Dell Pledges to Restore x64 Drivers
Posted by Steven Parker on 25 October 2007 - 10:00 · 36 comments & 19761 views
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Full name: Steven Parker
Forum name: Neobond
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Full name: Steven Parker
Forum name: Neobond
Contact: via forum PM
Submissions: Normal · Headline
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(4 replies)
#1 Posted by Long on 25 Oct 2007 - 10:08
- So, it was a technical glitch on the website? I don't think Dell "caved", they just recognized the problem.
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#1.1 Posted by Neobond on 25 Oct 2007 - 10:11
- Why would a Dell supervisor explain that they are currently not supporting x64 drivers on the XPS 410 and then respond after Morpheus pointed out the contract obligations Dell have with Microsoft with "Our legal team are working on it"
Doesn't sound like a web site glitch at all to me lol.
Did you even read the other article? -
#1.2 Posted by DavidM on 25 Oct 2007 - 10:27
- It would not be the first time a "Customer Service Supervisor" didn't know what he was talking about or lied to a customer.
Either way the drivers are going to be made available again and that's good news. -
#1.3 Posted by Long on 25 Oct 2007 - 11:29
- Quote - (Neobond said @ #1.1)Why would a Dell supervisor explain that they are currently not supporting x64 drivers on the XPS 410 and then respond after Morpheus pointed out the contract obligations Dell have with Microsoft with "Our legal team are working on it"
Doesn't sound like a web site glitch at all to me lol.
Did you even read the other article?
Obviously there's incompetent support representatives who don't know what they were talking about and in the case of the logo program, it would be standard practice to say "the legal team are working on it" if the customer brings up a legal matter since they can't comment. -
#1.4 Posted by Morpheus Phreak on 25 Oct 2007 - 20:13
- Quote - (Long said @ #1.3)Quote - (Neobond said @ #1.1)Why would a Dell supervisor explain that they are currently not supporting x64 drivers on the XPS 410 and then respond after Morpheus pointed out the contract obligations Dell have with Microsoft with "Our legal team are working on it"
Doesn't sound like a web site glitch at all to me lol.
Did you even read the other article?
Obviously there's incompetent support representatives who don't know what they were talking about and in the case of the logo program, it would be standard practice to say "the legal team are working on it" if the customer brings up a legal matter since they can't comment.
The person in question wasn't a support representative.
He's a full-time Dell employee who now works as a Community Liason. He's a former engineer and in my experience when he speaks the information he is giving is Dell's direct attitude.
Otherwise why the legal threats when I brought it all up. If he weren't authorized to threaten me legally he would have been fired.
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#3 Posted by bmaher on 25 Oct 2007 - 10:33
- So all in all that's a:
"We did wrong, but we're not going to admit it, and we've told you we're fixing it, and blaming it on something else to make us look better."
As long as it gets the 64 bit drivers back, it's all good
. I wonder if Michael Dell will still reply to the email I sent him earlier 
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#4 Posted by ecotrojan on 25 Oct 2007 - 10:51
- powwwwwwwwerrrrrrrrrr to the peeeeeeeeeeooooooooooooopllllllllllllllllllllleeeeeeeeeeeeee
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(2 replies)
#5 Posted by bibutteryboy on 25 Oct 2007 - 10:54
- if you scan the Dell forums you'll see that there were multiple discussions between Dell customers about this issue and not just with Morpheus Phreak.
Morpheus Phreak just added to the discussion and wasn't soley responsible for them reactivating the x64 drivers. If you're goingt to give credit then give it to all the Dell customers that were involved.
Again, not front page news IMO -
#5.1 Posted by Neobond on 25 Oct 2007 - 10:59
- So we were just lucky for the co-incidental timing?
Problems with customer support should be right up our street, especially if companies appear to be violating their own agreements with customers? I don't see what is wrong with reporting that. -
#5.2 Posted by Morpheus Phreak on 25 Oct 2007 - 20:20
- Quote - (bibutteryboy said @ #5)if you scan the Dell forums you'll see that there were multiple discussions between Dell customers about this issue and not just with Morpheus Phreak.
Morpheus Phreak just added to the discussion and wasn't soley responsible for them reactivating the x64 drivers. If you're goingt to give credit then give it to all the Dell customers that were involved.
Again, not front page news IMO
There were multiple discussions asking where the drivers had gone to yes.
There however were not multiple people addressing the problem directly with Dell via e-mail and through their official Public Liasons.
It was the decision I made to step it up to the next level that ended up in it being resolved.
Suppose you have a crowd of 30 people grumbling to each other in front of a retail store.
One of those 30 (who started the initial discussion in the first place) steps forward and shouts, "I'm being cheated!"
He shouts it so loud that potential customers start going the other way. He alerts the news media and does an editorial right there in front of their doorstep about how they are cheating the customers.
Who do you think got the job done.
The other group still grumbling to themselves?
Or perhaps the one who yelled and screamed for the attention?
