"Dell Dock has stopped working" - Very annoying!

Hi All, Here is the reply i have received from DELL, i havent tried it yet as we are away from home without the laptop!  I dont hold out much hope for this but may help someone:

Chezzi.

Let us first run the Preboot System Assessment (PSA) to check on your Dell laptop's hardware status. 

1.  Ensure that the computer is powered off.

2.  Press and hold and press the power button to power the computer on.

3.  Release both buttons. The PSA diagnostics sequence begins.

4.  Make note of any PSA beep codes or PSA error codes

Please confirm if there are any changes done on your computer such as installing new software (applications/programs) and hardware before the issue started.  If there was a new hardware installed on your computer before the issue started, kindly uninstall them and check your computer's functionality.  And if there's new software installed before the issue started, please run System Restore & choose a restore point when your computer was working properly.  Kindly back up your files before performing System Restore.

For your reference, I have pasted a link to a Dell webpage which contains information on System Restore and how to go about performing it.

Restore A Computer Using System Restore In Microsoft Windows Vista http://tinyurl.com/5f8hnw

OR

http://support.euro.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/dsn/en/document?c=uk&dl=false&l=en&s=gen&docid=34467C630F9E5F24E040A68F5B284ECB&doclang=en&cs=

If issue persists after running System Restore, please install the latest version of the following:

1.  Notebook System Software

2.  BIOS

3.  Chipset

For your convenience, here's the link to Dell's Drivers & Downloads : http://tinyurl.com/yb4pevs

Please install them in the order they are listed below and restart your computer after each installations. 

Kindly let us know the results of the following troubleshooting steps so that we can accurately diagnose this issue. Thank you for your patience during this process.

Nope. It is something to do with Vista Home Basic. You can download from www.delldock.com if like my daughter your dell toys are bust you *cannot* download from dell drivers.  I know that whatever is stopping event viewer from running is at the heart of it. There are no msdn blogs on what is causing that on my daughter's machine. If you goto c:\windows\microsoft.net and have only framework ( eg HB ) then you have the problem if you also have framework64, then you do not have the problem. I think a value in machine.config is stuffed along with a value in the registry.

I only bought my laptop in July so I qualified for the Windows 7 upgrade. I did not use the DELL dock when I had Vista (only because I hardly used my laptop and was waiting for W7) however I have now upgraded my INSPIRON laptop from Vista to Windows 7.

The laptop is a 64 bit Inspiron.

I have set the DELL dock to autohide and have found that sometimes it will not appear when I start my laptop. (although I have not had any error messages)

I have a Google toolbar for Internet Explorer installed and I think this automatically puts the Google link in the lower task bar.

What I have discovered (purely by accident) is that if I click on "Google" in my lower task bar and type in DELL dock, it automatically activates the dock again.

When I typed it the first time, I was looking for information on why DELL dock was not working and, "hey presto".....another mystery solved.

Don't ask me how, I am no expert, but I hope this helps some of you out there !!    Good Luck.

It happen to me yesterday and i was all day trying to fix it but nothing, today i uninstalled and installed again and nothing, i dont know wat exactly i did but i went  to;program files/dell folder and dell dock folder and drag it to program files+86 and then close them and go to start/allprograms/ dell dock folder and double click it and it fixed it.  i hope it will work for you.

satine,

Thank you for using the Dell Community Forum.

Did you uninstall the program and then download from www.delldock.com  ?  What is the error if any you receive?

I just experienced this problem overnight.  Same symptoms - stopped working and the error reporter tool doesn't work. My laptop has a habit of updating itself while in standby mode and I found that Windows 7 (Home Premium) had restarted after a crash - Dell Dock was no longer working.

I found however that I didn't have to uninstall Dell Dock or go folder-diving, I just went to www.delldock.com and reinstalled the program and now it works again. Whew!  I still have no idea what caused the problem though.

Hey guys and gals

Dell dock 15 still works http://download.cnet.com/Dell-Dock/3000-2072_4-10966816.html

Hope this helps.

Oh and if any dell service person reads this you are useless and won't be buying another dell

Luke......I tried your link & it seems to be working! Thanks soooo much!!!!!!

I found a solution for this problem that doesn't require that you downgrade the Dell Dock version.

The problem seems to be with a single file located in

C:\Users\[your username]\AppData\Local\Stardock_Corporation\DellDock.exe_Url_[some characters]

Just delete the user.config file that's in there and your dock should be working again. I have version 16a, and all that I lost for that file were the settingsfor the dock's color and position of the dock. My shortcuts were still there.

I uninstalled and downloaded the dell dock from CNET.com and NOT the dell dock site. It worked! Hope this helps someone else! I had previously tried system restore, uninstall/reinstall, registry clean, etc.

Thank you for your response H3NRY.  I've been trying to fix this for quite a while, and have tried lots of the solutions in this forum, but nothing worked.  I stumbled across your posting a few minutes ago, so I thought i'd give it a try.  I'm happy to report, not only is it simple.......but it works.  Thanks  

.

Hi, I would love some  assistance with me dell dock. one day it just stopped working (i did change the location right before the problem) and I just thought maybe if I shut down my laptop and start it up again that I wouldn't have the problem, but it's been a couple days now and I don't know to fix the problem. I opened up my guest account and that dock is working just fine. any advice?

None of the above suggestions worked?