Hey there fellow sysadmins. Just figured I could share some good news.

If you've ever worked with DCU-CLI.exe in a SCCM task-sequence, the command line utility for Dell Command Update, you've probably run into the dreaded "Return Code 2", see:

• https://www.reddit.com/r/SCCM/comments/xfg8of/dell_command_update_return_code_2/

• https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/9hchg8/dell_command_update_exit_codes/

There was a bug in DCU, that prevents it from running all commands under the NTAUTHORITY\SYSTEM context, which SCCM runs all tasks under. In an already deployed OS, via user-mode they will run fine, but not PXE. This presents an issue if you want to deploy firmware updates during your PXE Deployment.

On May 9th, Dell released Dell Command | Update 4.9. It is now able to run a scan, configure, and apply updates in the SYSTEM context -- woohoo!

We are using PSADT (Powershell App Deployment Toolkit) to run these commands.

Basically, install Dell Command | Update 4.9 on the machine during the task sequence, package is:

• Dell-Command-Update-Application_30F6M_WIN_4.9.0_A01

You can extract the .MSI file with a command similar to:

(CMD): Dell-Command-Update-Application_30F6M_WIN_4.9.0_A01.EXE /PASSTHROUGH /X /B"C:\Temp\DCU4.9.0" 
(PSADT .ps1 script): Execute-MSI -Action 'Install' -SkipMSIAlreadyInstalledCheck -Path 'DellCommandUpdate.msi' -Parameters '/q'

To be safe, we are still using the 8dot3 format, but at least it finally runs!

$DCUCLI="C:\PROGRA~2\Dell\COMMAN~1\dcu-cli.exe"
& "$DCUCLI" /scan
& "$DCUCLI" /configure -biosPassword=YourPassword
& "$DCUCLI" /applyupdates -reboot=disable

Please note:

• C:\PROGRA~1 = C:\Program Files\

• C:\PROGRA~2 = C:\Program Files (x86)\

Hoping this helps someone else out there, and kudos to Dell for finally fixing this bug that has persisted since DCU 4.1!

In case anyone else was interested, an update to version 4.6 introduces a feature set that we’ve been requesting for quite some time from Dell.

We have always struggled with pushing out laptop, driver, and firmware updates, because certain ones may require a reboot, and so we did not want to negatively impact our end users, and have their system reboot in the middle of a meeting, etc.

4.6 introduces the ability to defer install and reboot by a certain number of hours in addition to defining how many times the user can defer the install or reboot.

We’re in the process of getting the new configuration file pushed out to all our machines as this will help us to ensure that everybody’s computers drivers are up-to-date, without having to engineer and architect a more complicated solution.

Just wanted to share, would love to hear others thoughts.

Thanks.