also tried with full control. I added both WDSServer$ and the service account(WDSService) on the OU. Still nothing.
4. I then downloaded subinacl tool, and granted WDSService account permission to start, stop the service, even tried with full control on the Windows Deployment Service(WDSServer as server_name). I get error 1297 something with priviledge missing from the
service account to perform the actions. So still nothing. Which is really weird when i ran a command i cant remember now, where i could see that the service account had full permission granted to the service, and still was'nt able to start the service.
5. I then tried to create a script using WDSUTIL, but was not able to grant the service account permissions to perform the action of approving pending devices. And i dont want to use a script everytime i need to approve a device.
6. Since the local system account is running the Windows Deployment Service , my thought was to join the WDSService account to the built-in NT AUTHORITY/local system or NT AUTHORITY/local service, this seems impossible from what i experienced, unless you
are super powershell geek i quess you can, so this option didnt get me anywhere as well.
6. I then created a gpo granting wdsservice account the "log on as a service" policy on the Windows deployment service Server, still nothing works as attended. I still get error 1297.
7.I tried copying the registry keys (WDSSERVER) from the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE hive on the WDS Server, and imported it into my Domain's registry, but could'nt find the service i wanted to grant permissions to in the group policy settings (computer configuration/policies/windows
settings/security settings/System Services) I then created a registry entry with group policy (computer configuration/policies/windows settings/security settings/registry) to point to (local machine/system/controlset001/services/WDSServer) and granting
WDSService account full control and deployed the policy to the Deployment server. Nothing happend and i still cant approve pending devices with my service account.
from my understanding service account where created to maintain small certain tasks or actions with limited permissions, so if comprimised they could only do very little damage, and so that this account can be setup to perform the tasks without any administation
of the account. So my question is, is it even possible to achieve what i want = granting a service account the permission to perform the action of approving pending devices on a Windows Deployment Server, and if so how ? 
I am so confused over this and I am really reaching the limits of my understanding of this.
Help is very much appreciated.
Henrik Larsen

Answer 1

Hi ZeR1X,
The Require Administrator approval is for unknown computers.
The similar thread:
WDS - Request administrator approval not working
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsserver/en-US/b9088be7-7afe-4e2b-b5fb-4554a92c4a2a/wds-request-administrator-approval-not-working
More information:
Windows Deployment Service fails to start with error information of 0x5
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2009647
WDS 3.01 Troubleshooting Guide
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc754828(v=ws.10).aspx
I’m glad to be of help to you!
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