While experimenting with Remote Installation Services (RIS) in VMWare I ran into a few snags. The PXE wasn’t receiving the proper file from my W2K3 server (also in VMWare). Luckily I found a few solutions from the links below. I’m reposting/rewording it here in case those sites ever go offline.

Sources:
Get a VMWare machine PXE to boot with RIS

After following the instructions at KB325862 I booted my Virtual Machine (VMWare Workstation 5.5 Beta). I selected F12 for network boot and then waited. This produced the following error:

VXE-E53: No boot filename received

PXE-M0F: Exiting Intel PXE ROM.
Operating System not found

After wrestling with it for a while I ended up getting some help from Rohan Bhalla. The solution was to go to the DHCP server and set the Scope Options for:

066 Boot Server Host Name = IP address of my RIS server and
067 Bootfile Name = OSchooser\i386\startrom.com.

Once you get that up and running you will notice that it runs at a snail’s pace.
To speed up the networking we need to update the RIS image with the drivers for the VMware network interface.

I followed the instructions (first set) from this site:
Add network driver to a RIS image

On an XP or 2003 Server VM that has VMWare tools installed, copy the vmxnet from the path C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Tools\Drivers\. That folder contains the files we will preload into the RIS Image.

Create the following directory structure under your RIS Image. For this I assume RIS install directory is located at (when looking from the RIS server):

E:\RemoteInstall\Setup\English\Images\WINDOWS\

with WINDOWS being the name I gave during the RIS image setup and English being the language. Under the WINDOWS directory add the following folders:

$oem$\$1\Drivers

So now you should have the path:
E:\RemoteInstall\Setup\English\Images\WINDOWS\$oem$\$1\Drivers

Then paste the vmxnet directory you copied earlier into the Drivers folder.

Then go into the vmxnet folder and copy the .inf and .sys files and paste them to the E:\RemoteInstall\Setup\English\Images\WINDOWS\i386 folder.
Then find the file Ristndrd.sif (or a custom RIS install file you created) in the i386 folder and add the following to the [Unattended] section:

DriverSigningPolicy = Ignore
OemPreinstall = yes
OemPnpDriversPath = Drivers\vmxnet

If OemPreinstall already exists, just change it from no to yes. Do not have any of the lines twice.
Save the file.

Restart the RIS Server from the command prompt:

net stop binlsvc
net start binlsvc

Now you can use RIS in vmware without excessive network lag for the install process.