Direct2Dell

need wireless drivers for my computer

I am a computer tech. One gripe that I and my colleagues have is when you do go to the extra hassle to type in a service tag for a system, you don't get the drivers for that system...you get the drivers for that model. For example, there might be many video, audio or CD ROM/DVD drivers listed and you have to make an educated guess as to which device is installed. Sometimes the educated guess does not work and it takes trial and error. Thanks

Thank you for the valuable feedback. I have added some comments on some of the items above.

Regarding the new drivers by tag functionality. We are currently working on this for other Dell products, with a plan to make it available over the coming weeks. I will add an update to this blog as more products come on line. I can tell you that Latitude, Optiplex and Dimension will be up next.

We are also planning an update to the homepage which will remove the requirement for flash to navigate to drivers. This change should be visible in the coming months. However, in the interim I will have an additional link added to drivers on the homepage. You can also access drivers by using the left navigation menu.

Lastly, scan functionality is something we are looking at. As it's something that you are keen to utilize I will make sure to keep you updated on its progress. 

wtb a few fixes for the drivers:

• This feature for Latitude series notebooks
• Removal of the need for Flash on the support. landing page -- it adds an unnecessary extra step for walking a customer through to get to the drivers
• A very neat and convenient download utility (perhaps using libcurl) that might actually ship with the newer computers and be pre-installed with the OS (I'm sure the OS image can be modified just a little for this to include just basic network drivers, since they all share similar ones) that allows a user who just reinstalled the OS to press a button, have it grok the system, and download said drivers. Then, it'd present them to the user in the appropriate order, to make sure the reinstall goes smoothly.
• Barring that, how about a fix for the drivers and utils CD/DVD that goes out? :)

DavidS: you can subscribe to updates for your system.

http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/notifications/en/index?~ck=ln&c=us&l=en&lnki=0&s=gen

lots of server don't (won't) have flash. All that happens is you go to the page and get a message about needing flash.  Another thing that happens alot is for a small part of the page to load with no links or information.

Thanks AllenC

How about adding an RSS feed to the drivers page dependent on Service tag?  That way, I can add it to my RSS feed reader, and only come visit for updated drivers when I am notified of one.

Thanks!

1. Is there anyway to view all updates for a system by publication date? All I care about are the recent updates?

2. Is there anyway to be emailed when new updates are added?

These 2 features are really need for Dell Updates...

adobe flash on the initial page to get to the drivers page is irratating after an os reinstall since nothing is loaded on the machine and you want to load the drivers first, ran accross a few machines where adobe flash would not load properly and had to dell connect to push the page to the user to bypass the first screen, also file name is still something that should be displayed on the driver page since the driver names do not make sense, just looking at the Rxxxxx number, you have to start the download to see the file name in order to verify wether or not the driver is already installed in the c:\dell\drivers directory

I also think a system scan is a better way to go.  Dell replaced my "factory" DVD burner with a different brand one.  That can cause problems if I try to find drivers using my service tag. 

This is finally headed in the right direction. When you can do a scan like HP and Microsoft for updates, I would say you were leveling the playing field for the consumer a little more.

BIG IMPROVEMENT! Now just make the date field longer in the list display so I can read the dates with my larger fontsize set in Firefox.

Thanks for the improvements! When XPS M1530 users will get this feature? Are you going to notify support for new models here?

Another useful feature I would love is the option to sort the list of drivers by date. Sometimes searching by category isn't the best option and this would complement the "Drivers by tag" feature.

How about allowing us to see drivers for software that wasn't "factory installed"? 

When Vista came out you had the ability to get the proper drivers on the support site.  I used them for my Inspiron 6000's video card and touchpad but then a while later the drivers were removed.  Now you can't even select Vista as an operating system when looking for drivers for my notebook. 

I'm not asking Dell to create drivers for all the old computers but if you have the driver anyway why not let people download it?

Tag-specific drivers. This is GREAT! I often use the drivers download page when I`m doing a clean install on the operating system of my computers (an annual task) and I rarely remember exactly how each computer was configured (which video card, etc.). Having only the drivers associated with the shipped configuration of my computers will greatly simplify this task.

Good move Dell, You made my life much simpler.

Sure would be nice if you could have a tool that scanned curent system configs and report back any updated needed.  Your competitors have had it for years.

When you say "as shipped", does that mean all drivers for the specific devices in the system you got? If so, that'll be a really useful service, especially for not-so-tech-savvy users who don't know how to find out just which ones apply.