1 What were the symptoms of the problem? What did & did not happen?
I tried to update the Bios from 1.10.1 to 1.12 by going to the Dell support site and clicking the button to let the site analyze my computer for needed updates. There was message that the Bios updated needed to be installed manually. I downloaded it and ran it, but received the following error message: Firmware Update Utility: Could not find valid Policy or Resource Payload.
2 Do you have any other strange things happening on the computer?
No.
3 Is your user account an Admin user account?
It's a personal laptop, and I have both personal and administrative rights.
4 They could only log in if there was a pre-existing user account for them to do so or if they used your user account to create an additional Admin user account [which also indicates that your account is an Admin one]. Do you know which was the case?
There was no pre-existing account for them. They used my account to create an additional Admin user account, and it's still on my computer. My next step is to figure out how to delete it.
And another thing [prompted by bro's post below]
5.1 What BIOS update procedure were you following? Did they use the same procedure or a different one? My Dells just run a downloaded exe with no need to create any bootable USB [I don't recall having to do it that way for a decade].
They used a different procedure. They ran the Dell utility, but it also failed until they logged in with the Dell account.
5.2 If you go to
Dell Drivers & downloads using your Dell Service Tag, in what form are BIOS updates presented to you?
First I get a button Detect PC. When I click on, the next page shows my service tag and a horizontal menu that includes Drivers and Download. When I click on Drivers and Downloads, it shows the needed updates, which yesterday included the Bios update.
5.3 If, on the Drivers & downloads list entry for your updated BIOS, you click the down arrow next to the
Download button then click on the link for
View full driver details what Installation instructions are given on that page [down near the bottom above the picture about video tutorials].
It's gone now because the Bios update has been installed, but I think that there was a note that I had to do a manual installation of the Bios.
Denis