HP’s new remote support service can even resurrect unbootable PCs

An unbootable PC is every remote worker’s nightmare. It usually means they need hands-on support that they’re not likely to find in their home office or neighborhood Starbucks.

Now there’s hope that even that catastrophe can be corrected remotely. At its Imagine event in Palo Alto, California on Tuesday, HP announced what it calls the industry’s first out-of-band diagnostics and remediation capability that will enable remote technicians to connect, diagnose, and fix problems, even if the PC won’t boot.

The service, launching Nov. 1, lets a technician, with permission from the user, connect to a virtual KVM (keyboard, video, mouse) under the BIOS/UEFI to run diagnostics and take remedial action. With the service, a tech could have corrected the CrowdStrike issue by replacing the flawed configuration file from the bad update, for example, and could even reimage the machine if necessary.

Marcos Razon, division president of lifecycle services and customer support at HP, said that the goal is to address 70%-80% of issues without requiring a stable operating system.

However, not all PCs will benefit, as the service relies on the Intel vPro chip more typically found in commercial PCs.

“Within the vPro chipset, you have a lightweight processor, a secondary processor that can access what in the past was called BIOS, but now it’s more UEFI,” Razon explained. “What this secondary processor allows us to do is to go under the BIOS before the booting process happens and take control of the machine.”

A security code must be accepted by the PC’s user before the technician can take control. “We don’t want anybody to access a PC without being able to secure that PC,” Razon said.

Constant virtual KVM

“The beauty of it is that we have a constant virtual KVM below the BIOS/UEFI,” he said.

The catch with existing remote-control programs is they need a PC that has successfully booted a stable operating system: “What happens is that if the PC has not booted completely, and the operating system is not running perfectly, you will not be able to take control of that PC,” he said.

Mahmoud Ramin, senior research analyst at Info-Tech Research Group, is impressed.

“Endpoint management tools usually fall short when a user faces serious problems with their hardware, such as boot failures and BIOS errors. Out-of-band technology can revolutionize remote endpoint management through bypassing operating systems and managing endpoints at the hardware level,” he said. “This innovation can help resolver groups seamlessly and immediately provide support to end users, reduce downtime by minimizing onsite visits, and enhance shift-left strategy through increased automation. HP’s out-of-band remediation capabilities can position it as a leader in remote endpoint support.”

The new service will be offered as an add-on to an HP Essential, Premium or Premium+ Support package with the purchase of any new vPro-enabled HP PC, the company said in a release. It will be extended to older HP commercial PCs in the coming months. It will initially be available in North America and the European Union, with rollout to other regions following. Razon said that the cost will be about US$12 per machine, per year, and HP is also working on a version for AMD processors, which it expects to release in the first half of 2025.