HP Support Assistant a frustrating piece of work

[Skylarking]

Normally, i maintain my workstation without resorting to HP tools. However, today i felt a little lazy and thought i'd give "HP Support Assistant" a try. The Support Assistant i have installed is version 5.2.9.2 with configuration file version 2.1 according to tools help: about option.

Anyway, last i manually checked, my z210 worksation was up to date as i had installed the latest updates available from HP along with the latest NVIDIA and the latest appropriate Intel iRST updates available from those vendors.

I say latest "appropriate" Intel iRST updates as iRST v 12.9.0.1001 was the latest driver that supported the cougar point c206 (series 6) chipset as use in z210. This specific Intel version resolved some issues but HP has yet to update their driver page to reflect this important fix since HP continue to think iRST v 10.6.0.1002 is the bee's knees... I'm sure HP will quote some bovine faeces about the z210 being out of warranty therefore doesn't qualify for updates... but yeah right... 

Anyway, iRST drivers, version 13.2.4.1000 and later support series 7 and later chipsets which are obviously not relevant or appropriate for the z210.  I'd expect these drivers would fail to load but not 100% sure so they could crash the system if one tries...

There's no need to mention that i manually check Windows 7 updates and apply what i think is needed (but i mentioned it anyway ).

But back to the HP Support Assistant.

Performing a "Maintain" and then a  "Refresh" within the tool then shows that "Intel Rapid Storage Technology Utility and Driver for Microsoft Windows" is available. But nothing else, like old/new version,  is evident from the tool.

1. I can't find a way to determine what version this tool thinks it is updating from/to?

So all one can do is take a deap breath and hope for the best which is never a good strategy. In any case, i breath in and let HP Support Assistant apply the update it thinks i need - and hope for the best. The items get ticked off including the  download and the install. It all looks like it worked.

But when i check the history, the Support Assistant indicates the Completed Actions Status in "a red circle with an X inside". Guess this means the update failed. which seems to be the case as the driver version reflected in Device Manager is unchanged (though i've yet to do a restart - but the tool didn't indicate one was needed).

2. There is no indiction that the update failed to installm, or required a restart, or was successful..

3. I can't find a way to check the specific install log for the failed update using the Support Assistant. 

4. I can't find where this tool saved the downloaded file.

So, then i think i'll check again and as such press the  "Home", "Maintain" and "Refresh" buttons which again finds the same iRST driver update and which fails in the same non descript and silent way as before. Now i have two instances within history showing the iRST update failed.

Trying Maintenance & Refresh a 3rd time, finally the Support Assistant tool thinks i'm up to date.

So thinking maybe, just maybe, there is an update to the tool itself, i look but can't find any method to have the tool check if an update of itself exists!

4. Most quality tools i have used would first check if an update of the tool itself exists but SA is, well, ...

So other than sending HP some feedback via the tool that will likley fall into a big black hole with no feedback to me... i thought i'd put it out on the forums and see if there is some inteligent? responce from HP support.

Thoughts on the tool from other forum users would also be interesting...