From: main@jfw.groups.io <main@jfw.groups.io> On Behalf Of Tom Behler
Sent: Thursday, May 21, 2020 11:15 AM
To: main@jfw.groups.io
Subject: Re: what is support assist, and how do you make it work/?

 

Sieghard:

 

Thanks for the reply.

 

I do not intend to go back to Jaws 2018, for many of the reasons you suggest.

 

As I tried to say earlier, my approach to the Support Assist issue will be to try Mike’s touch cursor keys to see if I can get anything to work, and if not, to seek sighted assistance to do the updates.

 

They are Dell updates, not Windows updates, so I can’t believe they are totally necessary all of the time.

 

Again, I appreciate your reply.

 

Tom Behler

 

 

 

Hi Tom,

 

I don’t think Patrick’s experience with Jaws 2020 is universal and in fact he did not say that this Support Assist from Del works better with Jaws 2018, he said that the previous version of Support Assist worked, but that Support Assist version 3 was inaccessible and he merely said “It is worth mentioning, that I am running jaws 2018. I have had experience with jaws 2020, and in my opinion, there is more bugs in it than there is in a nest of wasps!!!”

Every piece of software has bugs and for me Jaws 2020 certainly works a lot better than Jaws 2018 or 2019 because Vispero has been and is making changes which allow Jaws 2020 to read a lot more again with the Jaws cursor and in Windows 10 apps the new Jaws can cursor may often act very similar to the Jaws cursor previously and it will read stuff you otherwise would have no access to. If this Support Assist software is in fact a Windows 10 app the scan cursor may be of great benefit here. I don’t own a Del computer so I can’t say and in fact on my Asus Zenbook which had a similar piece of software on it but of course from Asus I completely reinstalled Windows 10 to get rid of all that stuff and have a basic, clean install of Windows 10.

You should further keep in mind that if I remember correctly Jaws 2018 does not support the emoji panel in Windows 10 and by now there may be other issues, certainly as more and more Windows 10 updates are released the more likely it is you run into problems with Jaws 2018 and I am not sure how well it handles the latest chromium based browsers like Google Chrome, Edge or Brave compared to Jaws 2020.

Once again this is my take on things, I understand Patrick’s frustration, but I don’t see his experience widely reported and it unfortunately seems to be the case that certain system configurations can result in weird issues which are very much issues one or a few people experience. I am not usually somebody who immediately advises to reinstall Windows and I understand you may not even be able to do so if your computer is  a work computer, , but in some cases that can really fix things. As for Del’s Support Assist it would appear that it’s more of an issue which Del needs to address in making the application screenreader accessible, you can’t expect Vispero to write scripts for all sorts of apps out there which may change without notice making major changes to the scripts necessary, each software developer needs to also do their part in writing accessible software or designing accessible web pages etc.

Lastly, with an application like Support Assist which seems to be inaccessible your approach, Tom, to ask for sighted assistance every now and then to install updates the system alerts you to might be a good solution and I’d not hesitate to call Del and ask them to log in and do so because after all they made the app and if a blind person can’t use they should also be held responsible for helping out.

 

Best regards,

Sieghard

 

 

Hi Tom,

 

i couldn't agree with you more!!

 

i am still using jaws 2018 because of all the problems i have encountered with jaws 2020, the new grace period authorization, it not accessing things that jaws 2018 used to, etc.

i know, that at some stage, i will have to upgrade. however, i am going to wait as long as i can.

you can still download jaws 2018 from the freedom scientific page, and your authorization key should work for this just fine.

if you do this however, be careful!!!

i downgraded, as i had a trial version of jaws 2020.

when doing this, i had to uninstall jaws 2020, jaws 2018, get rid of shared and user settings, go to programs and features, uninstall everything relating to freedom scientific, go into all the program and user folders in windows and delete everything here relating to freedom scientific here as well.

after that, i had to install ccleaner and use it to clean up all temporary files and the registery.

only then, did jaws 2018 install correctly.

sorry folks about going on and on about jaws 2020, but in my opinion, keep your money and dont upgrade until freedom scientific gets their house in order.

i wouldn't even accept a free version of it at the moment.

 

regards,

 

pat

 

 

Ok, Pat.

 

I have to say that this is ridiculous.

