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wvanholder
3 Posts
1
10381
March 14th, 2019 14:00
Where does Command Update v3 store the BIOS password?
We protect BIOS with a unique password per PC.
To allow the user to update the BIOS with Dell Command Update v3, we want to pre-populate the BIOS password (as the user does not know the password to enter manually in the UI under Settings).
Does someone know if and how this can be done? I suspect that the password is stored somewhere in the registry in encrypted form...
Any tips on where I could ask this information straight from Dell is also appreciated.
Many thanks
Wim
I requested the ability to pass the password by command line into Dell Command Update years ago and it doesn't look like it ever got addressed. The way we handle it is we first clear the password prior to running out update scripts, and then re-set the password on the next bootup.
We also wanted to configure this setting for all systems, but discovered that the encrypted registry value is unique on every system.
Other issues/changes encountered that are new in 3.x include:
- Does not prompt for the password
- Does not warn or show that Bitlocker needs to be suspended
- Had to change the Powershell Execution policy from Allsigned to Bypass for the app to work (this has been inconsistent)
These issues are unfortunate and make the tool more cumbersome to use.
wvanholder
3 Posts
8805
0
Posted March 18th, 2019 01:00
Update:
The BIOS password is stored in encrypted form at HKLM\Software\Dell\UpdateService\Clients\CommandUpdate\Preferences\Settings\General\BIOSPassword
A command line option to set the BIOS password, or instructions on how to encrypt it, would be very helpful to empower our users to self update their Dell systems.
Faculty Head of ICT
KU Leuven University