I was prompted this evening about a shortage of space on my 500GB C: drive. Treesize Free found a file called DTPBD.DB which is 81.6GB in size! It's in: C:\ProgramData\Dell\DTP\DB
I can only find one thread online, but there's not much of a solution on offer:

https://www.dell.com/community/en/conversations/supportassist-for-pcs/any-way- to-reduce-the-size-of-the-dtpdbdb-file/670e40ec5e3929656cb71309

Any ideas about this?

--

Phil, London

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Sat, 11/2/2024 2:35 PM, Philip Herlihy wrote:

I was prompted this evening about a shortage of space on my 500GB C: drive. Treesize Free found a file called DTPBD.DB which is 81.6GB in size! It's in: C:\ProgramData\Dell\DTP\DB
I can only find one thread online, but there's not much of a solution on offer:

https://www.dell.com/community/en/conversations/supportassist-for-pcs/any-way-
to-reduce-the-size-of-the-dtpdbdb-file/670e40ec5e3929656cb71309

Any ideas about this?

Good times ahead.

A new toy to play with. A stinky old database to play with.

https://www.sqlite.org/download.html

"A bundle of command-line tools for managing SQLite database files"

sqlite-tools-win-x64-3470000.zip # contains "sqlite3.exe"

sqlite3.exe DTPDB.db .dump > X:\dtpdb.txt # Make sure X: has sufficient space for this.
# Alternately, pipe to wc.exe -c
# as this will count the output bytes for a second run.

The 81GB file should be extremely compressible. When compressed, it might only be a 100MB file.
There is a single table entry that gets deleted but not cleaned up (billions of times).

sqlite3.exe DTPDB.db VACUUM # only do this, when no program is writing to the .db
# Need at least 81GB of slack, just in case the compacted
# file is no smaller.

If the database shuts down cleanly, there should be no .wal file. My
assumption is that Dell is too stupid to shut it down properly,
and relies on the playback journal for restoring integrity.

You can remove Support Assistant, but if you do, some program
from Dell with the word "Command" or "Control" in it, has a
tick box for "software", to manage the putting back of the
Dell software. It's the olde Microsoft tag-team approach to
annoying the user.

Removing programs, does not remove their "data". And the folder has
permissions to prevent you from removing DTPDB.db .

There are no easy wins in this project -- everything is "the hard way".

I suspect you have the skills to play with this new toy,
and it will present no challenges whatsoever for your skill set.

itsmine.cmd [Teo line Script to take ownership, pass the name of the thing needing a smack]

takeown /f %1 /r /d y
icacls %1 /grant administrators:F /t

Tools like this, allow you to examine an at-rest .db and see the
entries, without the nuisance of trying to find an editor that
can handle the X:\dtpdb.txt file above. I've used the version
of this in Linux for example.

https://sqlitebrowser.org/

Paul

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 11/2/24 02:35 PM, Philip Herlihy wrote:

I was prompted this evening about a shortage of space on my 500GB C: drive. Treesize Free found a file called DTPBD.DB which is 81.6GB in size! It's in: C:\ProgramData\Dell\DTP\DB
I can only find one thread online, but there's not much of a solution on offer:

https://www.dell.com/community/en/conversations/supportassist-for-pcs/any-way-
to-reduce-the-size-of-the-dtpdbdb-file/670e40ec5e3929656cb71309

Any ideas about this?

Mine is 10.8M and the back on july 18 is only 4K

--
Linux Mint 22, Cinnamon 6.2.9, Kernel 6.8.0-48-generic
Thunderbird 128.4.0esr, Mozilla Firefox 132.0
Alan K.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 02/11/2024 22:43, Paul wrote:

If the database shuts down cleanly, there should be no .wal file. My assumption is that Dell is too stupid to shut it down properly,

Your assumption is incorrect. DELL has created multi-billion dollar
business so they can't be stupid. What have you built with all the
knowledge you claim to have?

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Sat, 11/2/2024 10:59 PM, Dell Boy wrote:

On 02/11/2024 22:43, Paul wrote:

If the database shuts down cleanly, there should be no .wal file. My
assumption is that Dell is too stupid to shut it down properly,

Your assumption is incorrect. DELL has created multi-billion dollar
business so they can't be stupid. What have you built with all the
knowledge you claim to have?

