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April 22nd, 2021 13:00

"Successful Application Reconfiguration" and SupportAssist

Every day several times a day, I see "Successful Application Reconfiguration"s in the Reliability Monitor for all of my Windows 10/Pro apps.  These informational events can number up to 1300 of them in a day, depending on how many times this set of events is triggered.  It all has to do with the operation of SupportAssist.  If SupportAsssist is not installed, these events do not occur.  But, when they do occur because SupportAssist is installed, it reduces the Reliability Monitor Stability Index to 1 and decreases performance.  There is some kind of incompatability between SupportAssist and other actions of Windows 10 that is causing these Reconfiguration events to occur.  It is not normal behavior (although a Dell agent tried to convince me that it is).  There is something about SupportAssist that causes this problem.  The SupportAssist Team needs to investigate it.  I do not want to solve the problem by uninstalling SupportAssist.  I want the Dell SupportAssist team to solve this problem by fixing SupportAssist so that it does not cause a "Successful Application Reconfiguration" event.

See https://www.dell.com/community/SupportAssist-for-PCs/XPS-8930-SupportAssist-and-Reliability-Monitor/m-p/7310226#M87983 for a report that uninstalling SupportAssist solves the problem.

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25.1K Posts

April 22nd, 2021 13:00

Thank you! We have received the required details. We will work towards a resolution. In the meantime, you may also receive assistance or suggestions from the community members.

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1.1K Posts

April 26th, 2021 15:00

Hi DELLKaren

Thanks for raising this issue. I hadn't even noticed that hundreds of these "Successful Application Reconfiguration" events are being logged each day by my Win 10 Reliability Monitor and Event Viewer. As of 4:00 PM today there were almost 200 of these events logged by my Reliability Monitor (most were created about 30 min after I booted up my laptop), and when I click the "View Technical Details" link for iTunes, for example, all it says is "Windows Installer reconfigured the product. Product Name: iTunes. Product Version: 12.11.3.17. Product Language: 1033. Manufacturer: Apple Inc.. Reconfiguration success or error status: 0."

Win 10 Pro v20H2 Reliability Monitor Successful Application Reconfiguration 196 Events 26 Apr 2021.png

Almost 9,450 of these events are currently listed in my Event Viewer at Windows Logs | Application (Source = MsiInstaller, Event ID = 1035) and date back to 02-Mar-2021, but it's possible there were earlier events logged that have already been purged from Event Viewer. I updated to Dell SupportAssist v3.8.1.23 on 14-Jan-2021 so I don't know if earlier versions of the DSA triggered this problem as well, but I see that B1tbull's thread XPS 8930, SupportAssist and Reliability Monitor that you referenced in your original post first noticed this problem back in May 2019.  CharlieM84's March 2018 thread 20 GBs of Updates in 10 Days! and cj17's May 2017 Problems After A Dell Update --- App.Reconfigured also reported this problem could be solved by uninstalling Dell SupportAssist.

Win 10 Pro v20H2 Event Viewer Source MsiInstaller Event ID 1035 26 Apr 2021.png

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64-bit Win 10 Pro v20H2 build 19042.928 * Firefox v88.0 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.2103.7 * Malwarebytes Premium v4.3.0.98-1.0.1273 * Dell SupportAssist v3.8.1.23
Dell Inspiron 15 5584, Intel i5-8265U CPU, 8 GB RAM, Toshiba KBG40ZNS256G 256 GB NVMe SSD, Intel UHD Graphics 620

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April 26th, 2021 18:00

Hi Imacri (a.k.a Great White North, right??  I used to follow you [and VolumeZ) back in the Vista days to keep Windows update going.]  Good to hear from you again.  I asked about this recently on AskWoody, too at Reliablity Monitor ....   There @b also said it could be due to SupportAssist and he provided another AskWoody link at What is successful Application Reconfiguration?.  At that link, there is a reply by anonymous at #2312427 who suggests looking at Task Scheduler, but I have no idea how to do that or what to look for. Anonymous also surmises that Microsoft is not following its own recommendations (a link underlies "follow" and "recommendations", but I was pretty much lost in reading those.)

