SupportAssist for Business PCs with Windows OS User's Guide
Notes, cautions, and warnings NOTE: A NOTE indicates important information that helps you make better use of your product. CAUTION: A CAUTION indicates either potential damage to hardware or loss of data and tells you how to avoid the problem. WARNING: A WARNING indicates a potential for property damage, personal injury, or death. © 2019 Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries. All rights reserved. Dell, EMC, and other trademarks are trademarks of Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries.
Contents 1 Introduction................................................................................................................................. 5 Release version...................................................................................................................................................................... 5 Key features.................................................................................................................................................................
9 Frequently asked questions.........................................................................................................
1 Introduction Dell SupportAssist for Business PCs automates support from Dell by proactively and predictively identifying hardware and software issues on your system. SupportAssist addresses system performance and stabilization issues, prevents security threats, monitors and detects hardware failures, and automates the engagement process with Dell Technical support. SupportAssist also enables you to manually update system drivers, scan your system hardware, and optimize your system.
2 Getting started with SupportAssist for Business PCs You can access the SupportAssist user interface only if it is enabled for your system by your IT administrator. Also, you can use only the features that are enabled by your IT administrator. Topics: • • • • • SupportAssist user interface Change language setting System details Notifications Scheduled scans SupportAssist user interface Figure 1. Home page Click Start Now to run all the scans and optimizations from the home page.
Figure 2. Home page — Summary view To go to the tiles view, click . Figure 3. Home page - Tiles view Depending on your service plan, the following tiles are displayed on the home page: • • • • • • Get Drivers & Downloads Scan Hardware Clean Files Tune Performance Optimize Network Remove Viruses & Malware NOTE: Figures 1, 2, and 3 are for illustrative purpose only. Individual features such as header color, buttons, and so on, are different on Alienware systems.
Change language setting About this task SupportAssist is available in 25 languages. By default, SupportAssist is set to the same language as that of the operating system. You can change the language according to your preference. Steps 1. Open SupportAssist. 2. On the top-right corner of the SupportAssist user interface, click the settings icon, and then click Select language. The languages list is displayed. 3. Select your preferred language. 4. Click Yes to restart SupportAssist in the selected language.
When the notification displays Action • Click Cancel to hide the notification. Notifications on taskbar or Windows Actions Center Depending on the type of operating system installed on your system, SupportAssist displays the notifications on the taskbar or in the Windows Action Center. • • On Microsoft Windows 8.1, 8, or 7, the notifications are displayed on the taskbar. On Microsoft Windows 10, the notifications are displayed in the Windows Action Center.
3 Scanning your system hardware Running a hardware scan enables you to detect hardware issues on your system. SupportAssist scans your system hardware based on a predefined schedule. You can also manually perform the following to identify a hardware issue: • • • Scan a specific hardware component Run a quick hardware scan Run a stress test NOTE: If an issue is detected during a scan and requires creating a support request, a support request is automatically created.
Steps 1. Open SupportAssist and click . 2. On the Scan Hardware tile, click Run Now. Results After the scan is complete, one of the following is displayed: • • • If no issue is detected, an appropriate notification is displayed on the tile. If an issue is detected and requires creating a support request, a support request is automatically created, the optimization tiles are disabled, and the issue summary page is displayed. A notification is also sent to your IT administrator.
4 Optimizing your system SupportAssist helps you optimize your system by running a series of diagnostic tests to identify changes to files and settings of your system.
Steps 1. Open SupportAssist and click . 2. On the Tune Performance tile, click Run Now. CAUTION: If you cancel the optimization while it is in progress, the changes that were applied are not reversed. After the optimization is complete, an appropriate notification is displayed on the tile. NOTE: The notification that is displayed on the tile changes automatically depending on the time when the optimization was performed.
Remove potentially unwanted programs About this task Potentially unwanted programs (PUPs) are programs that are installed silently on the system while installing an application. PUPs include spyware, adware and so on which may reduce the system performance or display unwanted advertisements. SupportAssist detects PUPs present on the system during a manually initiated or automated virus and malware scan.
Notifications on SupportAssist tile The notification displayed on the SupportAssist tile depends on when the last scan or optimization was performed. The following table describes the notification displayed on the tile depending on when the last scan was performed. Table 4.
5 Getting drivers and downloads A driver is a software that enables the operating system to communicate with the hardware components in your system. Hardware components such as video cards, sound cards, and modems require drivers to work efficiently. Sometimes, the operating system includes drivers for the system, but generally the drivers must be downloaded and installed separately. A firmware is a software that is embedded on the system hardware.
• • If there are any updates available for your system, the update type and the number of available updates are displayed on the Get Drivers & Downloads tile. NOTE: The notification on the tile depends on the severity of the update. For information about the type of notifications that are displayed on the tile, see Notifications on Get Drivers and Downloads tile. If SupportAssist cannot detect updates available for your system, an appropriate message is displayed. 3. Click Update Now.
Table 5. Get Drivers & Downloads tile notifications Update icon Tile icon No icon is displayed. Update type Description Optional or no update available No update or an optional update is available. Recommended Only recommended types of updates are available. Urgent Only urgent or multiple types of updates are available. None available message is displayed.
6 Troubleshooting common issues The Troubleshooting page provides step-by-step instructions to help you resolve common issues by yourself without the assistance of Dell technical support. On the Troubleshooting page, you can also access video tutorials for common hardware, software, and operating system issues. NOTE: Depending on the preferences selected by your IT administrator, you can access the links that are enabled on the Troubleshooting page. Figure 4.
About this task Fix a blue screen error by running SupportAssist scans and optimization. Steps 1. Open SupportAssist. 2. Click the Troubleshooting tab and click My PC stopped responding or restarted unexpectedly. (I got a Blue Screen Error.). 3. Click Fix Now. The home page is displayed and a system is initiated. After the scan is complete, one of the following is displayed: • • • • • 20 If no issue is detected and there are no updates, an appropriate message is displayed on each tile.
7 History overview The History page provides details of SupportAssist activities that were performed on the system in a chronological order. The activities that are listed include software optimizations, troubleshooting tasks, driver updates, hardware scans, and so on. From the Select History View list, select an activity type to view the details of that specific activity type. By default, the activities that were performed during the current week are displayed.
8 Getting support The Get Support page enables you to access the available help and support options for your system. The help and support options that can be accessed vary based on the service plan of your system and your region. If internet connectivity is unavailable, the Dell Technical Support contact numbers for your region are displayed. NOTE: The Get Support page is displayed only if you have administrator rights on the system. Figure 6.
• • • Start DellConnect session Send files to Dell Technical Support Send log files to Dell technical support Start DellConnect session Prerequisites • • You must have administrator rights on the system. Ensure that a DellConnect session has been initiated by the Dell technical support agent. About this task In certain circumstances, the technical support agent must remotely access your system to troubleshoot and resolve the issue.
Results After the file is sent, and the File uploaded successfully message is displayed. Send log files to Dell technical support Steps 1. Open SupportAssist and click the Get Support tab. 2. On the right pane, click Upload log file. Results After the file is sent, 24 and the File uploaded successfully message is displayed.
9 Frequently asked questions 1. What are the languages that the SupportAssist user interface supports? The SupportAssist user interface supports 25 languages. The supported languages are Arabic, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazilian), Portuguese (Iberian), Russian, Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish.
