I would recommend uninstalling and then reinstalling the Dell Support Center software.  Rebooting after the uninstall, and before the reinstall, will help Windows forget it had it installed before and ensure it doesn't try to reuse old configuration settings that are obviously incorrect.

My Knight in shining armor!  Thank you.  It work just fine.  Happy New Year!

Maria

Hi. I get the same problem reported by Maria but I can't uninstall Dell Support Centre as there is no option to do so when I go to 'add/remove programs' (i.e. unlike most other installed software, no 'remove' button appears for me to click). Any advice?

Thanks very much,

David

Welcome to the forums David :emotion-21:

If you want to uninstall Dell Support Centre, you'll first have to download/reinstall it - after which it should appear in the Add/Remove Programs list?

Hi Larry,

I took your advice for the same issue but unfortunately, the program would not remove. It keeps trying to install. The error I received was"1316.A network error occurred while attempt to read from the file: C:\\windows\installer\dell_support_center[1].msi"

Then it would give me a message, "Fatal error occur during installation"

Do you have a solution? I have had this message for quite some time and have been unable to get rid of it!!!

Thanks so much.

Michelle

If the downloaded installer is an .mis file, try putting it in the c:\windows\installer directory on your computer and then running it.  That might fix the problem.

Or remove the extra backslash after C: (two backslashes at the beginning tells Windows the next string of characters is a computer name, the next backslash means the start of the filepath to the file on that computer). It is possible the installer thinks it needs to be looking for a machine named "windows" so it can pull the file from the file "\installer\dell_support_center[1].msi".

Good morning,

I have a similar issue. I have just downloaded the latest Support Centre software but cannot install it as the machine says that a previous version is running and must be uninstalled through "Control panel/Add/Remove programs. When I go there and select Support Centre there is no option to remove it, only the size of the program and when last used. Any ideas where I go from there. Many thanks.

Andy

Try installing the updated version, after booting into Safe Mode Andy?

If that doesn't work, try downloading/installing Revo Uninstaller (FREEware), which includes an option to 'force remove' stubborn software.

Whilst it's not usually adviseable to 'force remove' software, it shouldn't matter too much in this instance, since you're going to be reinstalling a newer version of the program anyway :emotion-5:

Hello,

I have a similar issue and tried putting the install file in to the installer directory as suggeseted above.  I cant uninstall Support Center and cant install the new version.  I get a windows installer popup with a red x that says "uninstallation of the patch package is not supported".  I cant seem to get past this point.  Any ideas?

Thanks!

Hello,

I had the same irritating problem. This is how I solved it;

I uninstalled the support center with Revo Uninstaller. With this program I uninstalled with the 3rd option. At the 3rd step it tried to uninstall the 'normal' way. That didn't work. Then the program searched my registry (over 5000 (!) hits (erased them all), and then erased a bunch of files on the computer.

Then I could install Dell Support Center from here. Now it works perfectly!!

Good luck,

Rogier Levy (NL)