I've also done a web search with the term "Windows Installer reconfigured the product" and several good leads came up, notably Window Installer's self-repair feature which explains that there is some kind of conflict going on and so has a link to installsite.org, which has a link to a program that will get you to file that is causing the conflict.  But, it's a bit more than I can digest.

I have talked to a Dell agent about this, but he was no help (said it was "normal"!!) 

I have uninstalled DSA and I still get the reconfigurations, so DSA doesn't seem to be the trigger. 

In my case, I get the reconfigurations every time I power up and when Windows Defender updates and  [It's not my primary AV, but I have Defender periodic scanning turned on.]  When Windows Defender updates, the reconfigurations occur exactly 26 minutes after Defender kicks in.  And, I usually have 400+ entries with one time stamp.  I've also noticed that in one time-stamp-period the reconfigurations cycle through the applications three times!!

I'd sure like to get to the bottom of this, but so far, I'm stymied, mostly by lack of expertise in knowing exactly how to hunt down the conflict.

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April 26th, 2021 18:00

Addendum:

Given that all of those "Successful application reconfiguration"s occur upon powering up and Windows Defender updates, I just bet that were I to run the program that identifies the file that is causing the conflict, it would be something that Windows is doing at "power up" or when the system starts looking for Windows Defender updates -- some Windows action that comes into play in either one of these situations. 

 

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April 26th, 2021 20:00

 Hello Imacri,

Is there any information here that is useful??

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April 27th, 2021 08:00

Hi DELLKaren:

Yes, I post in the Microsoft Answers forum as user Great White North. That's about the only forum where I don't use lmacri as my username.

I quickly scrolled through all the tasks in Task Scheduler and couldn't find a task that last ran on 26-Apr-2021 around 6:56 AM (the last time that the majority of these "Successful Application Reconfiguration" messages were logged in my Reliability Monitor and Event Viewer). As a test I left my computer in Sleep Mode last night instead of powering off in the evening as I usually do and I haven't seen any of these "Successful Application Reconfiguration" messages logged yet for 27-Apr-2021 (nor a Windows Update of my Microsoft Defender definitions, for that matter), so I'll monitor and see if they reappear today without a fresh re-boot of my system.

I didn't find much useful information in the Flexera article Windows Installer Starts a "Reconfiguration" Every Time a File is Opened From Explorer. In that case the original poster was using a .MSI installer for a custom-built program that probably wasn't coded to access Windows resources correctly. The solution for that thread stated "What is needed is to identify the conflict that the MSI files or system processes are quarreling about: http://www.installsite.org/pages/en/msifaq/a/1037.htm" but I didn't find that installsite.org article to be of much help either - that article is from the Win XP era and suggests looking in Event Viewer at Windows Logs | Application for warnings from event source "MsiInstaller" with Events IDs 1001 and 1004.  I checked my Event Viewer and none of my MsiInstaller events have an Event ID 1001 or 1004 that would directly point to the offending program.

In our case the Win 10 Reliability Monitor is showing us a list of the programs affected by these "Successful Application Reconfiguration" MsiInstaller events with Event ID 1035, and on my machine it looks like every program installed on my machine is affected. Your link for the MS support article Event Log Message Indicates That the Windows Installer Reconfigured All Installed Applications has some helpful information and notes that: 


"This problem can happen if one of the following conditions is true:
     - You have a group policy with a WMIFilter that queries Win32_Product class.

     - You have an application installed on the machine that queries Win32_Product class"

One of the solutions offered in that MS support article is to isolate the one poorly designed application [e.g., by performing a clean boot and then launching third-party (non-Microsoft) programs manually to see which program is triggering the Windows Installer Service to start a consistency check of all installed packages].  The Windows Central article How to Clean Boot Windows 10 (And Why You Might Want To) has some additional information on using a clean boot to isolate a problem application or service.  After that you must re-code the offending software so that it queries the "lighter" Win32reg_AddRemovePrograms class instead of Win32_Product class (which in turn calls msiprov.dll to perform the consistency check). You said that uninstalling Dell SupportAssist didn't stop your "Successful Application Reconfiguration" messages in Reliability Monitor, so you might have to follow that suggestion and perform a clean boot and then start launching other third-party programs like Dell Update, iTunes, etc. to see if you can re-create the issue.  If you are successful and find the offending program you'll still need to contact the manufacturer and have them fix the source code so that it doesn't query the Win32_Product class.

