UPDATE:
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OK so it seems the preferred.dat file doe snot get created until a software distribution task is started which I can confirm that all is OK when I push a new application.
BUT... my problem still persists for my new builds that when the provisioning task is started and the application beging to install they are not for some reason creating a preffered.dat when starting a distribution and therefore going to the core (or peer if available) to download files.
How do I force the preferred.dat to get created? Do I need to log this to LANDesk?