Client Management Suite

 Hi,

I've just been playing with Dell Client Manager and seeing how it copes with updating an Optiplex BIOS. I've downloaded the latest Optiplex 755 BIOS, and created a policy for it, and successfully updated a few machines.

I'm troubled by its usage in large environments though. The reboot options appear to be to limited to

1. Don't reboot (relying on a client reboot at a later stage)
2. Reboot with a deferral

Scenario 1 is the preferred option at first glance, as we don't want to trouble the users if at all possible. The only problem though is that users generally shutdown their computers at the end of the day rather than reboot. As a result, when the computer starts up the RAM its expecting to contain a BIOS image is now blank. Ooops.

So, Scenario 2 seems the one to go with. However the deferral window pops up and gives the user just 60 seconds to click to defer before the reboot is triggered! Not great should the user be on the phone, having a walk, taking a coffee etc. The notification window is shown below.

 
 
So on the face of it i'm left with creating our own option to create our own software delivery tasks with reboot notification wrappers.

So, I was wondering how do others handle BIOS upgrades in large environments? Am I missing something?

Kind Regards,
Ian./

 You could download and deploy the standalone package. At the very bottom of the BIOS upgrade policy that you created you will see a link that says "Download Package". If you click on it you will download an EXE that when run will perform the BIOS upgrade. If you don't want it to reboot then make sure to select "No action required" in the drop down next to "After running:". Once you have that EXE you can deploy it through NS or through Deployment Console. When the workers leave for the night they can shut their machine down and the BIOS update will happen the next day when they turn their computer on.

Hope this helps...

Hi trb48,

Will that work? The standalone package still loads the BIOS into the computers live memory and indicates to the BIOS that the update is there. If the computer is shutdown, this memory goes dead. When the computer turns on, the BIOS will then look for the update in that memory block and find it empty.

So, my understanding is the BIOS update will still fail?