I'll keep monitoring my system and see if I can figure out what's triggering my own "Successful Application Reconfiguration" messages. I'm not very keen on uninstalling Dell SupportAssist to test if it's the culprit since DSA v3.8.1.23 currently seems to be working correctly on my machine (which hasn't always been the case in the past) and I don't want to risk performing another clean reinstall of the DSA unless it's really necessary.
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64-bit Win 10 Pro v20H2 build 19042.928 * Firefox v88.0 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.2103.7 * Malwarebytes Premium v4.3.0.98-1.0.1273 * Dell SupportAssist v3.8.1.23
Dell Inspiron 15 5584, Intel i5-8265U CPU, 8 GB RAM, Toshiba KBG40ZNS256G 256 GB NVMe SSD, Intel UHD Graphics 620

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1.1K Posts

April 29th, 2021 06:00

Hi DELLKaren:

I'm not sure why uninstalling the Dell SupportAssist (DSA) didn't fix this problem on your Inspiron 7569, but there does appear to be a connection between Dell SupportAssist and the "Successful Application Reconfiguration" events logged in the Win 10 Reliability Monitor of my Inspiron 5584. My initial tests show that these "Successful Application Reconfiguration" events:

  • Occur approx. 30 to 35 min after a system restart.
  • Are not triggered by a Microsoft Defender virus definition update or Quick Scan.
  • Do not occur if the Dell SupportAssist and Dell SupportAssist Remediation services are disabled (I'm not sure yet which service triggers the issue).

The images below of my Win 10 Reliability Monitor events were both captured for events logged on 28-Apr-2021.

Section A: System Wakes Up From Sleep Mode (No Re-boot) at ~ 6:40 AM, DSA Services Running

My previous system re-boot was at ~ 6:30 AM on 26-Sep-2020 (followed by ~ 195 "Successful Application Reconfiguration" events about 30 min after boot up). Instead of powering off my system at night as I usually do I simply put the system into Sleep Mode (Start | Power | Sleep) the evenings of 26-Apr-2021 and 27-Apr-2021 and did not see any further "Successful Application Reconfiguration" events for two days. I use Microsoft Defender as my default antivirus and for two days my virus definitions updated normally (highlighted in both images in blue) and my background Quick Scans ran without triggering these "Successful Application Reconfiguration" events.

Section B: System Re-booted at ~ 6:05 PM, DSA Services Still Running

About 30 min after my system was re-booted (red line in first image) a large batch of ~ 195 "Successful Application Reconfiguration" events were logged at 6:41 PM.

Section C: System Re-booted at ~7:35 PM, DSA Services Disabled

I disabled both the Dell SupportAssist service and Dell SupportAssist Remediation service in Windows Services (Start | Windows Administrative Tools | Services) by changing the Startup Type from the default "Automatic (Delayed Start)" to "Disabled", re-booted at 7:35 PM (red line in second image), and confirmed these services were not running. No "Successful Application Reconfiguration" events were logged after the re-boot.

Win 10 Pro v20H2 Reliability Monitor Before After 6_05 PM Re-Boot  28 Apr 2021.png

Win 10 Pro v20H2 Reliability Monitor Before After 7_35 PM Re-Boot DSA Disabled 28 Apr 2021.png


