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Mele20
Premium Member
join:2001-06-05
Hilo, HI

Mele20 to dib22

Premium Member

to dib22

Re: What is this?

Yes, there is a wifi adapter...Dell didn't give me any choice or I would have ordered the machine without it. I thought I disabled all the services connected to it shortly after I got the computer...but maybe I missed something. Hmmm....it is enabled. Now how did it get enabled? I had it and the services connected to it disabled. I disabled it again and the Wi-Fi listings disappeared.

I also noticed that while I was gone (if event viewer is to be believed) that a helper driver for the Dell Support Center was installed which is odd and upsetting. Dell Support Center is good (in the past it was awful and I would uninstall it on a new machine) but I don't want Dell installing anything without my express permission.

dib22
join:2002-01-27
Kansas City, MO

dib22

Member

Well at least there was a wifi adapter. I don't have 8 on my laptop yet, when I do I will keep an eye out for auto-un-disabling wifi adapters and report if I ever see it.
BlitzenZeus
Burnt Out Cynic
Premium Member
join:2000-01-13

2 recommendations

BlitzenZeus to Mele20

Premium Member

to Mele20
There's only one thing you need to disable, not hard. I've never seen them become re-enabled on their own provided the operating system partition hasn't been restored.

La Luna
Fly With The Angels My Beloved Son Chris
Premium Member
join:2001-07-12
New Port Richey, FL

La Luna

Premium Member

But she said she had it disabled and has never seen those wifi connections before. The question is, how did wifi become enabled? I'm sure she would know if she did it herself.

nwrickert
Mod
join:2004-09-04
Geneva, IL

2 recommendations

nwrickert

Mod

said by La Luna:

But she said she had it disabled and has never seen those wifi connections before.

No, she is not that clear on whether she disabled.

She would not have seen the connections if she had never clicked on the network icon.

Unless a WiFi connection has been configured, and set to auto-connect, there would not have been any outside access to the computer. The chances are that there is no reason for any concern.

La Luna
Fly With The Angels My Beloved Son Chris
Premium Member
join:2001-07-12
New Port Richey, FL

La Luna

Premium Member

Now how did it get enabled? I had it and the services connected to it disabled.

Going by that she's saying she had the adapter disabled....I think.

Cthen
Premium Member
join:2004-08-01
Detroit, MI

Cthen

Premium Member

said by La Luna:

Now how did it get enabled? I had it and the services connected to it disabled.

Going by that she's saying she had the adapter disabled....I think.

Someone thinking they disabled it and it actually being disabled are two different things. Hence why some still had them go through other processes to check.
cpalindc
Premium Member
join:2011-06-05
Washington, DC

1 recommendation

cpalindc to Mele20

Premium Member

to Mele20
said by Mele20:

I also noticed that while I was gone (if event viewer is to be believed) that a helper driver for the Dell Support Center was installed which is odd and upsetting. Dell Support Center is good (in the past it was awful and I would uninstall it on a new machine) but I don't want Dell installing anything without my express permission.

I think this is the key. The Dell support genie probably noticed that your wireless connection was inoperative and either installed drivers or re-installed drivers. I have seen the same thing happen when checking Microsoft update with a disabled LAN card (I had two and disabled the internal one) and MS gave the option to download an update for the card because they determined that it was not working correctly.

StuartMW
Premium Member
join:2000-08-06

1 recommendation

StuartMW

Premium Member

When I got my latest Dell box I uninstalled almost everything Dell. I've never missed any of it.

This is par for the course these days--everyone does it You can't re-install the base O/S since only a "system recovery" mechanism (you usually have to burn your own DVD) is provided and that includes all the crap they loaded.
BlitzenZeus
Burnt Out Cynic
Premium Member
join:2000-01-13

BlitzenZeus

Premium Member

On a system I setup I had to disable most of the dell startup crap, crap trying to sell their premium recovery service, and stuff like that which was popping up. They hid it as a service. Also as a side note they had the very buggy version of the intel ssd software, and I saw the memory usage climb on that to almost a gig. The latest version of the intel software had been out a while, but Hell didn't update their hdd images in months.

