Driver CABs Understanding Delta Reports

The driver Packs are updated based on the release schedule and in response to customer questions, we are providing a way to see what has changed in the new release of driver Pack with respect to previous driver Pack (does new driver Pack contains all applicable latest drivers?, etc.). The "Delta Report" is the answer to these questions.

"Delta Report" is the report built by Dell engineers and are the basis for finding applicable latest driver candidates for new driver Pack release.

"Delta Report" as the name suggests, contain the difference between the applicable latest set of drivers available on Dell Drivers and Downloads and  the previous driver Pack. Thus enabling customers to understand the changes in the new driver Pack. A "Delta Report" provides the following information:

• Contents of previous driver Pack.
• Changes since previous driver Pack.
• Highlight incremental changes.
• Applicable driver releases for the new driver Pack.

Note: Applicability of a driver for new driver Pack releases are decided on various factors like- which driver supports more devices, is a release INF installable or Operating System Deployment ready, etc.

Release of the "Delta Report" will align with the release schedule i.e. all new driver Pack release hence forth will have "Delta Reports" associated. Any customer can navigate to a "Delta Report" by accessing links associated to a driver pack on the Driver Pack landing/Index page.

Understanding a "Delta Report"

A small part of a "Delta Report" is shown below(Figure-1), Let’s look at the details.

Figure-1: Latitude-5330-Windows10

Key data items in "Delta Report" are:

1. Dell Version of new/latest driver Pack.

2. Release Date of new/latest driver Pack.

3. Download link for new/latest driver Pack.

4. Link for Driver Pack Homepage.

5. Link to "Understanding Delta Report" page.

6. Title of the Delta Report Content.

7. Details about the previous driver Pack(along with Dell version and release date) and Support.dell.com(along with snapshot date), as used for comparison.

8. Column shows the driver release form previous driver Pack.

9. Column shows the applicable drivers on Support.dell.com at time of building report.

Other Columns are Architecture(Arch), Category, Device Description(Driver), Status of Comparison(status).

Let’s look at Status and Status Description for different cases:

• Status "No Change"

"No Change" value represents:

a)      Perfect match i.e. Same driver was part of the previous driver Pack and no update for device is required.

Examples

Figure-2: Status "No Change" represents

• Status "Not Supported"

• Status "Newly Added"

"Newly Added" represents:

a)      Drivers which are new addition to applicable driver for latest/new driver Pack or are available on support.dell.com but was not present in previous driver pack.

Examples

Figure-4: Status "Newly Added" represents

• Status "Replaced"

"Replaced" represents:

a)      Drivers which are updated to fix issues or provide additional features. Previous driver pack had an older version of driver for the device.

Examples

Figure-5:  Status "Replaced" represents