I powered off my computer last night and re-booted this morning on 29-Apr-2021 at ~ 6:35 AM (i.e., with both those DSA services still disabled) and still haven't seen any "Successful Application Reconfiguration" events logged. My basic Dell support service warranty expired on 07-Oct-2020 and I have all scheduled scans and optimizations (Drivers & Downloads / System Optimizations / Hardware Scans) disabled in  DSA at Settings | Schedule Scans and Optimizations | Turn On Automatic System Scans and Optimizations so there must be some other automatic task that the DSA is running that triggers these "Successful Application Reconfiguration" events on my system. My best guess is that it's either caused by a background DSA Virus & Malware Scan (recall Dell employee NikhilKiroula's 28-May-2020 post in my thread DSA v3.5.0 Bug? - Scheduled Drivers and Downloads Scan Ran Other Scans), by DSA collection and submission of telemetry data (Settings | Privacy | I Authorize Dell to Collect my Service Tag and System Usage Details Mentioned Above), or by DSA System Repair (Settings | System Repair | System Repair is Turned On) when it creates a backup of important system files in the hidden folder at C:\ProgramData\Dell\SARemediation\SystemRepair\. I'll run some more tests just to confirm that the "Successful Application Reconfiguration" events return once my DSA services are set back to their default "Automatic (Delayed Start)" startup type and see if I can figure out what DSA is doing in the background that is triggering these events on my Inspiron 5584.
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64-bit Win 10 Pro v20H2 build 19042.928 * Firefox v88.0 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.2103.7 * Malwarebytes Premium v4.3.0.98-1.0.1273 * Dell SupportAssist v3.8.1.23
Dell Inspiron 15 5584, Intel i5-8265U CPU, 8 GB RAM, Toshiba KBG40ZNS256G 256 GB NVMe SSD, Intel UHD Graphics 620



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May 2nd, 2021 08:00

Hi DELLKaren:

I've done more testing and it appears that Dell SupportAssist Remediation (i.e., Dell's System Repair feature that uses the SupportAssist OS Recovery Tools to create a backup of of important system files in the hidden folder at C:\ProgramData\Dell\SARemediation\SystemRepair\) is triggering the flood of "Successful Application Reconfiguration" events on my system. Just running Dell SupportAssist (e.g., to check for available updates - see test results below for 01-May-2021) by itself doesn't trigger the problem as long as the Dell SupportAssist Remediation service is disabled.

For the following tests my system was powered off every evening and re-booted once in the morning. Changes to the Startup Type for services were made in Windows Services (Start | Windows Administrative Tools | Services) just prior to shutdown the previous evening.  Updates for the Microsoft Defender virus definitions are highlighted in blue. Successful Application Reconfiguration" events are highlighted in purple.

April 29 and 30, 2021 - Both Dell SupportAssist and Dell SupportAssist Remediation Services Disabled

  • No flood of "Successful Application Reconfiguration" events for both days.

Win 10 Pro v20H2 Reliability Monitor Both DSA Services Disabled 29 Apr 2021.png

Win 10 Pro v20H2 Reliability Monitor Both DSA Services Disabled 30 Apr 2021.png

May 1, 2021 - Dell SupportAssist Service Enabled (Running) / Dell SupportAssist Remediation Service Disabled

  • No flood of "Successful Application Reconfiguration" events for entire day.
  • System booted up at 6:20 AM, confirmed Dell SupportAssist service started shortly after boot-up and that Dell SupportAssist Remediation service was not running.
  • Launched DSA at 4:25 PM and ran a manual update check (Get Drivers & Downloads); updated Dell Power Manager from v3.7.0 to v3.8.0 (highlighted in purple in the 01-May-2021 Reliability Monitor image).
  • Note that the option to enable / disable the Dell System Repair feature (normally listed below the Privacy settings - see image below) was missing from the DSA settings, and that DSA Get Drivers & Downloads check also recommended a full 580 MB update for the SupportAssist OS Recovery Tools v5.4.1.14954 even though this update was previously installed on my system on 13-Apr-2021 (see my thread Problem Updating To SupportAssist OS Recovery Tools v5.4.1.14594).


Win 10 Pro v20H2 Reliability Monitor DSA Remediation Service Disabled 01 May 2021.png

Win 10 Pro v20H2 Dell SupportAssist Services DSA Remediation Disabled 01 May 2021.pngDell SupoortAssist v3_8_1_23 Settings No System Repair With DSA Remediation Service Disabled 01 May 2021.png

May 2, 2021 - Both Dell SupportAssist and Dell SupportAssist Remediation Services Enabled (Running)

  • Flood of over 190 "Successful Application Reconfiguration" events logged at 7:01 AM.
  • System booted up at 6:25 AM, confirmed both the Dell SupportAssist and Dell SupportAssist Remediation services started shortly after boot-up.
  • The option to enable / disable the Dell System Repair feature re-appeared below the Privacy settings in the Dell SupportAssist settings and was enabled.
  • TreeSize Free Portable v4.4.2 confirmed there were no system backups created in the hidden folder at C:\ProgramData\Dell\SARemediation\SystemRepair\ during tests of April 29, April 30 or May 1 while the Dell SupportAssist Remediation service was disabled, and that the flood of "Successful Application Reconfiguration" events occurred at about the same time that Dell System Repair / Dell SupportAssist Remediation created a new backup on May 2, 2021.


