Dell Command Update Offline Repo Series
Part 1: Dell Command Update – Leveraging with ConfigMgr – Offline Repo Overview
[You are Here] Part 2: Dell Command Update – Create Custom Catalog for Offline Repo
Part 3: Dell Command Update – Creating the Offline Repo Content
Part 4: Dell Command Update – Offline Repo – TS Integration
So this is the first technical blog post going over Leveraging Dell’s Offline Repo functions, I wasn’t sure I should blog them, since this documentation covers it pretty well:
Manage Custom Update Catalogs | Dell US, but I decided to go ahead and do it anyway.
I’m going to use my Dell test machine, an OptiPlex 3090 for these demos, it works the same for each model.
Assumptions: 1) You already know the CM Basics, creating packages, distributing content, etc. 2) You already have access to the Dell Tech Direct Portal and rights to build the catalogs.
Lets head over to the Tech Direct Catalog, the first thing you need to do is configure your portal to use custom catalogs, otherwise you don’t get the option to create the catalogs you need.
Now that we set that, we’re going to go over to Update catalogs, and create a new catalog for the Optiplex 3090
Nothing earth shattering here, just going to name it after the model I’m going to use it to support.
I’m going pick OptiPlex from this list, then the 3090
Now at this next selection, I’m going to pick both Windows 10 x64 and Windows 11, because I will be deploying either one in my lab for different tests. In production, I’d of course limit it to Windows 11 (or whatever single OS you’re deploying) to reduce the size of the repository.
In this next box, I’m going to pick them all! But this is where you can be more specific and controlling. Do you want the Dell Apps? Do you want BIOS? Perhaps you manage BIOS updates via a different process? Pick what is right for you
Once again, I’m going with the default of All, do what makes sense for your environment:
Click “Create” and watch some spinning wheels, then you’ll see your new catalog, which we’ll now refine.
Click > arrow next to the name, then click the 3 little dots next to the Draft, and click “Edit Draft”
Now you’re gonna see everything from the update catalog in detail and you can edit how you like:
I went through the list and removed things manually that I know I don’t have in my 3090, like AMD or NVidia video cards, and those devices that require firmware updates. Once you got your desired list, click Save.
Next, back at the Update Catalog screen, we need to update catalog from Draft to Test
Once it’s in test, it gives you additional options when you click on the 3 dots to the left of “Test”, the one we want is Create Download:
Now that the Download is ready, lets get it.. click the 3 dots again and Download
Ok, now we have the Zip File with your Catalog Metadata, lets take a look inside, we have the exe that builds the catalog, a readme file with instructions, and the XML meta data files
Ok, so that’s the first step of creating an offline repository for Dell Command Update. In comparison, HP, it’s a simple PowerShell function which you can automate for your entire fleet… but my intents were not to make you feel bad for using Dell, but to help you manage them.
Next Post we’ll dig into that Help file a bit more, understand what it means, and then run the tool to download your repo.
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