Dell support messages

Ken Williams · Post by **Ken Williams** » 24 Jun 2005 9:05 pm

A few weeks ago I started getting the Dell support messages pop up. They creep up from the bottom of the screen like the ones that are associated with the Microsoft Antispyway program. Something about them just doesn't look legit. Does anyone else experience these and are they on the "up and up"?

Ken

Jim Phelps · Post by **Jim Phelps** » 24 Jun 2005 9:29 pm

I've never seen or heard of them, what do they say? I used to work as Tech Support for Dell, there was nothing like that from Dell then, but I don't know about now. I'd suspect them as being fake.

Howard Tate · Post by **Howard Tate** » 25 Jun 2005 2:17 am

My wife got one, we were suspicious and deleted it.

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Howard, 'Les Paul Recording, Zum S12U, Vegas 400, Boss ME-5, Boss DM-3, DD-3, Sierra Session D-10
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Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 25 Jun 2005 2:18 am

Dell is now supplying software that will do what is described. I saw a question on that just recently on the Dell users forum.

The best thing is to go to the Dell users forum and scan through the Windows XP softwre section, and you will find references to this.

Dell has changed a lot of things. They used to provide a complete set of CD's for recovery, now they have that on a partition on the hard drive and it's up to the customer to create the Operating system CD and others from the recovery partition (they also provide a Norton program to do the restore from the partition).

John Hawkins · Post by **John Hawkins** » 25 Jun 2005 5:08 am

I have gotten them several times and have found them to be helpful in what they are trying to do . I once forgot to turn the screen saver back on and after a few hours was prompted to do so by this message from Dell . I have gotten one or two that had available the process to check the PC for maintaince or lack there of.

I'm certainly not computer smart like some of the forum members so I just take these things as an offer to help an old dummy like me by Dell and use them as they come along . That is probably dangerous but as I say - I don't know any better !
John

Jim Phelps · Post by **Jim Phelps** » 25 Jun 2005 11:59 am

Well, if they're helpful that's great. I left Dell Tech Support in early 2001 (worked for them before going back into music full-time) so I'm sure there's lots of things done differently now. Could sure tell some stories though, but that's another thread (and forum).[This message was edited by Jim Phelps on 25 June 2005 at 01:38 PM.]

Ken Lang · Post by **Ken Lang** » 25 Jun 2005 12:46 pm

I get the Dell messages as well. Usually they are informing me that an update is taking place.

I also got a warning that I had a potential problem and it sent me to windows to download the fix. So far no problems.

Ken Williams · Post by **Ken Williams** » 25 Jun 2005 8:06 pm

Thanks guys for the info. Jack you stated that Dell is now making software that does what I described. My question is how did it get on my computer? This computer is about 4 years old. The pop up warnings only started a couple of weeks ago. Did they somehow, without my knowledge, download it to my computer or was it there all along and somehow just recently got activated? By the way, I visited the Dell user forum and if you can count on what is being posted, it seems to be legit.

Ken

Lem Smith · Post by **Lem Smith** » 25 Jun 2005 10:13 pm

Could sure tell some stories though, but that's another thread (and forum).

Jim, I can relate. I too used to do computer tech support for a major pc manufacturer, and I've heard some GREAT ones!

Two of my favorites are where the lady called in about her cup holder on her computer breaking. The "cup holder" turned out to actually be the CD rom drive tray. Obviously not stout enough to support the weight of a full cup of coffee!

The second one is a call I took, where the caller was wanting to know what the foot pedal that came with their computer was used for. Upon further investigation, the "foot pedal" turned out to be the mouse!

Lem

Jim Phelps · Post by **Jim Phelps** » 25 Jun 2005 10:56 pm

Lem, I didn't take the call but there was a story around our department that a 90-something year-old lady called in. She had some kind of problem (pibcac, probably!) and she was ready to fix it; she told the tech she took her screwdriver and had completely disassembled her computer, all the pieces were on her livingroom floor. She'd taken her computer completely apart, down to every last screw! Can you imagine??!! The poor tech, after he finally believed it wasn't a joke, walked her all through the process of completely re-assembling her computer.

This is supposed to be true.... wouldn't surprise me if it was a tech-support urban legend...but they swore it was true.

They never did say what if anything was actually wrong with her computer.

I didn't have anything nearly that outlandish happen to me, but I did have some doozies.[This message was edited by Jim Phelps on 25 June 2005 at 11:57 PM.]

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 26 Jun 2005 1:53 am

Ken, if it's an old PC they shouldn't be there. It sounds like something else has been "added". The ones I was referring to are a recent addition.

Can you describe exactly what you are getting?

BTW, I post as "fireberd" on the Dell users forum.

Ken Williams · Post by **Ken Williams** » 26 Jun 2005 7:38 pm

Jack, there's about 2 or 3 different ones. I can't remember word for word but one say something like "You may have a critical error concerning generic host process which would cause emails to not display rich text". Another one say something about not being able to open email attachments with the current settings, and if I remember correctly it asks to fix the problem. I have no problem that I know of opening email attachments. This computer is about 3 to 4 years old. Before I started getting these messages seems like there was a little message that would come up from time to time that said that new Dell support alerts are available. If I clicked on the the Dell icon in the system tray there would be a menu listing the latest Dell alerts. One of the things that seems odd about the new messages is that there is no way to close them without going to the taskbar and right click/close. There's an X in the upper right hand corner of the new message boxes but it just takes you to another menu. I can't remmeber what the second menu says. Seems like it's either send or don't send, or fix or don't fix. At any rate, there is no X or close button option.

Ken