Missing -a switch in HPFirmwareUpdRec64.exe for my EliteBook 840 G5 products

[karlei]

Hello,

when I want to perform a firmwareupdate on my EliteBook 840 G5 in commandline 'silently' I have to use -s -p<passwordbin> -f<updatebin>. That is working just fine but if my notebook is up to date it will still overwrite the firmware and I get prompted for the physical presence interface entry again.

Ealier I could avoid that by not using the -a switch which forced an update to happen when the firmware is up to date but that switch is now missing.

Is there any other way to avoid updating in this case because I want to deploy a script which updates many of those models?

cheers

[TryToDoMybest · Accepted solution]

Hello

I tried with my 840 G5 and I got the same behaviour , -a switch doesn't exist anymore and it overwrite the BIOS without taking care of the version. In my case , I'm was not prompted for Physical present to update from 1.03 to 1.04 despite the parameter "Physical Presence Interface" is Enable.  I run HPFirmwareUpdRec64 within Windows from a CMD prompt shell.

if you are able to write a PowerShell script o a batch file, first check the actual BIOS version, then if the BIOS is already the latest, you avoid to start HPFirmwareUpdRec64, else if not latest , run HPFirmwareUpdRec64 to update the BIOS.

if you install on your Elitebook 840 G5 (all of them) the HP Client Management Script Library , then you can locally run the PowerShell script :  Get-HPBiosVersion to get the BIOS version of your notebook ,the base on the result , start or not HPFirmwareUpdRec64.

here it the help page for HPPower Shell script Library:   https://developers.hp.com/hp-client-management/doc/get%E2%80%90hpbiosversion-0

another method could be to configure , from the management console    the BIOS of the Elitebook 840 G5 in order to  check and update the BIOS from network at next reboot.  In this case the HP PowerShell script library plus an additional PS module must be installed in the management console only. no nned to install the scripts on HP Elitebooks.

see this examples on youtube. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vm6XTcbB-0s     updating a BIOS of a remote HP client similar to 840 G5 or

other example of HP PowerShell script usage  :  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oTNRa6o5nU

I hope this could help you.

Bye

[karlei]

I implemented your suggestions of checking the bios, I did it through wmi though. Thanks!