For anyone still experiencing this, can you let me know the version of SupportAssist installed on the system?

Thanks, all! I have relayed this to the team.  

We just received an update from the team: 

Dell is aware of this issue that is impacting select systems and have identified the root cause. We are planning to begin pushing an update to SupportAssist version 4.6.3 on Tuesday, December 24th that will be automatically applied to the applicable systems when they come online. 

Thank you again for bringing this to our attention, and for all of the quick replies about what SupportAssist version your system is on.


If I hear anything else I will try to update the thread. 

@drpitz there are a few ways to do this, but if you open Add or Remove Programs, then scroll down to Dell SupportAssist and select it, it should give you the exact version number.
 

Another option is when you initially open SupportAssist, it should give a version number on the initial loading screen. With that said, it seems like that's the abbreviated version number (on the initial loading screen), so once SupportAssist is loaded, click on the Service Tag on the top right of the SupportAssist window and it should give you the full version number (like it did in Add or Remove Programs). 

Please let me know if you have any trouble with finding the version number.  

There's not much documentation out there on what it is or does -- try disabling it to see if there are any untoward effects.  There probably won't be -- most of the pre-loaded services are more trouble than they're worth.

Did that and nothing bad has happened yet. Actually stopped 7 different Dell services and everything seems okay. Just like what happens on your phone, except I know how to disable them on my laptop. Being honest, if no one knows what it does it can't be very useful. Thanks

Dell PowerProtect Data Manager builds on top of project Velero to provide a data protection solution that enables application-consistent backups and restores and that is always available for Kubernetes in on-premises and in-cloud workloads, VMware hybrid cloud environments and Tanzu modern applications

I don't think the software in question on an Inspiron notebook has anything to do with an enterprise backup software utility.

I use Norton 360 for system backup and actually don't know what "application-consistent backups and restores" are. So I really don't think I need it.