6.4 Test Policies Before Assigning Them to Production Devices

Before applying a policy to production devices, apply the policy to test devices that have the same hardware configurations as the production devices.

This practice is essential if the policy installs ZENworks Pre-Boot Authentication to devices. After successful pre-boot authentication occurs, the ZENworks PBA must configure the BIOS settings correctly for Windows. With some hardware configurations, the standard boot method and Linux kernel configuration used by the PBA might not work, resulting in hardware that does not function correctly or is not recognized by Windows. In some cases, the device might not boot to Windows.

As part of the Disk Encryption policy, you can customize the DMI (Direct Media Interface) file to provide compatibility for hardware configurations that are not supported. This is a discovery process that can require multiple customization attempts. The easiest way to recover from a failed attempt is to reimage the device (see Image Devices Before Applying Policies).

For information about testing devices, see Section 8.0, Testing a Disk Encryption Policy.