UIU Blog

Factors:

• Yoga model laptops
• Windows 7x64
• SCCM Current Branch
• Domain Join
• USB3 Ethernet dongle

Summary:

When deploying Windows 7 x64, particular Lenovo Yoga models do not successfully initialize the USB3 Ethernet dongle driver in time for the Join Domain function to succeed during mini-setup, resulting in a failure to join the domain.

Testing:

Big Bang Support has run a myriad of tests to isolate the USB3 driver, the Lenovo dongle driver, other dongle drivers, SCCM (Current Branch) Task Sequence settings, and hardware/BIOS settings.

Results:

• The drivers (USB3 and dongle) appear to install correctly in any case.
• Non-Yoga models succeed in joining the domain (manually, through MDT, and through SCCM) each time.
• Yoga models succeed in joining the domain when their BIOS (USB Boot) is set to disable USB3. (This is an expected result with Windows 7 as it is known to have some difficulties in general with USB3). Unfortunately, this disables USB3 support.
• Incidental – the Yoga docking station will not PXE when the BIOS (USB Boot) is set to auto USB3. (Expected behavior according to Lenovo)
• Various forums have revealed that this issue, (among others), appear to plague these models…

Conclusions:

Based on our findings, (for the Yoga series laptops specifically):

• These models contain a proprietary set of on-board USB3 components, (presumably to accommodate the unique docking station connector).
• These models appear to require an extended time period in order to install and initialize the USB3 hub and subsequently the USB Ethernet dongle.
• In fact, when we manually installed the dongle driver (in WinPE), it took about 3½ minutes to simply install, which is an exceptionally long time to load. This is evidence that this is a hardware-related, timing issue.

Proposed Solution:

Add an additional Join Domain or Workgroup step to the SCCM task sequence (TS). Add the task post mini-setup; directly after the Setup Windows and Configuration task in the Setup Operating System group. This task will make an additional attempt to join the domain in the event that the mini-setup initiated join fails. Again, in the specific case of this hardware, it will attempt to join the domain after a sufficient amount of time has passed and the dongle driver (with its unusually long installation period) has successfully installed and initialized.

Other solutions researched purported to accomplish the desired effect though scripting and other complicated configurations that required creating packages specific to the Yoga hardware, (which may interfere with other makes/models).

Upon testing this procedure in SCCM Current Branch, we found that the Yoga tablet/laptop will successfully join the domain when the BIOS (USB Boot) is set to auto USB3.

Additional Information:

Furthermore, this additional Join Domain task appears to not cause an issue with other hardware, (which successfully join the domain during mini-setup), that is not susceptible to the proclivities of the Yoga hardware. Obviously, the procedure would need to be proven in any given customer environment and, if necessary, measures to isolate the additional Join Domain or Workgroup task could be scripted to isolate the process for the Yoga machines alone.