Win 10 Pro v20H2 Reliability Monitor Both DSA Services Enabled 02 May 2021.png

Dell SupoortAssist v3_8_1_23 Settings System Repair With DSA Remediation Service Enabled 02 May 2021.png

TreeSize v4_2_2 Program Data Dell SystemRepair Snapshots DSA Remediation Service Enabled 02 May 2021.png

Now I just have to figure out how to get Dell SupportAssist to stop trying to re-install an update for the SupportAssist OS Recovery Tools v5.4.1.14954 that it already installed back on 13-Apr-2021 (but that's a problem for another day).
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64-bit Win 10 Pro v20H2 build 19042.928 * Firefox v88.0 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.2103.7 * Malwarebytes Premium v4.3.0.98-1.0.1273 * Dell SupportAssist v3.8.1.23 * TreeSize Free Portable v4.4.2.514
Dell Inspiron 15 5584, Intel i5-8265U CPU, 8 GB RAM, Toshiba KBG40ZNS256G 256 GB NVMe SSD, Intel UHD Graphics 620


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1.1K Posts

May 4th, 2021 16:00


@DELLKaren wrote:
...I have uninstalled DSA and I still get the reconfigurations, so DSA doesn't seem to be the trigger. 

In my case, I get the reconfigurations every time I power up and when Windows Defender updates and  [It's not my primary AV, but I have Defender periodic scanning turned on.]  When Windows Defender updates, the reconfigurations occur exactly 26 minutes after Defender kicks in.  And, I usually have 400+ entries with one time stamp.  I've also noticed that in one time-stamp-period the reconfigurations cycle through the applications three times!!...



Hi DELLKaren:

One more observation that points to Dell SupportAssist Remeditation as the cause of these "Successful Application Reconfiguration" events on my Inspiron 5584. It appears that simply turning off System Repair in the Dell SupportAssist settings ([Options (gear icon) | Settings | System Repair | System Repair is Turned On | DISABLED] will automatically disable the Dell SupportAssist Remediation service and stop these "Successful Application Reconfiguration" events from being logged. I turned off System Repair in Dell SupportAssist before powering off last night (03-May-2021)...

Dell SupportAssist v3_8_1_23 Settings Turn Off System Repair Warning 03 May 2021.png

...and there were no "Successful Application Reconfiguration" events logged after booting up at 6:24 AM today (04-May-2021).  I could also see that my Dell SupportAssist Remediation service was automatically disabled (i.e., the Startup Type changed from "Automatic (Delayed Start" to "Disabled") when System Repair was turned off.

Win 10 Pro v20H2 Reliability Monitor System Repair Disabled in DSA 04 May 2021.png

Win 10 Pro v20H2 Services DSA Remediation Service Auto-Disabled No Startup Repair 04 May 2021.png


I also went back through my logs and confirmed that these "Successful Application Reconfiguration" events come in repeating sets. I typically see a total of 192 events (4 repeating sets for the same 48 installed programs like iTunes, Dell SupportAssist, Macrium Reflect Free Edition, etc.) logged in the Win 10 Reliability Monitor and Event Viewer. All 192 of these events are logged within about 15 seconds of each other in one time-stamp period and they usually start about 30 min after boot-up, assuming that the Dell SupportAssist Remediation service is running and the System Repair feature is enabled in the Dell SupportAssist settings.
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64-bit Win 10 Pro v20H2 build 19042.928 * Firefox v88.0 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.2103.7 * Malwarebytes Premium v4.3.0.98-1.0.1273 * Dell SupportAssist v3.8.1.23 * Dell SupportAssist Remediation v5.4.1.14954
Dell Inspiron 15 5584, Intel i5-8265U CPU, 8 GB RAM, Toshiba KBG40ZNS256G 256 GB NVMe SSD, Intel UHD Graphics 620



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98 Posts

May 4th, 2021 23:00

Hi Imacri,

The last e-mail notice that I have received about postings to this topic was on April 26, when YOU posted with a thank-you message for raising the issue.  However, I am supposed to be subscribed to this topic and I should have gotten notifications about YOUR postings on April 27, April 29, May 2, and May 4.  But, I didn’t.  I only know that you have posted on these dates because I just got an e-mail from Dell-Cares (May 5) asking me to test out the same remedies that you have taken to see if I get the same results (i.e., no more reconfigurations).