I should note on that desktop system the wireless card was a tiny card on the motherboard, and not in a standard pci-e slot. The little wires that came off it were tied to the case.
Secyurityet
Premium Member
join:2012-01-07
untied state
·T-Mobile

1 recommendation

Secyurityet

Premium Member

said by AVD:

said by Secyurityet:

said by Mele20:

No, this is a desktop. I don't think there is any physical switch.

Then you can open that puppy up and pull out that wifi card. That'll do'er.

probably integrated in the motherboard.

Could be...
said by BlitzenZeus:

I should note on that desktop system the wireless card was a tiny card on the motherboard, and not in a standard pci-e slot. The little wires that came off it were tied to the case.

Right hand: dykes.

Snip, snip.

No more WiFi.
Mele20
Premium Member
join:2001-06-05
Hilo, HI

Mele20 to cpalindc

Premium Member

to cpalindc
said by cpalindc:

said by Mele20:

I also noticed that while I was gone (if event viewer is to be believed) that a helper driver for the Dell Support Center was installed which is odd and upsetting. Dell Support Center is good (in the past it was awful and I would uninstall it on a new machine) but I don't want Dell installing anything without my express permission.

I think this is the key. The Dell support genie probably noticed that your wireless connection was inoperative and either installed drivers or re-installed drivers. I have seen the same thing happen when checking Microsoft update with a disabled LAN card (I had two and disabled the internal one) and MS gave the option to download an update for the card because they determined that it was not working correctly.

No, the driver that got installed/updated was "PCDR Kernel Mode Service Helper Driver" which is from PC-Doctor which Dell uses for My Dell Support Center. I may have had PC-Doctor running minimized on the taskbar because I was watching its System History report which says that my BD ROM drive has been installed and uninstalled 2 TIMES every day starting Dec 12 (once a day until this month) which is a mystery as Device Manager has never indicated a problem with the optical drive.

A check for the driver in Windows Explorer does not show any update to that driver. I would be very surprised if the driver was really updated as Dell is AWFUL (always has been) about updating drivers. The Dell web support page for this computer claims a BUNCH of newly updated drivers as of the first part of March. But when I checked all those out not one of them was a newer version than what I have from around July 2012. So, I think Dell wants owners to think there are new versions of the crappy Realtek driver and other drivers when the vendors have not issued new versions and Dell's purported March 2013 versions are not new at all. The nVidia driver is the only one that is newer than last summer. I did notice one positive change in the System History report in Dell support center since that purported driver update. It now shows a history of all Restore points but only for this month.
Mele20

Mele20 to StuartMW

Premium Member

to StuartMW
said by StuartMW:

When I got my latest Dell box I uninstalled almost everything Dell. I've never missed any of it.

This is par for the course these days--everyone does it You can't re-install the base O/S since only a "system recovery" mechanism (you usually have to burn your own DVD) is provided and that includes all the crap they loaded.

I forced Dell to send me the USB reinstallation sticks for Windows 8 Pro and downgrade to Windows 7 Pro. But I didn't get them until I had the computer almost a month and I didn't really want to wipe it and install Win 8 pro clean at that point. I was undecided about whether I would keep Win 8 or downgrade to Win 7. Plus, I had Win 8 all set up and many programs installed, etc. It really pissed me off that Dell would not include at least the Win 8 Pro reinstallation either DVD disk or USB stick with the computer as I asked for it when I bought it. Plus, I bought from Small/Med Business division but through its Member Purchase Program and that program, being a discount program for business owners, their employees and families, wasn't offering the disk on the config page.

At least I have the ability to install Win 8Pro clean or to downgrade to Win 7 Pro. XPS 8500 special support though did tell me that if I decide to downgrade to have them walk me through it as the process on this particular computer is very complicated (i.e. some hardware may not work right which is ridiculous...but typical crap from OEMs).

Judging from what I have read in Dell forums, I don't think that if I had purchased from Dell Home division that I would have any hope of getting the downgrade USB stick or probably even the Win 8 reinstallation stick. Dell is sending those out to owners who have a disaster and require a reinstallation disk. Dell tells these hapless owners that they must RETURN the disk after using it and that if they do not comply that they will forfeit any remaining warranty. Dell claims this policy is forced by Microsoft. Strange because why would Microsoft force this only on Home division buyers?