@ShortBreak good job using this time to learn a new skill, and good approach to learning scripting. I'd read that when learning a new scripting or programming language, the most effective way to do so was to give yourself a problem to solve rather than just doing general research about cmdlets and concepts. So when I wanted to learn PowerShell, I started with a problem to solve. In my case because of the server engineering type of work I do, it was wanting to add a bunch of users and groups to the Administrators group of multiple computers. I started off with a reference script that sort of did what I wanted in order to have an example of working script and to see valid cmdlets, syntax, etc. I took that as a baseline and with a lot of Google and trial and error, I turned that reference script that sort of did what I wanted into something that did exactly what I wanted.
All that said, a driver checking script probably isn't a great place to start because that actually has a lot of moving parts and complexities. As you say, even getting the latest release of a driver for a component can be tricky, and then you have to match that against the installed driver. That will be somewhat difficult because there are some drivers that are valid for multiple different device names, either slightly different devices (such as the same driver for multiple Intel WiFi model chipsets) or the same device in different modes (such as the Intel Rapid Storage driver being usable for systems in AHCI or RAID mode, with a different device name in each case).
But if you want to keep working on driver checking and comparing what's installed to what's available, try removing the automated online checking and download component by instead downloading the "Dell Command Deploy Driver Pack", which is a single package containing the latest release of ALL drivers for that system as of the time the Driver Pack was created. Extract that to a folder and work from there. First see if you can develop a script that will simply loop through each available driver in the folder you extracted into and capture the driver name and version. Then see if you can get your script to compare a given driver against the actual device in your system for which it's intended in order to determine whether the installed driver is current or not.
Good luck! And if you happen to be working with PowerShell and ever want a bit of guidance, feel free to reach out via PM.
jphughan
9 Legend
•
14K Posts
0
April 18th, 2020 16:00
@ShortBreak good job using this time to learn a new skill, and good approach to learning scripting. I'd read that when learning a new scripting or programming language, the most effective way to do so was to give yourself a problem to solve rather than just doing general research about cmdlets and concepts. So when I wanted to learn PowerShell, I started with a problem to solve. In my case because of the server engineering type of work I do, it was wanting to add a bunch of users and groups to the Administrators group of multiple computers. I started off with a reference script that sort of did what I wanted in order to have an example of working script and to see valid cmdlets, syntax, etc. I took that as a baseline and with a lot of Google and trial and error, I turned that reference script that sort of did what I wanted into something that did exactly what I wanted.
All that said, a driver checking script probably isn't a great place to start because that actually has a lot of moving parts and complexities. As you say, even getting the latest release of a driver for a component can be tricky, and then you have to match that against the installed driver. That will be somewhat difficult because there are some drivers that are valid for multiple different device names, either slightly different devices (such as the same driver for multiple Intel WiFi model chipsets) or the same device in different modes (such as the Intel Rapid Storage driver being usable for systems in AHCI or RAID mode, with a different device name in each case).
But if you want to keep working on driver checking and comparing what's installed to what's available, try removing the automated online checking and download component by instead downloading the "Dell Command Deploy Driver Pack", which is a single package containing the latest release of ALL drivers for that system as of the time the Driver Pack was created. Extract that to a folder and work from there. First see if you can develop a script that will simply loop through each available driver in the folder you extracted into and capture the driver name and version. Then see if you can get your script to compare a given driver against the actual device in your system for which it's intended in order to determine whether the installed driver is current or not.
Good luck! And if you happen to be working with PowerShell and ever want a bit of guidance, feel free to reach out via PM.
U2CAMEB4ME
4 Operator
•
6.2K Posts
0
April 18th, 2020 19:00
Welcome to the Dell Community @ShortBreak
Not sure if this will help???
Dell Family Driver Packs:
https://www.dell.com/support/article/en-us/how13322/dell-family-driver-packs?lang=en
Dell Command | Deploy Driver Packs for Enterprise Client OS Deployment:
https://www.dell.com/support/article/en-us/sln312414/dell-command-deploy-driver-packs-for-enterprise-client-os-deployment?lang=en
Best regards,
U2