Command Update, Support Assist errors and system shutdown

Hi @alveus 

That happened to me too (the system suddenly changed owner and permissions after I modified them). But I tried several times, ensuring the parent folder and subfolder were changed to my own user and then reapplying full permissions many times (note that it fails for some subfolders, but I still run it several times).

In summary, I change the owner (to my user) and then add full permissions to my user. And I ensure to apply this also to parent folder 'Dell'. 

Now it works even after reboots and after windows updates (for now)

Still, it's a shame that Dell has not fixed this problem for so many months now.

Btw, I guess it happens mostly on Alienware. I have two Alienware units and two regular Dell, and the problem seems to be present only in Alienware units.

BR.

How do you take ownership and change the permissions for this folder. My system will not allow it.

I have now reached an impasse with Dell as the only solution they have come up with is reinstalling the OS - which is not going to happen. Despite receiving all the logs they do not appear to know why it is happening.

I don't think it is limited to Alienware.

I have also discovered that it is not just happening on my desktop Optiplex 7070, but also on my wife's Inspiron 5770, which has received no Dell updates since Windows 10 updates were installed on 7th July last year. I have uninstalled Dell Update and SupportAssist, reinstalled SupportAssist and applied the same temporary permissions fix to that laptop and successfully installed all the outstanding Dell updates. SupportAssist now survives reboots on both PCs. However, having now installed the latest UHD driver SupportAssist does not recognise that a restart has taken place, and consistently fails saying I must reboot. I've spent what seems like hours on the phone to them, but they don't know what is causing this nor how to clear it.

I will be installing the Feb Windows Updates at the end of the month once all the early-adopters (i.e. Microsoft sacrificial lambs) have discovered all the bugs, so that will be the next critical moment when an auto restart may clear whatever flag is causing the issue. If not, dell Software support's only solution was to reinstall Windows. No chance. In that case i will abandon SupportAssist .

I suspect this is happening quite widely, but because the effect is silent most users don't realise they are not getting updates. It is only because I have been waiting for the Intel UHD driver update to fix the Desktop Windows Manager memory leak that I picked this up.

So I'm seeing the same thing now not sure why.   

I wound up just making a batch file to delete the folder every time windows boots through task scheduler and it seems to be working so far.  Be careful with the script it deletes files I'm not responsible if you erase your C drive.. make backups etc etc.

Honestly it's kind of scary software this poorly maintained is updating my BIOS.

net stop DellClientManagementService
del C:\ProgramData\Dell\UpdateService /s /f /q
rmdir C:\ProgramData\Dell\UpdateService /s /q
net start DellClientManagementService

Just curious if there is a correlation here.  For those with this problem... are you using a Microsoft user account (where you have to have an MS online account with them) or did you create a local user account?

I created a local user account with admin privileges.  I remember when I clean installed Win 10 on this Precision 7740 I had to do some sort of trickery to create a local account - it was trying to force me to login with an MS account when creating the user.

Just wondering if that has anything to do with any of this.  Everything I am reading on here is the same that is happening to me.

Also, I just got word back from Dell support... after approximately 9 months of back/forth with them, sending them debug logs from my laptop to help assist them, and so on ... they came back to me and said :

"The engineering team found no issue with the DCU app and have suggested moving to Dell OEM image with Dell drivers if the issue continues."

Basically their excuse is the Windows 10 iso/image, direct from Microsoft's website, is faulty and causing this issue with Dell Command Update.  I have a reeeeally hard time believing that is the case.

For any 'social media support' people at Dell reading this... do not bother pm'ing me and trying to open yet another ticket for this.

Yes, in my case it's a MS user account, that is: When you install W10 it asks for your email, which supposedly has been already registered as an online MS account and it gives you 5GB OneDrive, among other things. I always use an online account.

Regarding DELL's excuse about a faulty W10 iso image..... well, I'd say it's clearly an excuse.

Maybe DELL would need to reproduce the problem locally in their systems to be able to debug it and provide a fix. 

