“Failed to find a valid network adapter” error in SCCM 1511

Running the current branch of ConfigMgr (1511),  while starting a bare metal OSD task sequence you may receive an error message that states “Failed to find a valid network adapter”.  It appears that the system is not receiving an IP address in a fast enough manner for SCCM.  In the smsts.log file, you will see this error:

Failed to find a valid network adapter. Please ensure that this machine has a network adapter and appropriate network drivers.
Unspecified error (Error: 80004005; Source: Windows)

In order to fix this, you need to add a delay before tsbootshell.exe is launched.  To do this you will need to create a “winpeshl.ini” file in order to customize the shell that is loaded in WinPE (https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc766156(v=ws.10).aspx).

1. Create a .ini file called “winpeshl.ini” in {ConfigMgr Install Location}\ConfigMgr\OSD\bin\x64
2. Populate the .ini file with the following

   [LaunchApps]
   %windir%\system32\wpeinit.exe
   %windir%\system32\ping.exe, -n 30 127.0.0.1 > NULL
   %SYSTEMDRIVE%\sms\bin\x64\TsBootShell.exe

3. Create a new boot image
4. Boot the system to the new boot image