Had the same problem. you have to connect the uplink port to the WAN interface of the router to get it to work. It seems counter intuitive, as all routed ports are admin down per default. But this only happens after you negate the initial configuration dialog question:
Would you like to enter the initial configuration dialog? [yes/no]: no
Only switchports remain admin up after you selected no:
Router#show interfaces description
Interface Status Protocol Description
AT0 admin down down
BR0 admin down down
BR0:1 admin down down
BR0:2 admin down down
Et0 admin down down
Gi0 down down
Gi1 down down
Gi2 down down
Gi3 down down
Gi4 down down
Gi5 down down
Gi6 down down
Gi7 down down
Gi8 admin down down
Vl1 down down
But if you connect the uplink to the WAN port (Gi8) and be patient, you will see the router is trying to load the configuration files from the TFTP server that has been provided by DHCP option:
Installed image archive
Cisco C897VA-K9 (revision 1.0) with 488524K/35763K bytes of memory.
Processor board ID FCZ220510DX
1 DSL controller
1 Ethernet interface
9 Gigabit Ethernet interfaces
1 ISDN Basic Rate interface
1 ATM interface
1 Virtual Private Network (VPN) Module
DRAM configuration is 32 bits wide
255K bytes of non-volatile configuration memory.
250880K bytes of ATA System CompactFlash (Read/Write)
--- System Configuration Dialog ---
Would you like to enter the initial configuration dialog? [yes/no]:
%Error opening tftp://172.16.20.89/network-confg (Timed out)
%Error opening tftp://172.16.20.89/cisconet.cfg (Timed out)
Loading roTST01-confg from 172.16.20.89 (via GigabitEthernet8): !
[OK - 4189 bytes]
Domain server mapped address 172.16.20.89 to SRVMWTFT01.company.local
And there your configuration will be applied like you are used to from AutoInstall. Strangely, the assigned IP information is displayed just after the configuration has been applied:
*Feb 22 13:59:20.259: %LINEPROTO-5-UPDOWN: Line protocol on Interface VoIP-Null0, changed state to up
*Feb 22 13:59:20.259: %LINEPROTO-5-UPDOWN: Line protocol on Interface ATM0, changed state to down
*Feb 22 13:59:20.259: %LINK-3-UPDOWN: Interface Ethernet0, changed state to up
*Feb 22 13:59:20.259: %LINEPROTO-5-UPDOWN: Line protocol on Interface BRI0, changed state to down
*Feb 22 13:59:20.259: %LINEPROTO-5-UPDOWN: Line protocol on Interface BRI0:1, changed state to down
*Feb 22 13:59:20.259: %LINEPROTO-5-UPDOWN: Line protocol on Interface BRI0:2, changed state to down
*Feb 22 13:59:20.259: %LINK-3-UPDOWN: Interface GigabitEthernet8, changed state to up
*Feb 22 13:59:21.071: %LINEPROTO-5-UPDOWN: Line protocol on Interface Vlan1, changed state to down
*Feb 22 13:59:21.259: %LINEPROTO-5-UPDOWN: Line protocol on Interface Ethernet0, changed state to down
*Feb 22 13:59:21.259: %LINEPROTO-5-UPDOWN: Line protocol on Interface GigabitEthernet8, changed state to up
*Feb 22 13:59:35.263: Setting system hostname to roTST01
*Feb 22 13:59:38.383: AUTOINSTALL: GigabitEthernet8 is assigned 172.16.22.8
*Feb 22 13:59:38.383: AUTOINSTALL: Obtain tftp server address (opt 150) 172.16.20.89
Hope im not too late with this information.
