Dell Command audit mode nonsense

[OFaceSIG]

So I'm in the midst of moving all my company machines from AD to Intune control. I've gotten a lot of stuff automated like AV install, MS Office install, chrome, etc.

But I'm beating my head into the wall with Dell Command. I was trying to get it to presist with sysprep when I learned about audit mode. Well Dell Command doesn't want to run in Audit mode. Turns out this is an issue for years now Dell doesn't want to address.

I'm about to give up on Dell Command and just use whatever drivers are available in Window Update for Dell laptops. At least for the scenarios where I need them to be in OOBE from the get go. Which is direction Microsoft wants to push us anyway.

Anyone else in this boat?

 

[scottypippin]

I'm a couple years removed from this, so there could be some things I don't recall. That said, the team I'm on uses InTune for Windows machines and have not worried about packaging drivers or using Dell Command to deliver them (we imported plenty of Dell Latitudes during the earliest period of our usage, but went to Microsoft Surfaces and then back to Latitudes) for two reasons:

1. We're a small enough company that we typically hand deliver devices
2. Windows Updates has gotten pretty decent at finding drivers that will make the hardware work for the end user. Emphasis on pretty decent

It is worth noting that our general practice was to enroll the devices and use the bulit in Windows Reset tool to complete the image enrollment, which I think preserves factory drivers. So perhaps the following won't apply to your practices:

For end users, the only missing driver issue I recall was that the Surface camera had a particular driver that Windows Updates often did not find and so users couldn't use the camera (was particularly important during COVID times) so we had to go and triage that after deploying probably 40-50 Surfaces. Aside from that....I don't know that we really had any complaints or issues that were definitely due to the absence of driver installs.

That said, I'm on the data team now and we use a mixture of Macs (deployed via Mosyle) and Dell Precisions. The Precisions were "special" like the Surfaces and needed special Killer drivers for the wifi to not drop out a couple times a day, so I suppose you could consider that a loss for Windows Updates. For us, though, that was an internal problem for....three end users? If it comes down to it and you have mostly standard business computers, you can likely get away with not using Dell Command assist.

This is just from anectodal evidence though. Take that as you will - I don't envy you the trouble of getting InTune to install anything they don't already pre-package.

I know you didn't ask for general InTune advice, but a dude I came back to for help a couple times was Harry Lawton who has a ton of tutorials and learning videso on InTune that are decently practical:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YgCmYqeyFA&list=PLaxVOxcwsYdpJDA1m91neWpmT0pVl1iCN
Best of luck!

 

[MrGuvernment]

if you are using intune, stop using "images" and use intune and AutoPilot to deploy and configure systems once deployed and someone logs in?

 

[pendragon1]

So I'm in the midst of moving all my company machines from AD to Intune control. I've gotten a lot of stuff automated like AV install, MS Office install, chrome, etc.

But I'm beating my head into the wall with Dell Command. I was trying to get it to presist with sysprep when I learned about audit mode. Well Dell Command doesn't want to run in Audit mode. Turns out this is an issue for years now Dell doesn't want to address.

I'm about to give up on Dell Command and just use whatever drivers are available in Window Update for Dell laptops. At least for the scenarios where I need them to be in OOBE from the get go. Which is direction Microsoft wants to push us anyway.

Anyone else in this boat?

we also had that issue with intune but windows updates have been working fine for all our dells and lenovos.

 

[OFaceSIG]

we also had that issue with intune but windows updates have been working fine for all our dells and lenovos.

I have a call with Dell Tomorrow. Depending on the outcome of that call that'll determine if I even bother with Dell Command anymore.

 

[OFaceSIG]

if you are using intune, stop using "images" and use intune and AutoPilot to deploy and configure systems once deployed and someone logs in?

I'm not using images. I'm buying base configs, upgrading the NVMEs and then re-installing Windows. That's why I was using Dell Command to install all the drivers. Then using sysprep to put it back into OOBE.