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Dell Support Site has removed drivers for many older systems
(Please pardon my redundancy - I have posted this to the Customer Care Board and Client Service forums - just hoping to correct what I hope was an accidental change in support policy.)
This is not a technical comment but it is a comment about Dell's Technology Support. Recently the support site for laptops, and I presume other areas though I have not checked, was revised to change its structure. In the process many items were removed notably having to do with drivers for older systems. Even if a system is past warranty that does not remove the responsibility for Dell to continue to provide the most recent (even if old) drivers especially since the cost of doing so is trivial. This is especially the case when Dell is the only source for specific drivers. A specific example is a Dell Vostro 3700 laptop which uses the embedded GPU in the CPU as well as outboard nVidia GPU; the hybrid video architecture is such that NVidia provides no driver and re-directs users to Dell's site. In the case of this specific model, most of the drivers that were present a month ago are now gone.
Dell laptops have two things going for them - good products at a good price and a great support site. This has prompted me to continue focusing upon Dell - e.g. two new 5759's in 2017, and to recommend Dell to colleagues and friends. I have had recent occasion to review some very old systems on HP's support site - all relevant drivers continue to be available. I strongly recommend that Dell commit to ongoing availability of drivers for old systems - obviously, ongoing support is not justified but ongoing availability is.
Thank you,
Michel LaBarre
jphughan
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October 12th, 2017 10:00
This may just be a bug. I've noticed that when I select Drivers and Downloads even for a currently sold system like the XPS 13 9360, no drivers are listed. The fix is to change the OS selection to something else, then change it back to the original selection if that happens to be the OS you needed anyway. It's very annoying because if that OS is in fact what you wanted, then it will indeed appear initially as if there are no drivers available for your system. That said, I can still pull up drivers for systems that haven't even been sold for more than a decade, so Dell is definitely still offering drivers for old systems.
And on a somewhat related note, I also don't understand why the Support site after selecting a system says that Firefox can't this feature over HTTPS and recommends using Chrome or even IE (!!!) instead. Why can't Dell support all of the major browsers in use today?
Dell-SreejithR
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October 12th, 2017 10:00
Thank you for your message.
We appreciate you taking time to share your feedback. Let me assure you that all our customer Feedback and concerns are treated with the highest priority from our end.
We stand behind our product & we understand that there are specific drivers available only through Dell.
There has been a small change in the layout of our support site. The drivers are not removed you just need to click on the dropdown to view the required driver.
You can find the driver you are looking for here http://dell.to/2gAc1LV
For my reference, please click on my Dell username & send a private message with the service tag, registered name & email address.
jphughan
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October 12th, 2017 10:00
(Side note: An additional bug with the XPS 13 9360 is that it's listed twice in the Products list, and one of them really IS empty. The other one shows the correct content...after you do the little OS selection dance I described above.)
Michlab
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October 12th, 2017 11:00
I received an email from Dell-Sreejith R.
It included a link to the Vostro 3700 support page and sure enough all the old drivers are now present.
All I can say is that for at least 2 days they were not there. In any event, I am grateful that Dell has not changed there past policy for excellent online support for older systems.
I will continue to focus my, and my friends', attention on Dell laptops. I have never been let down by a Dell notebook.
Dell-SreejithR
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October 13th, 2017 09:00
The drivers could have been missing due to the update on our support site. The website was under maintenance & the drivers were moved. Maybe this was the time you checked the site.
Feel free to reach out to us if you need any assistance, we will be glad to assist you.