And I see your quote of a post I made about having uninstalled DSA. I remember posting that, but I don’t know the date, and I don’t even see it here in its original form.  Something must not be right with my settings.  I’ll have to check that out.

So, this is an explanation of what’s going on at my end.  If I can’t figure out why I’m not getting any notifications of postings to this topic, I’ll keep checking the topic manually to see any new replies/postings.

I thought that you might be interested to know that DELL Cares is asking for me to see if I get the same results.  I will try to follow through with that in the next day or two.

I have an Inspiron 5482 in addition to the older 7569.  Unlike the 7569, I have not uninstalled DSA nor Dell Update nor Dell Update for Windows 10 on the 5482.  So, it will be easier to do the testing.

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1.1K Posts

May 5th, 2021 06:00


@DELLKaren wrote:

...The last e-mail notice that I have received about postings to this topic was on April 26, when YOU posted with a thank-you message for raising the issue.  However, I am supposed to be subscribed to this topic and I should have gotten notifications about YOUR postings on April 27, April 29, May 2, and May 4.  But, I didn’t...



Hi DELLKaren:

No worries, and thanks for letting me know. When I troubleshoot I try to make a single configuration change and then test for a few days to ensure the test results are consistent, so I just assumed you were still playing around with your settings when you didn't reply.

Here's a summary of my findings if you're looking for some place to start troubleshooting - if I temporarily disable the Dell SupportAssist Remediation service this will stop the flood of "Successful Application Reconfiguration" events logged by the Windows Installer service in Event Viewer (see the Windows Logs |  Application section - Source: MsiInstaller;  Event ID 1035) and the Win 10 Reliability Monitor of my Inspiron 5584.

If you'd like to test yourself, open your Windows Services (Start button | Windows Administrative Tools | Services), right click on the Dell SupportAssist Remediation service (not the Dell SupportAssist service) and choose Properties, change the Startup Type from the default "Automatic (Delayed Start)" to "Disabled", and click OK. Then re-boot your system and wait for about 5 or 10 minutes, and go back into Windows Services and confirm that the Dell SupportAssist Remediation is not running (i.e., the Startup Type is "Disabled" and the Status is blank instead of "Running").

Win 10 Pro v20H2 Services DSA Remediation Service Properties Startup Type Disabled 05 May 2021.png

I don't know if it's relevant but I used to find that the behaviour of this Dell forum platform software seemed very buggy. and I found that the features worked much better after I created an exclusion for the entire www.dell.com site in my Adblock Plus ad blocker extension (see my Dec 2019 thread Posts Keep Getting Marked as Spam / Sent for Review). If you have an ad blocker extension like Adblock Plus or uBlock Origin installed in your browser you might want to try whitelisting the www.dell.com  and/or www.dell.com/community sites to see if this stops the odd behaviour you're seeing with your subscription notifications.
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64-bit Win 10 Pro v20H2 build 19042.928 * Firefox v88.0 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.2103.7 * Malwarebytes Premium v4.3.0.98-1.0.1273 * Dell SupportAssist v3.8.1.23 * Dell SupportAssist Remediation v5.4.1.14954
Dell Inspiron 15 5584, Intel i5-8265U CPU, 8 GB RAM, Toshiba KBG40ZNS256G 256 GB NVMe SSD, Intel UHD Graphics 620


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98 Posts

May 5th, 2021 11:00

Hi Imacri,

I did get an e-mail notification of this reply, which is good.  It used to be that all you had to do was to subscribe to a topic and you would get a notification each time someone responded.  But, I've discovered that there's more to it now.  You have to go to Manage your Subscriptions and Settings and make five or six setting for how you want to receive notifications.  I had default settings, one of which was to receive an e-mail only about the first post in the topic, and the other of which was to receive an e-mail anytime there was a kudos on my post.  So, your kudos is what alerted me that you had read my first post, and I think your April 26 post qualified as the first post of yours in the topic for which I got an e-mail notification.  (Why does Dell makes things sooo complicated??).  Now, I have change the setting to to receive e-mail about all postings, thus an e-mail today about your latest post.

