SupportAssist Key Benefits. Improve productivity by replacing manual routines with automated support. Accelerate resolution, or avoid issues completely with predictive issue detection and proactive remediation. Maximize flexibility with the right SupportAssist version for you. Choose the standalone version to monitor individual devices or use the management console version in your data center or to manage PCs across your business.
SupportAssist is included with all support plans but features vary based on service level agreement. SupportAssist automatically detects and proactively alerts Dell to: operating system issues, software upgrades, driver updates and patches, malware, virus infected files, failures of hard drives, batteries, memory, internal cables, thermal sensors, heat sinks, fans, solid state drives and video cards. Predictive analysis failure detection includes hard drives, solid state drives, batteries and fans.
Not available on Linux, Windows RT, Android, Ubuntu or Chrome based products. SupportAssist predictive analysis failure detection includes server hard drives and backplanes. Based on June 2018 Principled Technologies Report commissioned by Dell EMC, “Save time and IT effort resolving server hardware issues with ProSupport Plus and SupportAssist”. Actual results will vary. Full report:. Based on a Principled Technologies test report, “Spend Less Time and Effort Troubleshooting Laptop Hardware Failures” dated April 2018. Testing Commissioned by Dell, conducted in the United States. Actual results will vary.
Reggae gold 1998 rare. ShareIn the face of popularized security gaffes like Superfish and eDellroot, consumer-facing technical outlets sing a: “Microsoft Signature Edition is the!”There are a in about Signature Edition, and they all invariably contain a sentence along the lines of, “Microsoft controls the software that ships on these PCs, and they strip out the worst stuff to ensure you have a clean copy of Windows with only useful utilities and drivers,” according to HowToGeek.It’s true that Superfish software wasn’t packaged on Lenovo’s Signature Edition laptops, but what does Signature Edition really mean? Are there other aspects of these devices putting users at risk? As you may have already seen, we have spent some time analyzing the, including a few Microsoft Signature Edition models.
Signature Edition Security: Our FindingsAs part of our project, we purchased Signature Edition laptops manufactured by Hewlett Packard (HP), Asus and Dell. These were all purchased directly from Microsoft. We decided to compare these to non-Signature Edition systems from the same manufacturers to figure out what exactly consumers are getting when they purchase these systems.Additionally, after the release of our paper, we saw that other people were interested in Signature Edition as well. This prompted us to travel to Microsoft Retail Stores to take a look at some brands we missed in our initial analysis. We only used the in-store retail demo units for these, however we were assured by employees that they were the same as what you’d receive in the sealed box. Our process for analyzing the retail units was to first obtain administrative access, then run a couple quick checks to identify pre-packaged software: a full file listing (DIR C: /B /S) followed by running SysInternals’ autoruns tool.
Installer User Interface Mode Not Supported Dell Supportassist Windows 7
We then searched these listings for any indicators of pre-packaged software. Unfortunately, we did not capture the model numbers for all the in-store units we checked out.Potential drawbacks of analyzing retail machines are that employees or customers may have tampered with them, however the overwhelming majority had Faronics Deep Freeze present to restore their hard-drive image as well as artifacts of OEM software.
It seemed like the only steps employees took (also validated by employee statements) were to boot the machines, activate the “secret”, and install Deep Freeze. Signature Edition OverviewWe spoke to numerous Microsoft employees as part of this process and were told the same things by all of them: every single laptop sold by Microsoft directly or in a Microsoft Store is a “Signature Edition” laptop, and this means it is “free of bloatware”.We asked more pointed questions to understand how the Signature Edition process works, and our understanding is this: OEM vendors are responsible for managing Signature Edition for their machines. Microsoft places orders for their machines for resale, and the OEMs are supposed to flash the machines with the Signature Edition images. It does not seem like Microsoft has great visibility or control of the Signature Edition program, instead shifting the responsibility to OEMs and trusting them to do the right thing.It is our recommendation that Microsoft get more involved in the Signature Edition process, providing more guidance for and monitoring of OEM images. We consider their Surface Book machines the 'gold standard' for a Windows 10 machine - no annoying third-party components, no proprietary updaters, nothing but Windows and hardware support tools.The only constant we saw across the board for Signature Edition was the lack of marketing tie-ins and trials of third-party software, which were a major annoyance on the non-Signature machines. This is to be applauded as a step in the right direction, however, some third-party and proprietary software of little value still found itself on many of the Signature Edition machines, including some vulnerable updaters.
AcerFor Acer, we only examined in-store retail units. We didn’t see anything pre-packaged besides software to support the Realtek audio hardware.However, there's a C:OEM directory with an install script that we didn’t pull a copy of:C:OEMPreloadDPOPOEMCustomizeAcerInstall.cmd.We hope that boxed Signature Edition Acer units are the same as the retail demo unit. As we did not purchase one, we cannot say for sure, and when testing other brands we saw differences between purchased units and retail units. Assuming that the boxed units match the retail unit, they’ve done a very good job of stripping the system down.A AlienwareAlienware has Signature Edition laptops for sale at the Microsoft Store.
We didn't purchase one, but we did investigate one at the Store. We quickly became suspicious that the employees had customized the system as it had Steam installed on it and screenshots of gameplay from months back. Faronics Deep Freeze was also not present on this system.It had the same basic recovery and support files as the other Dell system we checked out at the retail Store. Nothing exciting. No PC-Doctor present. We didn’t even find any l33t gamer software to make your backlights strobe to dubstep while pwning n00bs.