See the posters thread ?

https://www.dell.com/community/en/conversations/supportassist-for-pcs/any-way-to-reduce-the-size-of-the-dtpdbdb-file/670e40ec5e3929656cb71309

"I have this problem too, only worse.
In Folder: ProgramData\Dell\DTP\DB there are 4 files.
DTPDB.DB - 13.6GB
DTPDB.DB-wal - 10.2GB

That's 23.8GB... much larger than the whole of the Windows OS
The DB folder is protected, not accessible from Windows Explorer.
"

I wipe my ass with Dell Bog Roll. You should too :-)

Paul

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Philip Herlihy <PhillipHerlihy@SlashDevNull.invalid> wrote:

I was prompted this evening about a shortage of space on my 500GB C: drive. Treesize Free found a file called DTPBD.DB which is 81.6GB in size! It's in: C:\ProgramData\Dell\DTP\DB
I can only find one thread online, but there's not much of a solution on offer:

https://www.dell.com/community/en/conversations/supportassist-for-pcs/any-way-
to-reduce-the-size-of-the-dtpdbdb-file/670e40ec5e3929656cb71309

Any ideas about this?

Dells come with a ton of pre-installed software. Some is needed, like
drivers or ancilliary software paired with hardware. A lot is fluff.
If you don't plan on handing your computer over to Dell's tech support
for them to do whatever they want on your computer while they stumble
around trying to discover a resolution, get rid of (uninstall) the SupportAssistant. That also gets rid of Dell Instrumentation which
allows admins to manage hosts at a deep level, like remote shutdown,
change BIOS settings, etc. Besides getting rid of control of your
computer perhaps even without your knowledge, you get rid of the RAM
usage by these services running that you're not going to use along with eliminating the logging into the database.

https://www.dell.com/support/manuals/en-ai/support-assist-os-recovery/saosrug/introduction-to-supportassist-os-recovery?guid=guid-0b65e732-4356-4f0b-a972-2f8cb8b00201&lang=en-us

If you still use Windows System Restore, rely on the hidden rescue
partition, or need this level of handholding, then keep it. Else, just schedule periodic image backups to let you revert a drive back to its
exact prior physical state rather than hope repair tools will mend it.

Not sure why you think the forum thread provides no help. Did you miss
the part about disabling or uninstalling SupportAssistant? Uninstalling doesn't mean it is clean. Remnant files and registry entries can linger
after an uninstall. After uninstalling SupportAssistant, you could use SysInternals' ProcMonitor to watch for any process that still wants to
write to the database file. If there are no further writes after the uninstall, the database is dead, so delete it.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> wrote:

Philip Herlihy <PhillipHerlihy@SlashDevNull.invalid> wrote:

I was prompted this evening about a shortage of space on my 500GB C: drive. >> Treesize Free found a file called DTPBD.DB which is 81.6GB in size! It's in:
C:\ProgramData\Dell\DTP\DB
I can only find one thread online, but there's not much of a solution on offer:

https://www.dell.com/community/en/conversations/supportassist-for-pcs/any-way-
to-reduce-the-size-of-the-dtpdbdb-file/670e40ec5e3929656cb71309

Any ideas about this?

Dells come with a ton of pre-installed software. Some is needed, like drivers or ancilliary software paired with hardware. A lot is fluff.
If you don't plan on handing your computer over to Dell's tech support
for them to do whatever they want on your computer while they stumble
around trying to discover a resolution, get rid of (uninstall) the SupportAssistant. That also gets rid of Dell Instrumentation which
allows admins to manage hosts at a deep level, like remote shutdown,
change BIOS settings, etc. Besides getting rid of control of your
computer perhaps even without your knowledge, you get rid of the RAM
usage by these services running that you're not going to use along with eliminating the logging into the database.

https://www.dell.com/support/manuals/en-ai/support-assist-os-recovery/saosrug/introduction-to-supportassist-os-recovery?guid=guid-0b65e732-4356-4f0b-a972-2f8cb8b00201&lang=en-us

If you still use Windows System Restore, rely on the hidden rescue
partition, or need this level of handholding, then keep it. Else, just schedule periodic image backups to let you revert a drive back to its
exact prior physical state rather than hope repair tools will mend it.

