Dell SupportAssist not working on Windows 11 ?

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@Mark-Glenn wrote:

I have a Dell Inspiron 13.3" 7000 7391 2 in 1 Laptop and since I updated to Windows 11 SupportAssist .exe will not run click to open the app just blinks for a micro sec. and won't open is there a fix for this ?

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Check out this, may be this might help : https://dl.dell.com/topicspdf/dell-supportassist-pcs-tablets_release-notes16_en-us.pdf/West Penn Power Customer Service

SupportAssist used to work. With the latest update of Windows 11, SupportAssist no longer functions nor can it be installed without various failed attempts. Even following Dell's 'How to install Support Assist' is useless. 

"Installation failed - We were unable to complete the installation. Please reboot your PC and try again."

To be clear, these Dell apps are poorly supported. To get 'My Dell' working, registry edits are required. Unfortunately, you can't download My Dell to perform registry edits. With SupportAssist, won't install period! Although, these silly Dell apps are irrelevant, Dell requires Support Assist to be installed when performing the ONLINE software update check, "Let Dell automatically find driver updates for you." .

I have this problem and I worked for an hour yesterday with support. The hour included the use of remote assistance. The problem still wasn't fixed (same message: "Installation failed - We were unable to complete the installation. Please reboot your PC and try again." . They escalated the issue after yesterday's session and I received an email today with instructions of what to try. I tried it and I still get the same message; "Installation failed - We were unable to complete the installation. Please reboot your PC and try again.". I personally tried using Safe Mode with networking to see if I could install it that way, with minimal programs and services running on my PC, but that didn't work, because I'm on WiFi and far from an ethernet plugin.  I'm seriously thinking of just doing a Windows reinstall/repair of my PC (keeping files, but removing all apps) and not downloading Support Assist again. I'm just going to reply to Dell Support that the "hopeful fix part 2" didn't work and chill a bit before making that decision. 

We know that SupportAssist is compatible with Windows 11 and yet Dell has no answer. However, Dell Command Update does operate and function to address updates. The differences between Dell Command Update and the defunct Support Assist are Dell Command Update is used for driver, BIOS, and firmware updates while Support Assist is designed to have other irrelevant functions, such as remove viruses & malware, optimize PC performance automatically, and detect and resolve issues.

Dell Command Update Download & Install and How to Run It (minitool.com)

I'm using a 1 year old DELL 8940 and I have been getting a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD - Stop code: REFERENCE_BY_POINTER) on Windows 11 every time I attempt to re-install, update or complete the loading of DELL Support Assist.  It says it won't run without being updated first! 

I tried uninstalling it using the Windows 11 uninstall feature which appears to complete successfully, but the app is never removed from the application list.   I tried using the link on the DELL website to launch DELL Support Assist and after installing the downloaded file, it again gave me BSOD.   Same Stop code as above.

Looks like Support Assist is seriously messed up after the most recent Windows 11 updates.   On the bright side, I had run the DELL Update tool successfully in the last 1-2 weeks, so I'm confident I'm fully up to date with drivers and Windows updates.  However, something has caused this application to fail, and FAIL BADLY!

TO  ALL WHO ARE GETTING ERROR 

"Installation failed - We were unable to complete the installation. Please reboot your PC and try again."

Please install NET 5.0 Runtime and do one more reboot afterwards, than try to install Supportassist. (it worked on 2 cases) rest are still escalated. 

I have a few tickets going on with tech support over the same issues and all of my cases are escalated to their level 3 team. They have identified the issues (caused by windows) and will be releasing a fix. 

Thanks for the recommendation, but sadly, no joy.

I can confirm that .NET Runtime is installed in my case and running version 5.0.17. I chose the repair option and again noticed (as this error persists across reboots) that the installer was saying:

- An installation for Dell SupportAssist is currently suspended. You must undo the changes made by that installation to continue. Do you want to undo those changes?

I chose "yes" to Undo the changes, but was then informed:

- Files In Use
- The following applications are using files that need to be updated: Dell SupportAssist

It's unclear to me how I stop this failed installation instance of SupportAssist from continuing to block other application installs.

I think I'm going to give up and rebuild this PC rather than trying to figure out why SupportAssist has messed up this machine.

On its own, ‘SupportAssist’ will not install under Windows 11. As stated earlier, ‘Dell Command Update’ does install/function, but its value is nominal. Up to last Thursday, ‘My Dell’ app was shown in the MS store but was not available for download. As of my checking last night, ‘My Dell’ app in the MS store became available. This is how convoluted this has become: ‘My Dell’ is nothing more than a tiled interface to access trivial information that is otherwise available within other apps, i.e., ‘Dell Power Manager.’ Maybe in homage to Windows 8! The ONLY relevant (my opinion) option is the embedded ‘Support’ option which is actually the ‘SupportAssist’ app. When the user selects the ‘Support’ tile, the user is sent to Dell’s ‘SupportAssist’ download location. Unfortunately, we already know ‘SupportAssist ‘no longer installs/functions so the user is left running around in circles. In sum, ‘SupportAssist’ is no longer compatible with Windows 11 or perhaps the XPS 15 under Windows 11. ‘My Dell’ app is rendered useless because it requires ‘SupportAssist.’ That eliminates both SupportAssist and ‘My Dell’ apps. To add insult to injury, the online ‘Let Dell automatically find driver updates for you’ website requires ‘SupportAssist!’ The only option is to MANUALLY select/download/install the drivers that you believe are appropriate. This is more of a quality of service and support issue than a need to install “SupportAssist.” This is more of an exposure of a broken system as “the left hand doesn’t know what the right is doing.” With the exception of sporadic discussions in the forums.

This happened to me just a few days ago after a recovery (and then upgrading to Windows 11). And without SupportAssist the tests online didn't work either. I uninstalled it and then reinstalled it and everything works fine now.

How does a Dell customer utilize Dell's online diagnostics when Dell's online diagnostics requires SupportAssist to be installed? So, those with Windows 11 or possibly XPS systems are unable to run updates/diagnostics locally and online. 

Don’t install NET 5.0 Runtime. It was an interesting suggestion but leads to unstable behavior on the XPS 9500/Win 11. Installed NET 5.0 Runtime. First attempt at reinstalling SupportAssist, didn’t do anything. The second attempt, hung at installation while oddly displaying that all drivers were up-to-date. The third attempt, installing appeared to work. I rebooted and did not see the new installation notification. I found it going through the app menu within Windows 11.  After repeated attempts, I finally got SupportAssist diagnostics to start/run and it was extremely slow and time consuming. SA found one driver update but the app froze. I gave up. This is definitely a Windows 11/support assist compatibility issue. As a side note, I don’t think support assist is even relevant as windows 11 update appears to address all the updates including Dell bios updates.