I am going to follow-through on your suggestion to temporarily change the Startup Type on Dell SupportAssist Remediation service to "disabled".  However, you call this a temporary change.  I suppose then that the "reconfigurations" will return?. 

I think I read that you had also turned off "System Repair" in DSA.  Currently, I have it on.  So, should I be doing that, too -- at the same time?  or control the variables and do one first  (e.g. change Dell SupportAssist Remediation Service, wait to see what happens, change it back) and then do the other (e.g., Turn off System Repair"?  Or does turning off/disabling one automatically disable the other?

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May 5th, 2021 13:00


@DELLKaren wrote:


...I am going to follow-through on your suggestion to temporarily change the Startup Type on Dell SupportAssist Remediation service to "disabled".  However, you call this a temporary change.  I suppose then that the "reconfigurations" will return?...


Hi DELLKaren:

If your system behaves like my Inspiron 5594, the flood of "Successful Application Reconfiguration" events should not be created in your Win 10 Reliability Monitor as long as the Dell SupportAssist Remediation service is not running (i.e., Startup Type = Disabled and Status is blank / not started at boot-up). If you change the Startup Type of that service back to the default "Automatic (Delayed Start)" and re-boot to start the service again the flood of "Successful Application Reconfiguration" events should restart about 30 min after the re-boot. See my results test <here> for May 1, 2021 and May 2, 2021.

According to the Dell SupportAssist OS Recovery User's Guide "The recovery environment enables you to diagnose hardware issues, repair your computer, back up your files, or reset your computer to its factory state." I only said "temporary" because you might not want to leave this Dell SupportAssist Remediation service permanently disabled if you are ever unable to boot up your computer at some point in the future and want to use System Repair and the Dell SupportAssist OS Recovery for an emergency recovery. Having these Dell tools running on my system isn't critical for me because I also use Macrium Reflect Free to create the occasional full disk image of my system for emergency recovery, and I've also enabled Windows System Restore on my Inspiron 5584 as instructed in the Windows Central article How to Use System Restore on Windows 10 (I have no idea why Microsoft disabled this feature in Win 10 by default).


...I think I read that you had also turned off "System Repair" in DSA.  Currently, I have it on.  So, should I be doing that, too -- at the same time?...Or does turning off/disabling one automatically disable the other?

If I recall correctly, disabling System Repair in the Dell SupportAssist settings achieves the same thing because it automatically disables the Dell SupportAssist Remediation service.  The only difference is that you will see the warning "When System Repair is turned off, we'll remove any backups we created for you and free up any hard drive space that they used. You can turn System Repair back on at any time if you'd like to back up important system files again." when you disable the System Repair setting in DSA (see my image <here>).   After turning off System Repair I could still see older backup files at C:\ProgramData\Dell\SARemediation\SystemRepair\ when I viewed this hidden folder with TreeSize Free so I'm not sure that warning is actually valid, but if loosing your old DSA System Repair restore points is a concern it's probably better to just disable the Dell SupportAssist Remediation service manually and leave System Repair enabled to see what effect that has on your own system.
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64-bit Win 10 Pro v20H2 build 19042.928 * Firefox v88.0 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.2103.7 * Malwarebytes Premium v4.3.0.98-1.0.1273 * Dell SupportAssist v3.8.1.23 * Dell SupportAssist Remediation v5.4.1.14954 * Macrium Reflect Free v7.3.5854 * TreeSize Free Portable v4.4.2.514
Dell Inspiron 15 5584, Intel i5-8265U CPU, 8 GB RAM, Toshiba KBG40ZNS256G 256 GB NVMe SSD, Intel UHD Graphics 620

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98 Posts

May 5th, 2021 13:00

Hi Imacri,

In case you haven't discovered it yet -- at about 2:54 PM EST, when I opened DSA on my 5482, it indicated that a new version is available.  (The Inspiron 7569 doesn't have DSA now, since I deleted it to see if "reconfigurations" would go away).  I updated -- new version is 3.9.0234. My previous settings did not change: Under "Automate scans and optimizations," the box for "Scan your system and drivers" is still not checked.  The "System Repair" box is still checked.  (I haven't turned it off yet).  90 days of history are still there, but the History page is formatted differently.

