Email Technical Support

it took ages to locate the point of contact

Support contact details can be found in the same place they're found on any manufacturer's website... namely in the Support section of the website :emotion-55:

Not only that, but there's a link to the support section on the Dell website specifically, at the top of this/every forums page :emotion-42:

... it keeps wanting you to download their version of direct x.

What "it"?

Why do you have to download direct x?

You don't!

I don't know why you were (apparently) asked to download DirectX, because:

1.  As you can see from this description of it, DirectX has absolutely nothing at all to do with Dell?  Nor is it a support requirement... on any website?

2.  DirectX is an integral part of the OS, and as such - is included with the OS installation files, so it'll already have been on your system.

You may have downloaded a more up-to-date of it from the Microsoft website, but it certainly wasn't (/isn't) necessary for getting support!

Perhaps its time to switch from Dell.

That's your prerogative of course... but I'd suggest you need to work on your search skills, before passing blame onto anyone else in the future :emotion-55:

You might have a fantasic spec you want to show off and you are good at criticism but you are not much good at helping out.

I do not consider myself an IT expert, if I was I would not need to go to support, but I have perhaps the above average expertise - and perhaps more than the average dell customer. Normally I have no problem searching and finding support and getting support from web sites, but dell has become a pain. Going from the US to the UK and several apages later you get to where support appears to be and then no show.

However, I have only tried 7 times and to give you the benefit of the doubt I have tried again. After entering contact details dell support wants to download sys.proCAB and the little box at the top of the screen comes up asking for this and asking if you trust dell and so I do and it fails to download and you are sent back to square one. This seems to be neccessary for getting support - so how do I get round that? What is sys.proCAB? Why does it fail to download?

Syspro is an ActiveX control for Dell's system profiler utility - DirectX is something else entirely.      Syspro.CAB is the compressed version of the file - when it runs, it extracts and adds a syspro.ocx file as an add-on to Internet Explorer.      Each time you access a Dell page that has that "May we scan your computer?", it uses that ActiveX control in the browser to do it.   Basically it scans your PC for service tag and configuration information.

ActiveX only works natively on Internet Explorer - Firefox or Chrome don't directly support it.    Any number of things can go wrong with ActiveX controls, but one thing to check (assuming it is IE) is that your security settings are set to either prompt or allow - if they're disabled, it won't install.

All contact with Tech Support requires entering a valid service tag,  but I'm not aware of any changes that actually require using the profiler.    What happens if you just say "No, I don't trust you"?

During the 'system' stage either way if you try and download syspro.CAB or not you get ' Error determining system information. Please try again later.' and then back to square one. We use Windows Explorer and we have entered the service tag at the beginning of the process.

Just managed to get round it by turning off pop up blocker and disabling active x controls this enabled syspro.CAB to download.....now just got to solve the real problem out - power save crash - another thread. Thanks for your help.