Laptop Docking station without USB-C?

[mileshuff]

I have a Dell laptop that I'd like to connect 2 monitors too. Currently I can use the laptops screen plus 1 monitor. I'd rather have two larger monitors and keep the laptop closed. It is a Dell Inspiron 15 5000 which does not have a USB-C connector that many docking stations use. Is there a decent docking station that uses USB3?

[philh]

1492 wrote:
We also send regular phishing emails to staff. It's generally the upper level management and directors who fall for them.

Why doesn't that surprise me?

I receive 200-300 emails each and every day. It's all I can do to keep up anymore. My personal home email is out of control. While I enjoy doing forums, my personal email is one of the last things I want to look at when I get "off work". I get 13 "marketing" emails for everyone I need to pay attention to on my personal account. Work email, my boss, his boss, and some key co-workers are all I pay attention to anymore. I had a 5 minute phone conversation with somebody on Friday, and after we were done, I had 25 new emails... PEOPLE, IT'S FRIDAY AFTERNOON! What's worse, my bosses email is 10x worse than mine. While he tends to not ignore my emails, I will often send him an IM anytime something really critical needs his attention.

To give you an example, I was CC'd on a series of emails of a very expensive part (10k+) sitting on the receiving dock, no identification who it belonged to, didn't help the box listed and second set of part numbers, and the paperwork a third set of part numbers. Shipping department doesn't know anything, which is why we have specific instructions for suppliers to ship parts. They receive hundreds of packages every day. When the supervisor called me, asking for my help, I started paying attention. Finally, I got involved... and sent out more emails, LOL. One of the people I tagged owned the part, and came to retrieve it.

[1492]

We also send regular phishing emails to staff. It's generally the upper level management and directors who fall for them.

[philh]

My employer sent out a fake phising email. It was very well done. I forwarded it to a special email address, and got a thank you, I passed the test 🙂

[1492]

In my org, to get local admin rights requires a written justification which must be approved by the requestor's supervisor, and by a unit CTO. The last being the most difficult hurdle.

We don't issue higher domain admin rights if the requestor does not already work in IT.

In any case, having local admin rights which allows installing software not on a staff service portal, requires completing minimum security training hours every year to keep elevated privileges. That does not mean one can install any software. It needs to be on an approved list, or an exception must be granted which requires security review.

Everyone in my org must complete a one-hour computer security course every year to maintain their staff account. Pretty much standard in most enterprise environments. I purposely waited until April 1 as I wanted my certificate to reflect that date. :W

The whole purpose is to protect the integrity of the enterprise network. We're also required to report any network security compromises to US-CERT.

[philh]

GDE - years ago, when there was a piece of snooping malware that not only was spread via outlook, I had a higher level IT friend send it to me. There was ZERO indication that I had received something, no alerts, not even file to click on. I sent that to IT, and from an corp IT friend of mine, it kind of rocked their little rosey world.

WRT USB, we had a chinese national employee that managed to steal corporate detail design data, using USB flash drives. So now, everything is locked down. Truly sad part, I did have admin rights on my computer, and I gave them up. Other than occasional need for a printer while I'm working from home, in general don't need it. That and being able to have ONE docking station that will work on multiple computers 🙂

[1492]

Speaking of DELL, there is a major security flaw that could affect hundreds of millions of PCs. See Sentinel Labs.

Make sure you install the patch when available.

I'm manually checking my home DELL desktop and Alienware laptop to see if they are affected.

[Gdetrailer]

philh wrote:
except if the hardware is not corporate supplied, there is ZERO way to get drivers installed. Begging doesn't work, not that I tried, but I did 🙂

Printers, Corporation only used HP, AND you had to link to the corporate print server. I can't even directly connect a HP printer and get it to work. They've done an awesome job!

Yeah, sometimes they go way overboard..

The company I recently left was so worried about protected health information leaking out via USB flash drives or even burned CD/DVD they required all company PCs to have McAfee drive encryption installed..

USB flash drives had to also be reformated with the drive encyption..

Sounds great on paper except until you had to transfer files that exceed 2GB in size and then the drive encryption would randomly flake out and corrupt the USB drive.. Then you lost everything on the drive..

I discovered that McAfee ultimately based their encryption scheme on DOS and was subject to 2GB file size limitations of FAT32! It tried to "span" the large files but would flake out..

Part of my job was copying premade PC images from corporate HQ servers to production image server system.. Images that were 15GB-25GB in size..

Couldn't get a IT waiver to get rid of the encryption because my PCs were not in a "secure area" and were out in the open floor..

The work around?

Connect a "pirate" non IT PC to the company IT network, the PC didn't need to join the network, only needed a IP address.. Setup a shared folder on that PC.. Then search for that PC name and connect to that shared folder..

So much for "security", a major flaw that is in every Windows PC on this Earth.. And no, it is not a secret, it is a well known flaw that can't be fixed unless you never want to connect to anything.

[philh]

except if the hardware is not corporate supplied, there is ZERO way to get drivers installed. Begging doesn't work, not that I tried, but I did 🙂

Printers, Corporation only used HP, AND you had to link to the corporate print server. I can't even directly connect a HP printer and get it to work. They've done an awesome job!

[1492]

philh wrote:
Not sure this is making it easier to understand 🙂

I'm stuck with Dell docking station. Corporate computer is locked down and will not accept drivers that aren't in the initial laptop load.

Getting that docking station to work on the desktop PC is the challenging part. Project will probably be put on hold for awhile, I have some other higher priority projects.

I haven't followed this thread, though USB3 hubs in WIN10/MAC should not require installation of additional drivers. Unless your enterprise IT policy locks down the USB ports for security reasons?

