Dell on Jon's Notes

Dell BIOS Password Management - WMI

Fri, 11 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Earlier this year, I wrote about how to manage Dell BIOS passwords using PowerShell. The method described in that post uses the DellBIOSProvider PowerShell module. This method works, but I was not completely satisfied with it, as the PowerShell module needs to be downloaded and installed on every system the script runs on.

Thankfully, Dell recently released a technical whitepaper documenting WMI classes that can be used to directly modify BIOS settings without needing an outside program or PowerShell module. This allowed me to create a new version of the Dell BIOS Settings Management script that does not require any additional content to function.

Dell BIOS Settings Management - WMI

Fri, 11 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Earlier this year, I wrote about how to manage Dell BIOS settings using PowerShell. The method described in that post uses the DellBIOSProvider PowerShell module. This method works, but I was not completely satisfied with it, as the PowerShell module needs to be downloaded and installed on every system the script runs on.

BIOS Management - Example Task Sequences

Mon, 24 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

UPDATE September 16th, 2020 - The scripts included in these downloads are currently outdated. I plan to update this post soon with the latest script versions.

Now that I have working BIOS management scripts for Dell, HP, and Lenovo, I figured I would put them all together in a few example task sequences. This post will also act as a hub for my BIOS management posts.

Current BIOS Management Posts

Dell BIOS Password Management
Dell BIOS Settings Management
HP BIOS Password Management
HP BIOS Settings Management
Lenovo BIOS Password Management
Lenovo BIOS Settings Management

Dell BIOS Settings Management - PSModule

Fri, 21 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This post was updated on September 11th, 2020.

Update: Dell does now provide native WMI classes to manage BIOS settings on newer models. For more information, see this post: Dell BIOS Settings Management - WMI. For information on using the Dell PowerShell module to configure settings on older models, continue reading this post.

This post is one of 3 posts in my series on managing BIOS settings using PowerShell. I’ve also written about HP and Lenovo. In this post I’ll be talking about using PowerShell to manage Dell BIOS settings.

Dell BIOS Password Management - PSModule

Sun, 03 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0000

This post was updated on September 11th, 2020.

Update: Dell does now provide native WMI classes to manage BIOS passwords on newer models. For more information, see this post: Dell BIOS Password Management - WMI. For information on using the Dell PowerShell module to configure passwords on older models, continue reading this post.

This is the third post in my series on how to manage BIOS / Firmware passwords with PowerShell. Previously, I’ve discussed Lenovo BIOS Password Management and HP BIOS Password Management.

Working with the Dell Command | PowerShell Provider

Sun, 03 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0000

This post was updated on February 20th, 2022.

I’ve recently been writing a series of blog posts on how to manage BIOS and Firmware settings using PowerShell. When working with HP and Lenovo hardware I was able to modify the settings by connecting to the WMI classes that are surfaced on the hardware by default. With Dell this was not as straightforward.

In order to access the Dell WMI classes that can be used to query and modify BIOS settings, the Dell Command | Monitor software needs to be installed. This posed another problem, as I wanted to be able to modify BIOS settings while in WinPE, and Dell Command | Monitor only installs in a full Windows OS. The solution to this issue was the Dell Command | PowerShell Provider.