Dell on Jon's Notes

BIOS Management Scripts v2 Released

Tue, 26 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

My Dell, HP, and Lenovo BIOS password and settings scripts have been around for years, and over time they drifted away from the modules, operating systems, and hardware they run against. I’ve now finished a top-to-bottom modernization of the whole set (the v2 generation) currently at version 2.3.0. This post summarizes what changed across all of the scripts and links to the individual posts where each one is covered in detail.

Document Encryption Certificates for BIOS Password Management

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The CMS method described in Securing BIOS Passwords relies on a document encryption certificate. The BIOS password is encrypted to that certificate’s public key, and only devices holding the matching private key can decrypt it. This post is a companion to that one. It covers how to create and manage the certificate itself: choosing between a self-signed certificate and one issued from an enterprise PKI, and handling the full lifecycle from creation through distribution, rotation, and removal.

Securing BIOS Passwords in Unattended Deployments

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

My Dell, HP, and Lenovo BIOS password and settings scripts all accept the BIOS password as a plain-text parameter. That is intentional, it keeps the scripts simple and broadly compatible, but it means that how you deliver the password to the script is where your security actually lives. This post covers how to do that safely under Configuration Manager and task sequences, and how the built-in CMS support added in version 2.3.0 makes it easier.

Dell BIOS Password Management - WMI

Fri, 11 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This post was updated on May 25th, 2026 and covers script version 2.3.0.

Earlier this year, I wrote about how to manage Dell BIOS passwords using PowerShell. The method described in that post uses the DellBIOSProvider PowerShell module. This method works, but I was not completely satisfied with it, as the PowerShell module needs to be downloaded and installed on every system the script runs on.

Thankfully, Dell recently released a technical whitepaper documenting WMI classes that can be used to directly modify BIOS settings without needing an outside program or PowerShell module. This allowed me to create a new version of the Dell BIOS Settings Management script that does not require any additional content to function.

Dell BIOS Settings Management - WMI

Fri, 11 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This post was updated on May 25th, 2026 and covers script version 2.3.0.

Earlier this year, I wrote about how to manage Dell BIOS settings using PowerShell. The method described in that post uses the DellBIOSProvider PowerShell module. This method works, but I was not completely satisfied with it, as the PowerShell module needs to be downloaded and installed on every system the script runs on.

BIOS Management - Example Task Sequences

Mon, 24 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Warning

The scripts bundled in these zip files are outdated and predate the v2 modernization. Updated example task sequences are still on the to-do list. For the current scripts, see the posts linked below.

Dell BIOS Settings Management - DellBIOSProvider

Fri, 21 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This post was updated on May 25th, 2026 and covers script version 2.3.0.

Update: Dell does now provide native WMI classes to manage BIOS settings on newer models. For more information, see this post: Dell BIOS Settings Management - WMI. For information on using the Dell PowerShell module to configure settings on older models, continue reading this post.

This post is one of 3 posts in my series on managing BIOS settings using PowerShell. I’ve also written about HP and Lenovo. In this post I’ll be talking about using PowerShell to manage Dell BIOS settings.

Dell BIOS Password Management - DellBIOSProvider

Sun, 03 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0000

This post was updated on May 25th, 2026 and covers script version 2.3.0.

Update: Dell does now provide native WMI classes to manage BIOS passwords on newer models. For more information, see this post: Dell BIOS Password Management - WMI. For information on using the Dell PowerShell module to configure passwords on older models, continue reading this post.

This is the third post in my series on how to manage BIOS / Firmware passwords with PowerShell. Previously, I’ve discussed Lenovo BIOS Password Management and HP BIOS Password Management.

Working with the Dell Command | PowerShell Provider

Sun, 03 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Update - May 21st, 2026 I’ve updated the script and information in this post to reflect the most recent release of the DellBIOSProvider PowerShell module (2.10.1 at the time of writing). For more details, see the script’s in-file .CHANGELOG block.

Dell BIOS settings and passwords can be accessed and modified using WMI classes. These WMI classes can be accessed directly (Dell BIOS Settings Management - WMI). However, Dell also provides a PowerShell module that simplifies some aspects of working with these WMI classes (Dell Command | PowerShell Provider). This post will discuss the requirements for using the Dell PowerShell Provider as well as the PowerShell script I wrote for installing and updating it.