The new DSA reports that there are no updates available.  (I had downloaded and installed Dell Power Manager Service via DSA on May 3, 2021 and SupportAssist OS Recovery Tools 93.0 MB 04/01/2021 version 5.4.1.14954 on April 11 via Dell Update and again on April 20 via DSA.)   

So, here's another variable in the mix.  I will keep an eye on the Reliability Monitor see see if there are still reconfigurations.  There were two sets of them earlier -- one at 2:26 AM and another at 3:21 pm (prior to the new version of DSA).

 

3 Apprentice

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1.1K Posts

May 5th, 2021 18:00


@DELLKaren wrote:


In case you haven't discovered it yet -- at about 2:54 PM EST, when I opened DSA on my 5482, it indicated that a new version is available.... -- new version is 3.9.0234.

The new DSA reports that there are no updates available.  (I had downloaded and installed Dell Power Manager Service via DSA on May 3, 2021 and SupportAssist OS Recovery Tools 93.0 MB 04/01/2021 version 5.4.1.14954 on April 11 via Dell Update and again on April 20 via DSA.) ...



Hi DELLKaren:

Thanks for the heads up. After I launched Dell SupportAssist this evening it automatically updated from v3.8.1.23 to v3.9.0.234. The old DSA v3.8.1 had previously installed SupportAssist OS Recovery Tools v5.4.1.14954 on 13-Apr-2021, but my first update check with the new DSA v3.9.0 detected the same SupportAssist OS Recovery Tools v5.4.1.14954 again as an available update. Today's re-install with DSA v3.9.0 repeatedly failed - it would download the full 580 MB update for the SupportAssist OS Recovery Tools but then display the error message shown below during the install. After a few re-boots and three installation failures with DSA v3.9.0 I finally tried Dell Update v4.1.0 (after quitting Malwarebytes Premium - I don't know if that helped) and the re-install of SupportAssist OS Recovery Tools v5.4.1.14954 finally succeeded. I also noticed that System Repair re-enabled itself in the new DSA v3.9.0 settings (and I now have a whole new batch of over 576 "Successful Application Reconfiguration" events in the Win 10 Reliability Monitor: 48 programs x 4 repeats per time-stamp x 3 re-boots) so I'll have to start my troubleshooting again from scratch.

DSA v3_9_0_234  SA OS Recovery Tools v5_4_1_15954 Reinstall Failed 05 May 2021.png

I wonder if the new DSA v3.9.0 is part of the fix for the security vulnerability reported 04-May-2021 in the Dell security advisory DSA-2021-088: Dell Client Platform Security Update for an Insufficient Access Control Vulnerability in the Dell dbutil Driver which states in part:


"Dell has remediated the dbutil driver and has released firmware update utility packages for supported platforms running Windows 10, Dell Command Update, Dell Update, Alienware Update, Dell System Inventory Agent and Dell Platform Tags. For supported platforms on Windows when you:

  • install a remediated package containing the BIOS, Thunderbolt firmware, TPM firmware, or dock firmware; or
  • update Dell Command Update, Dell Update, or Alienware Update; or
  • install the latest version of Dell System Inventory Agent or Dell Platform Tags,

The remediated dbutil driver is installed on your system. Refer to Remediation Step 2 for details."


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64-bit Win 10 Pro v20H2 build 19042.928 * Firefox v88.0 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.2103.7 * Malwarebytes Premium v4.3.0.98-1.0.1273 * Dell SupportAssist v3.9.0.234 * Dell SupportAssist Remediation v5.4.1.14954
Dell Inspiron 15 5584, Intel i5-8265U CPU, 8 GB RAM, Toshiba KBG40ZNS256G 256 GB NVMe SSD, Intel UHD Graphics 620

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