In alt.windows7.general, on Tue, 22 Aug 2017 20:42:21 +0100, "J. P.
Gilliver (John)" wrote:

In message , micky
writes:
Hi, I bought 2 weeks ago a Dell Latitude E4300, a small laptop, Win7,
64-bit.

It had a fingerprint sensor and an ID card sensor. They don't have

(What's an ID card sensor - I mean, what sort of card?)

The Dell manual calls it a "Contactless smart-card reader (optional)"
but it's not a slot. It's a part of the surface to the right of the
touch pad and it has a little embossed rectangle with a small paren and
a little bigger paren just outside of that on both sides of the
rectangle. I think it's an image of a card that is radiating.

their software anymore, because win7 was re-installed, but that implies
to me the computer was used in a corporate or government environment.

Not necessarily - some resellers do that too. (In fact most respectable
_refurbishers_ do.)

(It also had IIUC the ability to do a special fast boot that would
enable it only to get email. It used separate boot files that were hard
[]
I went to dell support, entered the tag number, and ran the driver
checkup and it listed 9 drivers to be updated!!!

Gosh that's hard to believe.

Video, Chipset, Video Graphics, Audio, Bios, Mouse/Keyboard, Network,
Network Wireless, Serial ATA.

Not to me: the refurbisher (or original owner if they did it) could well
have installed the minimum set of drivers that give you a working
machine. (Can you even get all the video resolutions the hardware is
capable of?)

Good question. So far everything looks nice, but I'll find something
that benefits from greater resolution.

The vendor was pushing the frame around the screen down and I think she
said they replaced the screen. I bought this at a hamfest, in
Berryville Va. and she came all the way from Michigan. She was some
place else in Virgina the previous day, and she had a lot of laptops,
though only one of this model.

That's almost everything. (What's left?) Even though the thing seems to
be working fine now. Should I install them one at a time or all at
once?

As others have said, when it comes to drivers, "if it is working, don't
upgrade" - unless you know there's something (a) it can do (b) you want
to do (c) the current driver can't. (That would include your fingerprint
reader and "ID card reader", which I notice aren't in the above nine,

Good point.

unless they come under "chipset" or "Bios", which I doubt. Or possibly
"Mouse/Keyboard".)

It says "Auto Installation not available. Please try again later or
manually download nad install individual updates." Is this one of
those times when later will never come? Or should I wait?

See above.

Right. Only one at a time, if that many.

This would imply the previous owner never updated drivers at all, and
that seems surprising in a corporate environment. Or not??

If "win7 was re-installed", it's highly unlikely that any original
drivers were left, updated or not.

Oh, yeah.

Thanks.

You're welcome (-:.


I'm not going to try to fix this, for fear I wont' be able to uninstall
it later, but I've included this for the curious:

"Hi Rick,

Thank you for your reply. It turns out that the fingerprint reader on
the Latitude E-Series is controlled by the Embassy Security Suite, which
is embedded in the Dell Control Point. After stumbling around --and
locking myself out of the system completely -- I managed to find someone
who could explain how it all fits together. I was very lucky that I had
a day-old image that I could use to reload and start over.

There is no real manual for this and the support material for the E4300
completely ignores it. You have to know to use "Embassy Security" as a
search term in the Dell Knowlege Base then read through all the
disorganized papers to figure out the steps. If you don't do things in
the proper order, you essentially trash your system.

Bottom line: the software is on the system and it does work but the
user documentation is unacceptably disorganized."



This guy can't uninstall something or other:

"There is, however, a left over of my attempts to setup fingerprint
scanner, which I can not get rid off. Hence my questions to someone who
may have encountered similar problem."


And this:

"I have resolved the issue. Here is what I had to do.

I reinstalled Dell Control Point Security Drivers

I reinstalled Dell Control Security Manager Software (including Wave)

I configured Wave software for preboot management including enrolling
fingerprints.

I then removed fingerprints previously enrolled.

I removed BIOS system password

I uninstalled Dell Security Manager Software.

Setting up BIOS system password results in password request at
boot/restart and no sign of Biometric security. "

Wow.