Update LS database with warranty information from Dell's site

[Corbett]

FYI: Lansweeper 5.0 which is currently in beta will have this feature build-in for Dell, HP, Lenovo

This isn't exactly a "custom action" but this topic seems the best. I wrote an application that when executed it will update the Purchase Date and Warranty Date custom fields of all Dell computers in the LS database. It accomplishes this by making an HTTP request to Dell's support site and pulling down the appropriate dates. Some assumptions are made here: The oldest date found on the support page is the purchase date and the most recent date found on the page is the warranty expiration date.

EDIT (3/21/2012): Dell changed their support site which broke the program. The program now uses the web service that Dell provides for getting warranty information. Due to this change a new line needs to be added to the .config file:

<add key="DellWarrantyURL" value="http://xserv.dell.com/services/assetservice.asmx"/>

This is a .NET application and therefore requires Framework 3.5.

Before running the program be sure to edit the .config file and set the connectionString option with the appropriate SQL Server computer name, database name, username and password.

In my situation I used the Task Scheduler to run this application once a week (UpdateDellWarrantyInfo -all) to make sure all computers have the most recent warranty information and once a day
(UpdateDellWarrantyInfo -warrantyInfo) to get the warranty information for new computers.

12/21/2009, 4:15PM ET - Added most recent version of utility.
12/24/2009, 10:50AM ET - Attached most recent version (v1.4) of utility and updated the documentation.
01/04/2010, 1:30PM ET - Fixed bug where invalid Asset Tags (AAAAAA5 for example) would throw an exception. It now just skips it and keeps going. Attached v1.5.
01/13/2010, 10:07AM ET - Added a proxy authentication mechanism (integrated authentication only), fixed a SQL statement that failed on SQL 2000, added -verbose option for troubleshooting (rewrote argument handling routines), added stack trace to error output for additional troubleshooting. Attached v1.6.
01/18/2010, 8:16AM ET - Rewrote date handling routine to better handle different date formats. Attached v1.7.
07/02/2010, 12:16PM ET - I haven't had much time to maintain this lately. Attached v1.7 of the source.
03/21/2012, 8:26AM ET - Rewrote the warranty fetch routine to use the Dell web service. Note this version now requires a DellWarrantyURL key in the .config file. Attached v2.0.

Usage: UpdateDellWarrantyInfo [options] [-verbose]

Options

-all
Will update the warranty information for all Dell computers in the Lansweeper
database.

-warrantyInfo
Will update the warranty information only for the Dell computers that have
empty warranty and purchase dates in the Lansweeper database.

-assetTag <assetTag>
Will update the warranty information for a single Dell computer based on the
asset tag.  Must provide a single asset tag.

-computer <computerName>
Will update the warranty information for a single Dell computer based on the
computer name.  Must provide a single computer name.

-verbose
Print troubleshooting information to the console.

-help
Will display this screen.

NOTE: If no options are provided, will update all Dell computers.

[Hemoco]

Thanks for the great addon.

For version 4 we'll create a seperate page with all kinds of action downloads.
With your approval I'll add this.

[Corbett]

Lansweeper wrote:
Thanks for the great addon.

For version 4 we'll create a seperate page with all kinds of action downloads.
With your approval I'll add this.

Mr. Lansweeper, sure you can post a copy of the tool if you wish.

[wgknowles]

Thanks for the updates! The majority of the problems I was having are resolved.
One last bug I found... If a BIOS was accidentally programmed with an invalid service tag, the program crashes when it tries to query dell's page.

[Corbett]

wgknowles, good find! I've attached v1.5 to the first post of this thread. It now skips over computers with invalid asset tags.

wgknowles wrote:
Thanks for the updates! The majority of the problems I was having are resolved.
One last bug I found... If a BIOS was accidentally programmed with an invalid service tag, the program crashes when it tries to query dell's page.

[Corbett]

Off the top of my head, there are two things I can think of that may cause this issue:
1. This application requires .NET Framework 3.5 and 3.5 is not installed.
2. The UpdateDellWarrantyInfo.exe.config file is either missing or the connectionString parameter in the .config file hasn't been updated to point to the Lansweeper database.

[pdumbleton]

I downloaded this but I cannot launch the application get the following error message:

This application has failed to start becuase the application configuration is incorrect. Reinstalling the application may fix this problem.

What are the requirements to run this application?

[Stuart_robinson]

I can confirm that v1.4 (with the euro /US date format mod) works for our dell computers here in the UK.

[Corbett]

Stuart robinson wrote:
I can confirm that v1.4 (with the euro /US date format mod) works for our dell computers here in the UK.

I'm glad to hear it Stuart. Thanks for testing it out.

[Corbett]

Here is a new version to handle UK dates. It should now handle both US (mm/dd/yyyy) and UK (dd/mm/yyyy) dates. It figures this out if the URL contains "euro" in it. Stuart, please let me know if this works.

04/01/2010, 1:26PM ET - Removed attachment from this post. Please download the latest version from the first post in this thread.

[googoo]

that's basically what i did and it appears to be working fine (still running on list of 1800+ pcs). But thanks for the updated utility!