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(2 replies)
#6 Posted by bibutteryboy on 25 Oct 2007 - 11:18
- I'm just saying that to give sole credit to one individual is a little one sided. Do you honestly think that Morpheus Phreak was the only person out of all the people using 64bit Vista that e-mailed Dell?
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#6.1 Posted by Chris123NT on 25 Oct 2007 - 12:02
- No but he's the only one who had the balls to throw it out into the public eye in a BIG way. And there is no doubt that once he made that post is when the REAL pressure was felt. Hell, I wouldn't be suprised if MS contacted dell after hearing of this and informing them that they can and will lose their logo certification for dropping x64 support.
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#6.2 Posted by Tikitiki on 25 Oct 2007 - 23:12
- Quote - (Chris123NT said @ #6.1)No but he's the only one who had the balls to throw it out into the public eye in a BIG way. And there is no doubt that once he made that post is when the REAL pressure was felt. Hell, I wouldn't be suprised if MS contacted dell after hearing of this and informing them that they can and will lose their logo certification for dropping x64 support.
I would give up my legs to hear that conversation!
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#7 Posted by JamesWeb on 25 Oct 2007 - 11:23
- No one else seems to have commented that where they were available, Ubuntu drivers have gone missing too. I find it hard to believe they'd have been pulled so soon after announcing support for Linux, and the driver download page has just been redesigned a bit, that's why I'm calling technical glitch too. But it's good to hear they're on their way back.
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(4 replies)
#8 Posted by The Walker on 25 Oct 2007 - 12:45
- I find it sad that they caved, although it would seem that legally they had little choice.
Dell obviously had made an iNFORMED decision about Vista's overall worth in today's market and in my mind their actions were fully justified.
Well at least this story has done more to highlight the negative of Vista rather than that of Dell themselves. -
#8.1 Posted by seta-san on 25 Oct 2007 - 18:10
- how so? I've had nothing but a positive experience with vista. There's alot there that you don't see. Many of the APIs in the background are great and I know that microsoft is only going to improve it.
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#8.2 Posted by Morpheus Phreak on 25 Oct 2007 - 20:22
- Quote - (The Walker said @ #
I find it sad that they caved, although it would seem that legally they had little choice.
Dell obviously had made an iNFORMED decision about Vista's overall worth in today's market and in my mind their actions were fully justified.
Well at least this story has done more to highlight the negative of Vista rather than that of Dell themselves.
Your estimation of Vista's worth isn't what matters though.
Vista is here, and if the company that made my computer pulls support for a product they have already sold me there will ALWAYS be hell to pay. -
#8.3 Posted by Tikitiki on 25 Oct 2007 - 23:15
- It seems the only news we hear these days is the bad news (At least almost always) and then people tend to forget the fact that this "bad news" represents a fraction of the whole customer base/population/whatever it applies to
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#8.4 Posted by Morpheus Phreak on 25 Oct 2007 - 23:32
- Quote - (Tikitiki said @ #8.3)It seems the only news we hear these days is the bad news (At least almost always) and then people tend to forget the fact that this "bad news" represents a fraction of the whole customer base/population/whatever it applies to
That "fraction" is what Neowin represents though.
That's why bringing this here was my first thought. Tech enthusiasts are the ones to usually suffer the most when it comes to dropped support.
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#9 Posted by MrWhistler on 25 Oct 2007 - 13:15
- wish that included drivers for older models like inspiron 1300, I am running vista ultimate with NO problems....then the drivers for vista disappeared......dell said they would only post drivers for newer models deemed "vista capable"......geez.....
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#10 Posted by Pippin666 on 25 Oct 2007 - 13:49
- Sorry DELL, x64 machine needs 100% x64 drivers for maximum performance. And performance is all what your XPS series is suppose to be about.
Pip'
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(2 replies)
#11 Posted by MegaRainX on 25 Oct 2007 - 14:20
- Now if only they would release a vista driver for my Nvidia Gforce Go 7900GS. They still don't have one. Mine currently reports the wrong values on checks.
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#11.1 Posted by Morpheus Phreak on 25 Oct 2007 - 20:24
- Quote - (MegaRainX said @ #11)Now if only they would release a vista driver for my Nvidia Gforce Go 7900GS. They still don't have one. Mine currently reports the wrong values on checks.
I did some looking into that for you Mega, and what I've found is that nVidia has not yet made a single usable mobility driver for Vista.
The only option you have is to get a download of the latest desktop model drivers and mod the files.
http://laptopvideo2go.com/ has some excellent information and tools to make modding the drivers extremely easy -
#11.2 Posted by MegaRainX on 25 Oct 2007 - 22:46
- Quote - (Morpheus Phreak said @ #11.1)Quote - (MegaRainX said @ #11)Now if only they would release a vista driver for my Nvidia Gforce Go 7900GS. They still don't have one. Mine currently reports the wrong values on checks.
I did some looking into that for you Mega, and what I've found is that nVidia has not yet made a single usable mobility driver for Vista.
The only option you have is to get a download of the latest desktop model drivers and mod the files.
http://laptopvideo2go.com/ has some excellent information and tools to make modding the drivers extremely easy
Hey, thanks. I thought it was odd that I haddn't found anything yet. Have to give it a look see.
