We often create one task sequence for all workstation builds and another for all server builds, utilising task sequence variables to perform the decision making within the task sequence.

One of the downsides of this is that the task sequence binaries can get quite large, especially for server builds where we have current and legacy versions of the HP SPP, the Dell SUU and (at a minimum) server 2012 R2 and server 2016.

This isn’t an issue for network based builds, as non-required content is simply skipped, however, for media builds, it can lead to 40GB+ requirements, which the SCCM console doesnt handle well.

This is where Rufus comes in.

Rufus can help out by allowing use of larger hard drives (just tick the “list USB hard drives” option) and can apply bootable iso’s generated by SCCM (utilising the “unlimited size” option) to a USB hard drive.

This has been incredibly useful for us in the past, utilising large hard drives as USMT stores at slow link sites for client deployment.

In this instance, ive been using Rufus to apply a 50GB server build iso to a hard drive, but keep getting presented with a warning

“This ISO image seems to use an obsolete version of ‘vesamenu.c32’. Boot menus may not display properly because of this.”

Irrevelant of how you proceed (allow Rufus to download an update or not), the drive is not bootable.

Upon investigation of the rusfus logs and the resultant media, i found that syslinux.cfg was actually pointing to my HP SPP package.

This forum post then confirmed that Rufus is finding a syslinux.cfg, assuming that it is “real” bootable media and hence the ‘vesamenu.c32’ prompt.

After a few hours of troubleshooting and trying to get around it, i simply removed the “usb” and “system” folders from my HP SPP packages (as we wont be booting to it ever, its only for use in SCCM), re-created my standalone media iso – then used Rufus to write the bootable iso to the USB HDD, this time with no issues.

I realise this is a fairly obscure issue , but hopefully it helps someone.