 

I shouldn’t have to go back to Jaws 2018 to get something to work at least somewhat correctly when I’ve paid for Jaws 2020.

 

I don’t even know if I have Jaws 2018 here any more.

 

I think that, at this point, I’m just going to get sighted assistance with Dell Support Assist every so often, or simply live without the Dell updates.

 

Before I completely throw in the towell, I will try to work with the touch cursor as Mike from the list suggests, but I am not optimistic.

 

Tom Behler

 

 

 

Hi Tom,

 

I have had a del inspiron for the last year. When I got it, it had support assist version 2 which worked just fine.

Then it updated to version 3 which is totally unaccessable.

In most cases, windows apps use Microsoft edge as their base. I mean the original edge, not the chrome version.

If you install the chrome version it makes no difference, so don’t bother.

If you keep tabbing around, adventually, you will hit the menu option. From there, just go down and up with the pc cursor. This seems to work for me.

When you get to the menu, you can also hit “1” and this should bring you to the first heading, or try “b” which should bring you to the “run all” button.

Don’t down-grade it to version 2, or you will loose a lot of functionality, and anyway, it will just update again. There seems to be no way to stop it from updating.

It is worth mentioning, that I am running jaws 2018. I have had experience with jaws 2020, and in my opinion, there is more bugs in it than there is in a nest of wasps!!!

Don’t get me started on that!!!

Anyway, to get back to this:

Make sure you also get help with disabling the option for it to run itself every so often.

If not, your computer will suddenly slow down, and you wont know what is happening, until you discover that it is running in the background.

Even turning this “run apps in the background” in windows 10 off, doesn’t stop it, because it seems to be on some sort of timer based on the computer’s clock.

Another thing to remember, is that it looks particularly for del drivers and bios updates as well as standard drivers.

I haven’t discovered any option in windows to check for a bios update, and even if I did, god knows what Microsoft would send you.

Support assist is based on your service tag. It is something, in my opinion, that del has done correctly.

There is another del application called “del update”.  This is more accessible, but it only looks for driver and bios updates. Support assist, on the other hand, checks and tunes your hardware as well.

If you find, that support assist finds updates, but wont let you select urgent ones, it is because for some of them, the computer must be plugged in regardless of what remains in the battery.

I would say, in conclusion, that you try it with jaws 2018 if you can.

2018 seems, in general, to work better with this type of thing. As I said above, I really believe, that freedom scientific severely dropped the ball on 2020 with regards to stability and accessibility.

 

Regards, Pat

 

 

No, Mike, I did not.

 

I’m not even sure how to access the touch cursor!

 

I wish I could attend the webinar on various Jaws cursors tomorrow, but I’ve got something else going on at the time.

 

Tom Behler

 

 

 

I’ve tried starting support assist from the start menu, but still can’t get to the needed options and other info with Jaws 2020 on this Windows 10 PC.

 

I must be missing something.

 

Tom Behler

 

 

 

Try starting it from the start menu instead, that worked better for me.  



Hi I to have this on my computer witch is also a del as well. I would like to know if this works with jaws or how you can get it to work? Like others I have had it telling me that there are important updates and to optimise my computer etc but like others I have gone to the system tray and clicked on it and it does nothing. From Mich.

 

From: main@jfw.groups.io <main@jfw.groups.io> On Behalf Of Tom Behler
Sent: May 20, 2020 2:07 PM
To: main@jfw.groups.io
Subject: Re: what is support assist, and how do you make it work/?

 

I have had similar issues with Support Assist on my Windows 10 Dell Computer, so would appreciate some tips about accessing important updates as well.

 

At this point, I have to just ignore them until I can get visual assistance to tell me what the updates are so I can decide whether to install them.  Clearly, this is not acceptable from an accessibility point of view.

 

Tom Behler

 

 

From: main@jfw.groups.io <main@jfw.groups.io> On Behalf Of Jim Rawls
Sent: Wednesday, May 20, 2020 1:52 PM
To: blindtech@groups.io
Subject: what is support assist, and how do you make it work/?

 

Hi all,

On my new dell computer, I have something called support assist. It keeps saying that it has important updates for me etc. when I go to the app I can't get it to do anything. So what do I do to make it function? I am running windows ten, jaws 2020 and the computer is a dell 3500