DAT Not Downloading Correct Drivers for Ambiguous/Old Models (e.g. 3x50/5x50/7x50)

[MikhailCompo]

DAT is not respecting the identifiers when downloading content.
Also, DAT logic over whether to download new package is incorrect.

• Ambiguous model = Latitude 7350.
• It shows up twice in the model list, but with different identifiers.
• Selecting the correct model (identifier 0CBD) downloads an BIOS for the older model (A20, correct one is 1.3.0) which uses a different identifier.

The log even says "BIOS Package in Dell XML (A20) is older than the current latest available package from ConfigMgr (1.2.2)" but then DAT proceeds to download and package the version identified as being older...

[aarnold-sd68]

While not a fix, their is currently a work around that likely would work for the time being. #538

[mpe81]

same issue here also with Latitude 5550 on top. It downloads also the older driver package for the model from 10 years ago. If I search the driver pack catalog file with the mainboard ID 0CB9, the entry in there is correct:

English A8E074A11D17EC902623F8BD365C3D38 FFEFA949E77FC9D38E185CB256FD41E5592770FB 0EFAB75DB743E32292F95E8DAC20632434E22B74561E0DD5AB654DF739B1D633 930172 FOLDER11490943M/1/Latitude-5550-55T9J_Win10_1.0_A01.xml 4D5B8C6DB6774FEEFD3404C57FF1CB47 6ACB0D0CF6D154B2AD88C8A31A34144FC3D7D1C9 55860D0E26E073FCD26A31A09025E66A2F82657412AE57CCC2E5580C6ED49351

[Chathushka34]

Hey MPe81,

We are having the same issue. When Latitude 5550/5540 model image Win 11 and run Dell command update, it completely disable NIC driver from BIOS. I'm thinking DCU pulling the old drivers. Do you face this issue as well?

Due to the DAT issue we pulled drivers manually and added to task sequence. But after imaging to Win 11 and run Dell command update, it completely disable NIC drivers.

[mpe81]

Hi Chathushka34

this does not make sense to me. For Win11 there are no old driver packs to pull for the former models. The issue we have here is related to model names that already existed 10 years ago (usually prefixed with an E in front of the 4-digit-code) and were supported for Windows 10 as well. So, we have Latitude 5550 and Latitude 7350 at least, which were released in 2014 first and with same name in 2024 again - so, each of those has two generations and therefor two driver packs. Dell DriverPackCatalog.xml file is technically correct - besides they should not reuse the same model name from my point of view.

DAT seems to combine models by model name only, so 2014 and 2024 models and shows the mainboard IDs on the same model line downloading the old driver pack for both then. Official recommendation from manufacturers is mainboard ID as criteria right now (but nearly everyone is using model name on home-grown solutions, scripts or even in SCCM for classical driver pack assignment etc.). So, Dell using the same model name again and DAT using model name to combine mainboard IDs with the situation that there are different models with the same name under Windows 10 support created that issue. Fix one of them and it would work - obviously we cannot rename the old models or stop support for Windows 10 - so workaround for now is the xml editing and hoping that Dell prefixes the old ones with E while hopefully stopping to reuse model numbers.

Again - for Windows 11 - there is only the 2024 model version supported, so there is only one driver pack and that's the correct one - except you are trying to apply the Win11 driver pack for the 2024 model to run Win11 on the unsupported 2014 one... which will not work, of course.

DCU should have no problem with that, but there might be an issue if you use an old DCU version which detects Windows 11 as Windows 10 as the internal Windows version number for Win11 also starts with 10. For DCU, you need to contact Dell's client specialists.

I implemented the workaround by editing the xml file yesterday evening and distributed the Win10 driver packages worldwide. Win11 driver packs were not affected as 2014 models are not supported there. I hope to get some feedback from affected sites by this afternoon.