Not sure why you think the forum thread provides no help. Did you miss
the part about disabling or uninstalling SupportAssistant? Uninstalling doesn't mean it is clean. Remnant files and registry entries can linger after an uninstall. After uninstalling SupportAssistant, you could use SysInternals' ProcMonitor to watch for any process that still wants to
write to the database file. If there are no further writes after the uninstall, the database is dead, so delete it.

I wonder if something like revo uninstaller might do a good job of removing support assist.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

In article <MPG.4190815cfee3b4fd989af1@news.eternal-september.org>, Philip Herlihy wrote...

I was prompted this evening about a shortage of space on my 500GB C: drive. Treesize Free found a file called DTPBD.DB which is 81.6GB in size! It's in: C:\ProgramData\Dell\DTP\DB
I can only find one thread online, but there's not much of a solution on offer:

https://www.dell.com/community/en/conversations/supportassist-for-pcs/any-way-
to-reduce-the-size-of-the-dtpdbdb-file/670e40ec5e3929656cb71309

Any ideas about this?

Thanks everyone for very helpful suggestions. I'm currently rammed, so I'll have to schedule this a couple of weeks down the line, but I'll report back.

--

Phil, London

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Hank Rogers <invalid@nospam.com> wrote:

VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> wrote:

Philip Herlihy <PhillipHerlihy@SlashDevNull.invalid> wrote:

I was prompted this evening about a shortage of space on my 500GB C: drive. >>> Treesize Free found a file called DTPBD.DB which is 81.6GB in size! It's in:
C:\ProgramData\Dell\DTP\DB
I can only find one thread online, but there's not much of a solution on offer:

https://www.dell.com/community/en/conversations/supportassist-for-pcs/any-way-
to-reduce-the-size-of-the-dtpdbdb-file/670e40ec5e3929656cb71309

Any ideas about this?

Dells come with a ton of pre-installed software. Some is needed, like
drivers or ancilliary software paired with hardware. A lot is fluff.
If you don't plan on handing your computer over to Dell's tech support
for them to do whatever they want on your computer while they stumble
around trying to discover a resolution, get rid of (uninstall) the
SupportAssistant. That also gets rid of Dell Instrumentation which
allows admins to manage hosts at a deep level, like remote shutdown,
change BIOS settings, etc. Besides getting rid of control of your
computer perhaps even without your knowledge, you get rid of the RAM
usage by these services running that you're not going to use along with
eliminating the logging into the database.

https://www.dell.com/support/manuals/en-ai/support-assist-os-recovery/saosrug/introduction-to-supportassist-os-recovery?guid=guid-0b65e732-4356-4f0b-a972-2f8cb8b00201&lang=en-us

If you still use Windows System Restore, rely on the hidden rescue
partition, or need this level of handholding, then keep it. Else, just
schedule periodic image backups to let you revert a drive back to its
exact prior physical state rather than hope repair tools will mend it.

Not sure why you think the forum thread provides no help. Did you miss
the part about disabling or uninstalling SupportAssistant? Uninstalling
doesn't mean it is clean. Remnant files and registry entries can linger
after an uninstall. After uninstalling SupportAssistant, you could use
SysInternals' ProcMonitor to watch for any process that still wants to
write to the database file. If there are no further writes after the
uninstall, the database is dead, so delete it.

I wonder if something like revo uninstaller might do a good job of
removing support assist.

For the free version, only if a user figured out all the remnants to
record a log might you be able to take advantage of their efforts. It's possible the log database in the free version includes SupportAssist,
but I doubt it. With the free version, you're lucky if the log database
has what you want, or you do the install and record it using Revo. The
paid version has a larger log database, so it might be included there.
I've used the free version of Revo, but ended up discarding it since I
still had to do a lot of remnant file and registry cleanup after using
free Revo Uninstaller. Another reason I got rid of Revo was it did not
support 64-bit Windows, so it only cleaned out the 32-bit entries in the registry, not the 64-bit entries, like WOW vs WOW64. That was back when
I was using Windows 7. Looks like 64-bit Windows got support from
Vista, and on, but that's specified for the paid version, so I can't
tell if they updated the free version to support Win x64.

