89 Posts
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3020
SA, purchase again?
Does Support Assist really have to be purchased again and again or is someone trying to scam me? I got an email from saying that I must pay at least $209.57 per year to renew my warranty and keep Support Assist software functioning. Is there a free alternative to the Support Assist software and why does this link say that there's no charge for the Support Assist software?
jphughan
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14K Posts
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April 13th, 2019 21:00
The money is for the warranty. SupportAssist keeps working for things like checking for updates and performing diagnostics even without a warranty, but the features related to warranty case creation and tracking won't work without an active warranty.
MarkFleener
89 Posts
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April 13th, 2019 21:00
The email specifically says...
"The SupportAssist where we notify you for drivers update will no longer work if there’s no active warranty."
So what you're saying and what they're saying is not the same.
jphughan
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14K Posts
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April 13th, 2019 22:00
That hasn't been my understanding, although it's been a while since I've used SupportAssist, so something may have changed. Or I might be incorrectly remembering the warranty status of the last system I used SupportAssist on. However, even in that case I don't see how this would constitute a scam. If the information is accurate, then it's certainly not a scam. And even if it's not, there's the possibility that the support rep who sent you that is incorrect. A scam suggests intent, whereas this could simply be inaccurate information. It's happened before. Or again, it could be correct. I don't really understand why Dell would do that, but even if they did, you can use Dell Update for easy driver update checks.
UPDATE: Well according to this thread, it does expire, and it was a fairly recent change.
MarkFleener
89 Posts
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April 14th, 2019 07:00
Will Dell Update give me updates specific to the hardware I have installed or will I have to figure which updates apply and which don't?
jphughan
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14K Posts
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April 14th, 2019 08:00
It checks your actual system hardware and firmware and presents a list specific to your system. After all, if it didn't do that, it would hardly be any better than going to the support.dell.com download site yourself.
Poorya0014
44 Posts
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April 14th, 2019 20:00
Weird!!