HI.

I was trying to use the fingerprint swipe reader on my laptop. It turns out it is useless except with the wave security software except for logging into the computer itself. It will not work with internet explorer, network logins or other applications.

A full description is here: http://notebooks.bigresource.com/Dell-New-Fingerprint-Reader-Owner-039-s-Must-Read-joChMJo1.html

On win7 32 bit, apparently Wave's PIM (Personal information manager) and Document Vault work. Wave software is notorious for being a complete useless, bloated piece of code that does nothing but slow down your system to a crawl. On 64 bit systems, they do not provide PIM or DocVault at all. Emails from them have confirmed they do not provide it, and maybe they will at some point in the future but not really.

The big problem is dell uses a fingerprint reader that is not compatible with the Windows Biometric standard. Why they do this on the precision is beyond me. I think some other brands are affected, but I used to have a Latitiude with a reader that did work as a WB. The implementation problem seems to be because the fingerprint sensor is slaved to the Broadcom USH device. As a non-standard, proprietary system, there are no software implementations from anyone (think PSQL 2009, an excellent program for this purpose). Not because they don't want to but because they can't get to the sensor. Even Wave, the one that has the rights to develop for this sensor, does not do it for W7x64.

So the questions for Dell are:

1.Why would you even sell a fingerprint reader of this configuration on a top of the line laptop, when you can use the same one I had on my lattitude, a standard internal USB connection that is proven to work on a 64bit environment?

2. Tech support from Dell said they provide the security enviroment to secure your computer. A useless process if it only secures the login, but not your internal documents or website passwords.

3. Can Dell show us a process to remove the connection to the USH device from the fingerprint reader and move it to another internal port in the motherboard? Can they provide the other kind of sensor as a replacement?

4. Can Dell force Broadcom to fix their software so it will be recognized as a windows biometric standard, so that other vendors can implement appropriate applications, just like every other fingerprint sensor in the market? This should be an easy software patch, but Broadcom probably does not want to loose out on agreements with wave/dell over their faux security implementations.

In my oppinion, selling items that are known to be incompatible with the system, and for which you charge an extra cost selecting, requires Dell to provide functional hardware at a basic level (i.e. basic communication with the operating system environment).

Tech support said Dell does not support other functions as the login functionality is working. They said it should be addresed by Wave. Well, I did not buy the equipment from Wave. I got it from Dell with basic expectations as to what it was supposed to do, which are clearly not met.

Please let me know if you have a solution. This kind of thing drives everyone insane.