Dell Support Center Error 1706

Wrong answer from any perspective.  Geez.

Couple ways to get rid of it.  In the past in some cases you could manually track down the original installer and run it directly - problem is figuring out exactly where it is.  If you want to try that do a search for D*.msi on your PC - be sure to select hidden files, too. 

But probably easier to try the Windows Installer Cleanup Utility, which should allow you to reinstall the software properly so it can be uninstalled cleanly.  See my post here:

http://www.dellcommunity.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=sw_other&message.id=67318&query.id=344883#M67318

Alexandra,

Windows Installer Clean-up Utility worked!  No more annoying messages trying to install the Dell Support Center (Support Software).  I just wish the Dell tech support folks would learn about this instead of making recommendations, like reinstalling Windows XP.   Someone may actually follow their advice.

Last question: Now that I don't have the support software, do I need it?  Sounds dumb, I know, but I can't figure out whether I should have it, what's the benefit (if any) and where to get it if I do want it.

You're my guiding light at this point so please let me know.

Thank you so much for your help. 

Art

Yes, it's unfortunate. Just my opinion, but it's one of those "one size fits nobody" freebie deals that's well-intentioned but not well executed.

Anyway, consensus here is it's not worth the trouble if it doesn't behave.  It doesn't do anything you can't do yourself with minimal effort and it's strictly optional.  

Most of it is shortcuts to stuff you can find just fine on your own - warranty, system configuration, manuals, etc.  Only a couple more clicks get you all of that directly from the Dell support site.   There are also free utilities that are much leaner and less invasive that can help consolidate your system information if you want.

It does phone home to Dell looking for any new driver or application updates.  I am in the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" school of updates.   Some updates (like BIOS) are not to be undertaken lightly - in the rare event they go wrong, you could be in serious trouble.  If you do need an update again a couple clicks on the Dell Support Site gets you there.  In any case, if your system is out of production or out of warranty, there won't be updates to speak of anyway. 

Other features run a hardware scan and check to see if your Java's up to date, your firewall's turned on, etc.  For software,  I just check for updates regularly on my own (and an earlier version I ran made a few mistakes anyway - not sure about the newest one).    For hardware, the regular Dell Diagnostics works just fine and runs outside of windows - no chance of some weird software conflict causing a problem. Anyway, I personally don't worry about diagnostics unless there's actually something to diagnose :) .

And last, but not least, there is no option in the program itself to turn it off and/or keep it from running at every startup in the background.   To me this is an absolute dealbreaker - sure, you can use utilities to disable it, but that shouldn't be necessary.   Even my antivirus/firewall software lets me turn it off with a simple right-click if I need to - no matter how stupid it is to do so.

Okay, enough bloviating from me.  If you want to give it a go and see if it's worthwhile to you, it's available at the link below.  

http://www.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx/services/en/dsc_home?