Could not create WMI locator class (80040154) - Win7 x64 OSD

Question

Hello All,
I'm attempting to deploy a Win7 x64 OS to a Dell Optiplex 3010 through SCCM 2012 via PXE, a process I've done many times in the last few months. All of a sudden, on this one machine, I can't get it to work.
The first strange thing that happened is, after the initial check for a PXE server I am told to "Press F12 for network service boot". I've never seen that before on any other system. Secondly, after supplying the password to begin the OSD process
I'm met with error message 80040154. An excerpt from my log file is below:
spLocator.createInstance( ((bUseAdminLocator == true) ? CLSID_WbemAdministrativeLocator : CLSID_WbemLocator ) ), HRESULT=80040154 (e:\nts_sccm_release\sms\framework\core\ccmcore\wminamespace.cpp,264)    TSPxe    1/8/2015 10:00:45
AM    268 (0x010C)
Could not create WMI locator class (80040154)    TSPxe    1/8/2015 10:00:45 AM    268 (0x010C)
spNamespace.Open(c_szCIMv2Namespace), HRESULT=80040154 (e:\qfe\nts\sms\framework\tscore\tspolicy.cpp,604)    TSPxe    1/8/2015 10:00:45 AM    268 (0x010C)
Failed to connect to WMI namespace \\.\ROOT\CIMV2 (Code 0x80040154)    TSPxe    1/8/2015 10:00:45 AM    268 (0x010C)
TS::Policy::GetClientIdentity (&m_oHttpTransport, m_sSiteCode, sMediaGuid.c_str(), m_sClientGUID, m_sNetbiosName, bUnknown, sServerNames, sImportedClientIdentity), HRESULT=80040154 (e:\qfe\nts\sms\framework\tscore\tspolicy.cpp,867)    TSPxe  
 1/8/2015 10:00:45 AM    268 (0x010C)
I see this error happening for people attempting a Win 8.1 OSD without the proper WMI file. But that's not what I'm trying to do. This exact process has worked on many other Optiplex 3010's and 3020's since May when I started using it. Any suggestions?

Answer 1

Ok, here's what was happening. Boy do I feel stupid.
When I went to enter this latest batch of computers into SCCM, I went into the BIOS, copied the MAC, and used it as I should to import the system into SCCM. I assigned it to my OSD collection, then deployed my OSD TS to that collection. This is when I started
having major issues. Reason being: I transposed two of the digits in the MAC I entered. As a result, the computer booted as part of the “Unknown Systems” collection and was assigned a generic OSD TS that didn’t contain the necessary drivers to complete. I
never assigned a TS to that collection, and I'm the only one that's been using SCCM for OSD. I can only assume someone else was playing around with it trying to learn and did this themselves.
When I removed the outdated boot image the Unknown Computers TS was supposed to use, I began being unable to even PXE boot (of course). After trying many and varied solutions (including double-checking the MAC I had written down
incorrectly), thinking it was a PXE or boot image issue I began looking at the PXE boot logs on my DP. I noticed it kept saying that there were no advertisements to this system, which made no sense. I had deployed an OSD TS to it 5 minutes ago! I finally
noticed the MAC address was incorrect and fixed it. Guess what? It’s imaging as I type.
Thanks for all the help guys - lesson learned.