You need to get in touch with your central IT to find out what hardware is on your approved list. Just because it's an approved DELL laptop/desktop does not mean a particular DELL hub is allowed. There may also be a procedure to get a hardware/software exception after review.

In any case, if you require additional hardware drivers, then your IT desktop support w/admin rights will need to install them. They can remote into your laptop to do so. This is standard procedures in most enterprise IT environments.

[Gdetrailer]

philh wrote:
Not sure this is making it easier to understand 🙂

I'm stuck with Dell docking station. Corporate computer is locked down and will not accept drivers that aren't in the initial laptop load.

Getting that docking station to work on the desktop PC is the challenging part. Project will probably be put on hold for awhile, I have some other higher priority projects.

:h

They can "lock" the USB ports down preventing use of USB flash drives or other devices but not sure about accepting drivers for new hardware..

The problem may be they are controlling Windows Update through group policies and that may be blocking or preventing Windows from being able to search the drivers library online which is done through Windows update..

But, then how did you get your printers to work on the new PC? Company would have had to include drivers for your printers..

Remote desktop via Internet?

That one can be problematic, DWs work uses "WinTerms" which are a modern day version of the old "dumb terminal" were the terminal loaded the OS remotely through disk images and the terminal has no HD.. We have had to go through a lot of song and dance to get a PC at home and our local printer/scanner to work with her remote desktop disk image while working remotely. She has to select the local printer/scanner each time she logs in since that info is never saved to the remote desktop image.

May be much more to this story than meets the eye.

Looks like in the mean time you are pretty much stuck moving cables back and forth..

They do make HDMI switches which work well and you can also get USB switches to allow you to "share" things like monitors and printers between multiple PCs..

Something else that is possible to do, enable printer sharing on one PC.. That PC now becomes a network "print server". Will require the PC with printers to be shared to be powered on all the time and connected to your router.

[philh]

Not sure this is making it easier to understand 🙂

I'm stuck with Dell docking station. Corporate computer is locked down and will not accept drivers that aren't in the initial laptop load.

Getting that docking station to work on the desktop PC is the challenging part. Project will probably be put on hold for awhile, I have some other higher priority projects.

[Gdetrailer]

Boy, you are not kidding the "C" enhancement is a pain to understand.

"C" ports are backwards compatible so will work with older USB devices like 2.0 and even 1.1 speeds but it is the enhancements implemented on a "C" device that most likely will not function if plugged into a non "C" port.

A lot of new PC hardware now days have totally removed native USB1/2 speed port hardware and only have native USB3 port hubs, these ports simulate USB1/2 once the drivers have loaded. In this case, USB1/2 devices plugged into those ports are only available after the OS drivers have been loaded for the ports..

Makes using USB keyboard (USB keyboards and mice are USB1.1 compliant devices)and mouse a challenge while installing a OS from scratch! Not sure what these hardware designers are thinking when they do dumb things like that, since they removed the old PS2 keyboard/mouse ports support on top of that.

Fortunately W10 does include a generic USB3 device driver in the installer, older OS you have to do what is called "slip streaming" the proper USB3 port driver into the installer..

[wa8yxm]

Ok, I think we are on the same page.Gd
You did teach me a bit about USB-C however
I have one computer with a C port and am getting a phone with C
I have NO devices that need or use C so I simply use the c-port, with the proper cable. to feed a printer and/or some radios
To me "C" is a PITA (Pain in the.....)
But I now see the advantage to it. Thanks to you

[Gdetrailer]

wa8yxm wrote:
This I understand IF I were ordering I'd take the time to find a C to USB-3 as that's the best his laptop has. if I'm reading his post correctly. the Dock wants to plug into a "C" port. but the laptop only has 2 and 3 ports like the one this laptop replaced This onew has 3 and C

Your miss understanding how the "C" version of a USB port works.

His new laptop has a USB3-C port and the OP also has a matching USB3-C port replicator for that new laptop.

OPs old laptop has a USB3-A version port. The USB3-C port replicator does not work on the old laptop that has a USB3-A port (they tried an adapter or cable that adapted to be able to plug into a USB3-A port.

USB3-C specs unlike USB3-A specs now includes actual HDMI video through the USB port. The Dell USB3-C laptop replicator is designed to use that HDMI data feed to make the video on the replicator to work. Think of as an HDMI extension cord built into the USB3-C port.

USB3-A port does not have HDMI data on it so therefore the USB3-C port replicator does not work.

The work around for this is to buy a generic USB3-A based port replicator. The generic USB3-A replicator will have a built in USB "video card" (same idea as the one that was posted above but replicator also has built in USB hubs) and will show up on the laptop device manager as a separate video card and addition USB port hubs.

Op can then use the generic USB3-A port replicator on both PCs.

I have run into this with some industrial PCs that had an extra add in PCI-E video card. It only worked in a PCI-E slot on that model only that was marked for that add in video card. You could use that slot for other PCI-E cards, but you could not put that card into any other PCI-E slots or in any other PCs.. In a nutshell, the MB of the PCI had two on board video ports, but only one port was connected to the outside world and if you wanted the second port you had to use that special add in card for that model..

Confusing? Yep.

But, OP can just buy a generic port replicator and put the USB3-C replicator in a drawer and forget about it.. They are not all that expensive and it will do the job that they need done.

If OP isn't wanting to buy a generic replicator, then buy the USB to video card that was posted and a separate USB3 expansion HUB, plug the printers and USB video card into the USB3 expansion Hub.. The just switch the USB hub input cable between PCs.. That is an uglier way than just buying a generic USB3-A port replicator but in fact is what the generic port replicator does do..