Windows General

[Fly-Catchers]

I have had my XPS 8500 for almost 4 years now. Recently on looking at my Reliability Monitor I see that there was an update from DELL that updated the Data Vault to version 4.3.7.0. I don't really know what the Data Vault actually does and have never made use of it. However since this update I am now getting short pauses and glitches when watching videos or listening to music. On searching the net the culprit appears to be the Dell Data Vault hogging the system resources briefly. I cannot find the Data Vault in my programs list nor does searching for DellDataVault.exe throw up anything. But it is listed twice in services in the windows task manager and shown as running. So how can I uninstall it?

thanks

bill

[mvalpreda]

Found the WMI on my brand new Latitude 7490 going nuts and led me to Dell Data Vault Collector as the culprit. I disabled the services, but curious what that is tied to in Add/Remove Programs. I don't have the ones listed....probably because I am on a business laptop and not an XPS.

The Dell 'installs' I have are 

1. Dell Command | Power Manager
2. Dell Command | Update (doubt it is this)
3. Dell Digital Delivery
4. Dell Support Assist
5. Dell Support Assist Agent

My thoughts it is one of the last 2. 

Am using the Dell image, but once Windows 10 1803 goes RTM it might be time for a clean install. 

[TheDesertDog]

I don't show Dell Data anything installed yet I still see it running. What is Dell Data Vault supposed to be doing anyway?

[Ammby]

Still seems a mystery here so far.....

[Ander333]

It boggles my mind that Dell's being so evasive about this—avoiding explaining what the dang process even does, and giving irrelevant suggestions on deactivating it.

And why is this topic marked "Solved", when no useful help has been provided yet?

[Gucek001]

It is unbelievable how useless Dell support is. All the forums exist, just so people can help themselves and each other. Do not count on sensible, clear answer from Dell.. :(

[DavidPG]

@Gucek001It's a common problem nowadays. Software & hardware manufacturers seem to get it into their heads that the stuff they write is *absolutely* essential, and that our computers will be completely dysfunctional without it. Hence you'll find that anyone from Dell that sees this thread will simply spout the party line that they've been trained to say, and call it an essential Dell program.

Truth of the matter: it's absolutely useless, and the services can be safely stopped and set to disabled using "services.msc" I did this on my Alienware 15 R3 that I bought about a year ago, and haven't noticed any ill effects at all.

Worse yet, Dell aren't alone in this attitude. Microsoft have the same problem: take their "Storage Service" as an example. According to anyone at Microsoft that you talk to, it's an essential service that must be left running. Never mind that it takes the liberty of writing a hidden "System Volume Information" folder to every single USB and flash storage device that's plugged into your system. Like you really want that or need it. And again the truth of the matter is that the "Storage Service" can be stopped/disabled with absolutely no ill effects, and as an added bonus Windows will now leave your USB drives alone when you plug them in.

[down1nit]

In my case "Dell SupportAssist" was the culprit.  Different than "SupportAssist".

[NoNic]

Just Disable it. Start Task Manager, go to Services tab, find and right click on DDVDataCollector, then click (Open) Services, find & right click Dell Data Vault Collector, go to Properties and change Start Up Type to Disabled.

[DellUserSince1989]

Many thanks to @NoNic 

By doing as described by her/him I found the following descriptions in the driver's window (copied and pasted):

DDV Collector service gathers system information and stores it for later use

Dell Data Vault Service API exposes a COM API for working with the DDV services

DDV Rules Processor generates alerts based on data collected by DDV Collector service

---

My conclusion: It seems that these services try to protect their users.

Yes: Dell should inform about the purpuse of these services when booting the new device the first time.

And they should provide yes / no.

My conclusion: I let them run (despite the fact that I do not expect to get an alert :-).

[averageguy2018]

My old laptop had slowed down considerably and I noticed a new install of Dell software on my machine. Data Vault was also being flagged by Windows anti-virus. I removed all Dell software and my performance increased by 100%.