XPS 15 L501 BIOS A4 Update Problems

I tried posting this question in the owners lounge but it quickly drowned amongst the other topics.

Dell just released a new BIOS A4 update on Nov 28 and I am having a heck of a time installing it (I currently have BIOS A3). The error message I recieve is:

"The application has failed to start because its side-by-side configuration is incorrect. Please see the application event log or use the command-line sxstrace.exe tool for more detail."

I just recieved my XPS 15 on Friday and have had little time to really tinker with it, which tells me that the issue was present when I recieved the laptop.

Can anyone else install the A4 BIOS update? Do you have any ideas as to what might be wrong?

 

did u try talking to the dell technicians? mine worked fine

 

worked fine for me

 

Mine ran fine too.

My only suggestion now is to redownload to make sure you don't have a corrupt file if you haven't already.

Then talk to Dell.

 

After searching the net it appears it might be a Visual C++ Redistributable issue (???).

Could someone who successfully installed the A4 update please confirm what version(s) of the redistributables you have on your machie (C++ 2005 or 2008) and also the architecture (x86 or x64)? The versions should be listed in your Control Panel/Programs and Features applet.

 

I have 3:

C++ 2005 Redistributable
C++ 2008 Redistributable - x86 9.0.30729.17
C++ 2008 Redistributable - x86 9.0.30729.4148

 

What he said, and yes it installed fine. No issues. Did you check to see if you already have A4 installed on the system?

 

I too am having a problem and posted in other thread
Original message:
I've tried to update the BIOS but when I open the file I get a message 'The version of this file is not compatible with the version of Windows you;re running. etc etc. What the hell is this? anyone else get this? I'm running the win7 that came as stock.
Tried downloading the file twice and same result.

 

Can I know what advantage the new A4 bios update fixes or enhances? Is it absolutely necessary?

 

Same problem
Unable to do the update

 

I think I managed to solve my problem. It turns out that if I use Internet Explorer to download the A4 BIOS update it installs just fine. If I use the Dell Download Manager option I get the error I originally reported (side-by-side configuration is incorrect).

I double checked details of the two files I downloaded and confirmed that both were identical in size and date (7,940 KB).

As mentioned, I searched the net and came across numerous postings about side-by-side errors being related to the Visual C++ 2005 and 2008 Redistributables. I don't believe this to be the case anymore because I took the update and tried installing it on a test PC with no C++ Redistributables installed on it whatsoever. On the PC the BIOS update GUI actually loaded (it uses a program called WinPhlash) but immediately reported that it was not appropriate for my PC. Because of this I don't think the redistributables are the culprit anymore, but I could be wrong.

I also tried re-downloading the files a second time and got the same results. I could only install the update if the file was not downloaded using the Dell Download Manager. Weird.

Hope this helps.

 

I notice there is an updated vbios in A04, I wonder if this will allow the use of official nvidia drivers?
If no one has tried it I will give it a go later