I am not using a Microsoft account - and never do. It has now survived a Windows update. The reboot restart request that the Windows Update generated appears to have cleared the SupportAssist request so at present it is apparently working OK on my 7070. There is no change on the 5770 which gives you one crack at driver update then will not play ball again until it is reinstalled.

DELL's excuse is clearly tosh

I actually had one of their support people or team members (not sure which) admit to reproducing the problem on their end months ago.  If I remember right he said something about it would be passed on and fixed in the next release. Well there have been like 3 or 4 releases since then and all still have this problem.

Anyone install Windows 11 yet?  I’m assuming the same problem happens with it too, but have been holding off myself. 

What do you know... version 4.5.0 A00 released a few days ago.  Same issue happens.  This is 5 versions of Command Update that have been released that all have this issue.  I've been a programmer/coder/etc for over 20 years now and have never seen anything like this - 5 versions released all with a major issue that is not being addressed as if it doesn't exist.

FYI for anyone else who might be interested.  I clean installed to Windows 11 (my Dell 7740 originally came with Windows 10).  I installed Dell Command Update 4.5.0 (the universal one) and low and behold it has worked fine with no issues and multiple reboots for a few days now.

Keep in mind I clean installed Windows 10 before and was not able to get it working with any DCU version after 4.1.0 if I remember which was quite a few releases ago.  If you are having this problem and think clean installing Windows 10 will solve the problem I wouldn't bother, but if you can update to Windows 11... so far it has worked fine on this OS.

... and roughly two months after clean installing Windows 11 and having Command Update work the entire time... I am right back to the same exact issue as before.  There has been Windows Updates since then and some Dell updates (BIOS in particular). 

COMMAND UPDATE APP!!!!  So irritating they have not addressed and fixed this issue and the fact their support is useless and wants to pass blame elsewhere makes it worse.

This is an old thread but hopefully someone can still benefit from this answer.

This is a very similar problem that we had at our university with Dell Command | Update. It is also described in this closed thread, which led us to the eventual breakthrough:

https://www.dell.com/community/Alienware/m15-R3-Alienware-Client-Management-Service/td-p/7944963

DCU started behaving like this for us after DCU 4.1 (now it's on 4.6). As many others have noticed, it helps deleting the C:\ProgramData\Dell\UpdateService folder, or more specifically it's enough to delete the Clients folder one more step down. However when you stop and start the DellClientManagementService service again, the same problem returns with error 1053 and event log saying "Failed to Secure the service root folder".

Now the solution that worked for us:
We discovered that a third party application (Trimble SketchUp) changed the permissions on the C:\ProgramData folder by adding Everyone with Modify. When DCU then installs it disables the inheritance on the C:\ProgramData\Dell\UpdateService level and sets the same permissions on the Client folder as what ever is set on C:\ProgramData. When Everyone has Modify the DCU service cannot start. When you remove Everyone completely or add Full Control to it, the service starts. But then again, when you stop and start the service the next time, DCU changes the permissions back to Everyone Modify.
The trick is to remove Everyone from the C:\ProgramData level, then DCU won't add it to the C:\ProgramData\Dell\UpdateService\Client folder and the service will stop and start as expected. We have done this via GPO.

What exactly do you mean by 'Everyone' since there has never been a group named that?  CREATOR OWNER, SYSTEM, Administrators, Users... those are often the group names in most situations.

"The trick is to remove Everyone from the C:\ProgramData level"

Along with the 'Everyone' clarification are you talking about all permissions or just Modify?

I suppose it is possible I also have an app that has changed permissions, however, I am not aware of one which would do so.  I have tried to find the default permissions listed for C:\ProgramData online to compare to mine, but have not been able to find that information. 

@MikaelZewgren's solution was precisely correct. And just to clarify, Everyone is technically a group, albeit a Special Identity Group (source).

When I opened C:\ProgramData security permissions there was an extra entry there. I selected the Everyone group, removed it entirely, and then deleted the folder C:\ProgramData\Dell\UpdateService\. I hit "Retry" on the DCU installer doing the update and it went on to finish.

Untampered Permissions	Tampered Permissions