SupportAssist for Business PCs with Windows OS User's Guide August 2021 Rev.
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. © 2020 - 2021 Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries. All rights reserved. Dell, EMC, and other trademarks are trademarks of Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries.
Contents Chapter 1: Introduction................................................................................................................. 5 Version................................................................................................................................................................................... 5 Key features...................................................................................................................................................................
Chapter 10: Resources................................................................................................................
1 Introduction SupportAssist for business PCs automates support from Dell by proactively and predictively identifying hardware and software issues on your PC. SupportAssist addresses PC 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 drivers, scan the hardware, and optimize your PC.
Table 1. SupportAssist capabilities for Dell service plans Capability Description Update drivers Scan and install driver updates available for PCs. Scan hardware Scan PCs for hardware issues. Clean files Clear temporary, redundant, and other unwanted files from the PC. Tune system performance Adjust the power settings, registry files, and memory allocations on the PCs to fine-tune the system performance.
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.
Figure 2. Home page — Summary view . If there is a pending notification or SupportAssist requires you to perform an action, the tiles To go to the tiles view, click view is displayed when you open SupportAssist. Figure 3.
When you hover over the PC model or Service Tag displayed in the SupportAssist user interface, the PC image and its details are displayed. The following table describes the PC details that are displayed: Table 2. PC details Field Description Warranty details The service plan applicable for the PC, its start date, and expiration date. Service Tag The unique identifier of the PC. The Service Tag is an alphanumeric identifier.
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 or 8.1, 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.
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. Optimize network About this task Optimize network settings on your system to maintain an efficient and reliable network connectivity. Steps 1. Open SupportAssist and click . 2. On the Optimize Network tile, click Run Now.
NOTE: If PUPs are detected during an automated scan, an appropriate notification is displayed. For information on the types of notifications that are displayed by SupportAssist, see Notifications. Steps 1. Open SupportAssist. 2. On the Remove Virus & Malware tile, click View. The details of the PUPs are displayed. NOTE: By default, all the PUPs are selected. You can review and clear the PUPs that you do not want to remove from the system. 3.
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.
Steps 1. Open SupportAssist and click . 2. On the Get Drivers & Downloads tile, click Run Now. ● 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.
Notifications on Get Drivers and Downloads tile The following table describes the different status notifications that are displayed on the Get Drivers & Downloads tile: 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.
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.
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 a remote session Prerequisites ● You must have administrator rights on the system. ● Ensure that a remote 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. In such circumstances, allow the technical support agent to remotely access your system. NOTE: Start a remote session only after the technical support agent enables the session.
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, 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.
10 Resources This section provides information about the documentation resources and other useful links that provide more information about SupportAssist for business PCs. Table 7.