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(1 reply)
#12 Posted by tpfareavip on 25 Oct 2007 - 15:38
- is anybody really suprised that tech support didnt know what the heck was going on with the client before just shooting out a random pre computed answer. This is standard operating practice for big company support lines. It's sad really that in this day in age we still can't get our good techies out where they need to be.(mainly because big company hire idiots and disguise them as techies.lol)
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#13 Posted by DaViD_BRaNDoN on 25 Oct 2007 - 15:46
- This is why I like Neowin. It's where we get our voices heard
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(2 replies)
#14 Posted by Intelman on 25 Oct 2007 - 16:40
- Thank whichever god you believe in!!
x64 Windows is far superior to 32bit, I mean as long as all your applications work, and you can do what you need to do, why not choose x64? I run it, and everything I need works, though I have to admit, Windows DVD Maker doesn't like to support anything other than wmv and mpeg. There are no 64bit codecs for it yet
. I dunno why they included a 32bit and 64bit windows media player, but only a 64bit DVD maker and Movie Maker. They're nice for simple video and dvd making. -
#14.1 Posted by Citrusleak on 25 Oct 2007 - 21:52
- Just download the vista codec pack for x64. Works great and has almost every codec you will need in x64.
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#14.2 Posted by Morpheus Phreak on 26 Oct 2007 - 02:05
- Quote - (Citrusleak said @ #14.1)Just download the vista codec pack for x64. Works great and has almost every codec you will need in x64.
Just be careful when doing so....a lot of times those codec packs screw up more things than they fix.
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(1 reply)
#15 Posted by seta-san on 25 Oct 2007 - 18:07
- having worked in a call center tech support line i can promise you that the tech support agent was trying to hurry him off the phone, especially when there is nothing that he can do. These people are not programers, they are not lawyers. They are there to listen to people bitch and complain all day long.
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#15.1 Posted by Morpheus Phreak on 25 Oct 2007 - 20:29
- Quote - (seta-san said @ #15)having worked in a call center tech support line i can promise you that the tech support agent was trying to hurry him off the phone, especially when there is nothing that he can do. These people are not programers, they are not lawyers. They are there to listen to people bitch and complain all day long.
That's only if they are uneducated and deserve to be fired. I worked in 2 Call Centers.
One was for a company doing Verizon Customer Support. I didn't work there for very long.
The other job where I was a Supervisor for several years was for a company that had a varied customer base. We handled calls for doctors, tow companies, ISP's, alarm technicians, etc.
I also handled a lot of their IT issues. Any agent who just rushes people off the phones we fired.
Also where in any of my comments did I state that I handled this x64 issues through any sort of phone support?
I've made it clear time and again that this was handled through e-mail and via the forums with Community Liasons. In particular one Community Liason who has worked as an engineer for Dell.
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#16 Posted by Morpheus Phreak on 25 Oct 2007 - 20:36
- A quick note I'd like to add here as a bit of an update.
Dell is working hard on getting the support for systems restored.
Part of the problem is that so many systems had the support removed.
(This next part is my opinion)
I think what they are doing at this point is looking at systems.
Figuring out which ones work well with Vista and which do not.
Not that I think this is the right way to resolve it, but it's at least meeting the community half-way.
I'm fairly confident that the Vista logo'ed systems carrying Vista x64 support should all be back up soon.
The XPS 410 already has it's Vista 64 drivers back up, but my wife's Dimension E520 and our A922 Printer do not as of yet.
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#17 Posted by
neufuse on 25 Oct 2007 - 21:56
- Well there is definatly a "glitch" today... when I look up the Dimension 9200 drivers the operating system dropdown is empty! looks like they don't support anything now
The Windows Logo Program states "OEMs using x64 implementations must have signed drivers available to end users if shipping a 32-bit version of Windows Vista on the system." This applies to [Dell] systems using a Windows Vista logo on the case. They must of come to the conclusion to add back the missing drivers!
In a Dell Support representative email response he pledged to restore the missing updates by saying "Dell does provide both 32-bit and 64-bit Vista drivers for the XPS 410. Checking our website it appears that the option for XP and Vista 64 are missing, I can get those added back." he goes on to say "Luckily most of the drivers posted for Vista 32-bit also cover Vista 64. Some of the drivers like the network driver and most of the applications are limited to 32. For those exceptions, the drivers are available on the Resource DVD and you can locate the drivers using the search feature (a difficult procedure at the moment, I’m afraid)." without explaining exactly why it's difficult, he finishes up the email with "Andy and I will work on getting the 64-bit OS selection added back."
It appears after many emails back and forth Dell are finally doing what they are good at, Customer service. God forbid they forget exactly who it is that put them on a pedestal and who can just as easily knock 'em off!
Morpheus had this to say ->
Chalk up a win for the little guy who wasn't afraid to stand up to the multi-billion dollar corporation.
We like to think that Neowin had a helping hand, thanks everyone for your feedback on the topic yesterday and the subsequent exposure it received on other websites.