Missing system in driver pack catalog cab

I notice my ticket was moved from the Systems Management General forum, to "Precision Fixed Workstations" - okay, that's fine, but has any progress been made in providing the proper Win10 driver cab to the driverpackcatalog cab file?

Some sort of update would be appreciated. Thanks.

Thank you.

@HornHead 

This is incorrect.  You cannot point to a cab file it must be extracted.  Within the 2.5 meg XML file it clearly has  the 3660.

There is support for this but the support is not free.

ZIP, EXE, CAB files must be extracted you cannot point to a cab, exe, zip file and expect windows to see something.

Precision-3660-Tower-1Y2PJ_Win11_1.0_A00.exe

precision 3660 tower driver pack

DRIVER PACKS PRECISION

https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-us/000109842/

Hello speedstep. Yes, I already knew that was there. From my original post: "open it up and extract the .xml file within, then open that and search for "3660" - you will see the only download options are for Windows 11."

I had already grepped that file for 3660. I found the Win11 driver cab. I want Dell to fix the .xml file in the cab so that it has both the Win10 cab and the Win11 cab, because, as I also pointed out in the original post, I see that Dell produces a Win10 cab for this system.

I'm not asking for anything more complicated than simply to use their automated xml-generation tool to create a new xml that contains the correct section for the win10 driver pack.

Hi HornHead,

it looks like it has been a month since your post and we are seeing the same issue here with Dell Command Integration in our MS Configuration Manager.  We don't really want to have download this driver pack manually.  Might have to raise a support ticket. 

EDIT exe here

precision-3660-tower-windows-10-driver-pack

Pardon me. You're right I misspoke, it's an .exe not a .cab.

Regarding your comment on bandwidth: I think Dell would much rather that I download that 8GB exe file a single time, on my Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Machine that then deploys the driver files out to a hundred Precision 3660 computers at no cost to Dell... rather than download those driver files 100 times.

That's the whole point of why sysadmins like me like these automated programs so much - we get the .exe/.cab files a single time from Dell, extract them into our driver management tools, and then we never need to re-download drivers from Dell for that particular model again.

Have you not used the Dell Command driver pack catalog before? What you're saying that "dell doesn't like" is exactly the whole whole point of it. From the page I just linked to:

"Instructions

The Dell Command | Deploy Catalog (a.k.a Driver Pack Catalog) 1.0 (Release Notes) is metadata about the latest System and WinPE Driver Packs released by Dell. It supports Dell Tablets, Latitude, OptiPlex and Precision systems. It allows customers to locate and download the current Dell Command | Deploy Driver Packs (a.k.a Driver Packs) with the automation method of their choice."

So yeah, I'm not asking Dell to build my system image for me. I'm not asking for anything even unusual or out of the ordinary, speedstep. I'm just pointing out that the file they are making available to download, "driverpackcatalog.cab" which contains "driverpackcatalog.xml" was not generated properly, because it is missing the relevant section for the Windows 10 drivers for this Precision 3660.

In your own post, you correctly point out the section for Windows 11:

Precision-3660-Tower-1Y2PJ_Win11_1.0_A00.exe

So, my point is that the problem is that there is no section like that for Windows 10. We can see that the URL path structure for the Win10 driver version is almost identical to the "path" argument in the section you linked above.

You could see exactly how the URL below could go into a similar "path" argument, right?

https://downloads.dell.com/FOLDER08645369M/1/Precision-3660-Tower-469P0_Win10_1.0_A01.exe

So, do you disagree and think that Dell's .xml file is properly generated and I'm complaining about something that isn't Dell's responsibility to fix, or for some reason, suddenly with no warning, Dell has just decided to not put Win10 driver exe files into their driverpackcatalog.xml file?

Or, more likely, this is just a simple mistake that Dell could fix simply by re-running the generator program that creates the .xml file in the first place?

That's all we want! We just want a fixed version of this .xml file that contains properly formatted links to the Win10 version of the .exe file, so that our automated tools can use the .xml file to download the file.

---

@speedstep wrote:

EDIT exe here

precision-3660-tower-windows-10-driver-pack

 

---

Hello again speedstep. The link you put in your post "EDIT exe here" is exactly the link that I already had in my initial post.

While I do appreciate that you "do not work for Dell. You too are a user" as your signature says, it does not seem like you are quite understanding our issue.

The user AnthonyBenger and I aren't talking about simply downloading a dell driver pack cab. We are talking about the .xml files that Dell themselves make available to sysadmins like ourselves to programatically (not manually) download and extract driver cabs in large quantities.