From my reading, there should be an entry in Add/Remove Programs for SupportAssist. Not sure there would be a separate entry for Dell Instrumentation since it seems a component of SupportAssist. Cleaning
out all the crap that Dell preloads into their images is a tough and
time consuming chore. Most prebuilts come with bundleware, and trimming
out the crap from the essentials takes time to research and eradicate.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

In article <MPG.41b1743a920306af989683@news.eternal-september.org>, nothing@invalid.com says...

In article <MPG.4192c5c7425f0f2c989af2@news.eternal-september.org>, >PhillipHerlihy@SlashDevNull.invalid says...

In article <MPG.4190815cfee3b4fd989af1@news.eternal-september.org>, Philip >>Herlihy wrote...

I was prompted this evening about a shortage of space on my 500GB C: drive. >>> Treesize Free found a file called DTPBD.DB which is 81.6GB in size! It's in:
C:\ProgramData\Dell\DTP\DB
I can only find one thread online, but there's not much of a solution on offer:

https://www.dell.com/community/en/conversations/supportassist-for-pcs/any-way-
to-reduce-the-size-of-the-dtpdbdb-file/670e40ec5e3929656cb71309

Any ideas about this?

Thanks everyone for very helpful suggestions. I'm currently rammed, so I'll >>have to schedule this a couple of weeks down the line, but I'll report back.

Thanks again to everyone who responded.

I ran Autoruns (Sysinternals) and carefully went through deleting or >disabling everything that seemed to be related to this Dell utility.
It's a 12-year-old desktop, and it doesn't ever find new drivers for it
now! But on reboot - um - it wouldn't boot.

Exasperated I (rather rashly) Reset Windows - forgetting that (of
course) all the non-MS-Store apps, and all my settings, would largely be >lost. But it was worth it. I was contemplating replacing the machine
now instead of waiting for end-of-support, as it was getting so slow.
But now it's again proving that old hardware is really enough. I don't >particularly need or value Windows 11, and if it made sense to keep W10
on this hardware I certainly would. It's once again surprisingly nippy!
I will get a new machine in a year's time, though I'll probably fool
around with Linux on this one. I do hate to think of all that perfectly
good hardware ending up scrapped.

Worth adding that the Dell SupportAssist utility has not been
reinistalled, and the reset version of Windows does not contain that
large database.

--
--
Phil, London

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

In article <MPG.4192c5c7425f0f2c989af2@news.eternal-september.org>, PhillipHerlihy@SlashDevNull.invalid says...

In article <MPG.4190815cfee3b4fd989af1@news.eternal-september.org>, Philip >Herlihy wrote...

I was prompted this evening about a shortage of space on my 500GB C: drive. >> Treesize Free found a file called DTPBD.DB which is 81.6GB in size! It's in:
C:\ProgramData\Dell\DTP\DB
I can only find one thread online, but there's not much of a solution on offer:

https://www.dell.com/community/en/conversations/supportassist-for-pcs/any-way-
to-reduce-the-size-of-the-dtpdbdb-file/670e40ec5e3929656cb71309

Any ideas about this?

Thanks everyone for very helpful suggestions. I'm currently rammed, so I'll >have to schedule this a couple of weeks down the line, but I'll report back.

Thanks again to everyone who responded.

I ran Autoruns (Sysinternals) and carefully went through deleting or
disabling everything that seemed to be related to this Dell utility.
It's a 12-year-old desktop, and it doesn't ever find new drivers for it
now! But on reboot - um - it wouldn't boot.

Exasperated I (rather rashly) Reset Windows - forgetting that (of
course) all the non-MS-Store apps, and all my settings, would largely be
lost. But it was worth it. I was contemplating replacing the machine
now instead of waiting for end-of-support, as it was getting so slow.
But now it's again proving that old hardware is really enough. I don't particularly need or value Windows 11, and if it made sense to keep W10
on this hardware I certainly would. It's once again surprisingly nippy!
I will get a new machine in a year's time, though I'll probably fool
around with Linux on this one. I do hate to think of all that perfectly
good hardware ending up scrapped.

--
--
Phil, London

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)