(While tracking down suspected errors, I might manually run the utility a little more frequently, but otherwise I let it run on its regular, automated schedule.) Eventually, those issues just went away by virtue of taking updates as they were made available by Dell and installed vis SupportAssist. This proved particularly useful when I was fighting docking station issues with my Dell Latitude last year. If it informs me I have a driver or BIOS update available, I take them. My Dell computers come with it, it runs on a schedule, and I just let it happen. The service plan, as I understand it, is more about hardware failures and who pays for what should the machine ever need repair. Second, the SupportAssist tool will keep working, and driver and BIOS updates - if any are available - will continue to be installed if you like. You can, of course, after reviewing the benefits it provides, but my take - especially on machines older than a couple of years - is that it’s not worth the expense. You do not need to renew the service contract. In fact, it may try hard.įirst, that’s completely optional. It may try to encourage you to pay for a service contract extension. The SupportAssist tool will report this as support being “expired”. If, like me, you keep your machines for quite some time, at some point it’ll fall out of warranty. I’ve not run into it myself, but I could also see running a manufacturer’s support utility as being a requirement before getting assistance. While optional, doing so makes many of the website selections for you, directing you to the appropriate pages of information for your specific hardware. This position allows them to rule out a number of issues that may be resolved with updated software.Įven if you don’t have their utility installed, a visit to the Dell support website (and others, I expect) will offer to download, install, and run it before you proceed. When reaching out to a manufacturer for assistance, I’d also expect them to insist, or at least strongly encourage, you run the utility to bring your machine as up to date as possible before proceeding. Furthermore, they recommend you take any and all updates offered by the utility. Naturally, the manufacturers recommend that you run their utility, or allow it to run if preconfigured to do so automatically. This is particularly useful when it comes to BIOS/ UEFI updates, which by definition are almost always manufacturer- and machine-specific. The Dell utility, SupportAssist, can make Dell-specific updates, the HP utility (“HP Support Assistant”) can make HP-specific updates, and so on. The appeal of these utilities is that they make assumptions about the type of machine on which they’re run. Most commonly they update drivers and often the computer’s BIOS, but they sometimes include additional features, such as file cleanup and various types of performance tuning. In recent years, major computer manufacturers include utilities that perform a variety of duties. (Click for larger image.) SupportAssist and others
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