Here is my original post again, emphasis added for your benefit:

We use Driver Automation Tool to automatically download drivers from Dell's servers. We recently got in a Precision Tower 3660 and found that the Win10 driver cab is missing from the driverpackcatalog.xml file - you can see this yourself by visiting https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-us/000122176/driver-pack-catalog and downloading the .cab file, open it up and extract the .xml file within, then open that and search for "3660" - you will see the only download options are for Windows 11. However we can see right here that there IS an existing Windows 10 cab file: https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-us/000199139/precision-3660-tower-windows-10-driver-pack

"However we can see right here that there IS an existing Windows 10 cab file:"

https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-us/000199139/

Actually No because its NOT A CAB the file is a compressed exe and its a monzter over 8 gigs decompressed. This is where the issue for large enterprises comes in.

Dell likely doesnt want to encourage on the fly downloads because the bandwidth for 8 gig cab files is huge.

https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-us/000147137/

The other issue is that support is not free for SCCM or Dell Command etc and images.  You can get an onsite dell engineer that will configure and maintain this repository.  HOWEVER thats an expensive option.  My employer pays $250,000.00 for Onsite Dell Engineer support 24 x 7 x 365.  Its actually 3 people with 3 backups for each 8 hour shift.

  Want Dell to build your image?  Dell provides fee-based Image Management Services.  Use the appropriate link below to contact one of our regional IMS teams for more information.

• Americas
• Europe, Middle-East & Africa
• Asia Pacific & Japan

@HornHead 

I have used Dell command and CCTK and Open manage et al.  I am MCP and Dell certified for warranty repairs and service.  However I am in management now so I don't get to do much of that anymore I have to delegate it to employees and contractors as a contracting officer with a warrant.

However my management didnt like the amount of time and effort required to keep it updated.  Both Dell and Microsoft support SCCM and COMMAND but not free.  Which is why my employer pays for onsite Dell engineer to take care of this.  The support engineer is 24 X 7 X 365 and very expensive annual contract. What you are asking for is not likely free. Just like extended support for WIN7 is not free etc.

Both dell and microsoft provide extended support for 7 and 10 but not for free.   This is also why models drop off support for versions of windows 10 that are now EOL EOS.

This is why not all models not all versions of windows support all systems and more and more drop off support over time.

Version                Start Date           End Date
Version 21H2     Nov 16, 2021    Jun 13, 2023
Version 21H1     May 18, 2021    Dec 13, 2022
Version 20H2     Oct 20, 2020     May 10, 2022
Version 2004     May 27, 2020    Dec 14, 2021
Version 1909     Nov 12, 2019    May 11, 2021
Version 1903     May 21, 2019    Dec 8, 2020
Version 1809     Nov 13, 2018    Nov 10, 2020
Version 1803     Apr 30, 2018    Nov 12, 2019
Version 1709     Oct 17, 2017    Apr 9, 2019
Version 1703     Apr 11, 2017    Oct 9, 2018
Version 1607      Aug 2, 2016     Apr 10, 2018
Version 1511     Nov 10, 2015    Oct 10, 2017
Version 1507     Jul 29, 2015      May 9, 2017

"Dell has just decided to not put Win10 driver exe files into their driverpackcatalog.xml file?"

No windows 10 is at extended support phase soon to be gone forever just like XP Vista  7   8  are now.  8.1 goes away very soon.

WE STILL NEED WINDOWS 10 DRIVERS PERIOD!

I get command for free, but I guess that's different than command deploy.  I know that I don't have to download a 2.5MB xml file.

If I understand it, SCCM automatically downloads up-to-date drivers based upon listings in that very large xml file.  The OP has 100s of Precision 3660 machines for which the system has worked fine til now.  Now, the xml listings contain info for win 11 for 3660s, and not for Win 10 drivers.  

This is not an issue of paying for a service: the OP has been getting the SCCM updates for Win10 til now.  And it's a money-saver for Dell as organizations can (as the OP points out) download a huge file once rather than 100s of times. 

The OP is asking Dell to upgrade their xml file.  

Looking at the xml file I suspect that you could  figure out what the xml key for the win 10 driver .exe file you have and just add it.  You know the .exe file name.  You can probably grok the size and version, and there are MD5 packages out there to generate the key.  The only unknown is the folder name.  But perhaps you can look at other listings - maybe all the 3660 drivers are in the same folder.  

Might save running command manually on 100 machines I guess...

Good luck.

Obviously a mistake being made and needing correction.  At the meantime, can you change the command and pointing it to Win 11 drivers cab.  They are the same drivers.

Just an update to this - Dell regular chat support started a case for this, and a couple days ago they sent me a preliminary XML file that did indeed seem to be fixed, with the appropriate Precision 3660 driver EXE files for both Win11 and Win10 included.

It will be another 2-4 weeks before the automated build sequence runs again and uses this new XML file but I have high hopes that when the next XML file is updated on the website, it should contain these new fixes. Thanks Dell!

there has been lots of inconsistencies lately with the xml... also regarding the xps series seems there will never release w10 drivers but just w11 for some reason............

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