- Commas are now used as the field separator in CSV exported netOctopus databases
- The names of some incorrectly spelled constants (specifically "fromat") have been corrected
- The "After login" parameter for DCS packages targeted at PC agents now works properly
- The Windows SDC server now properly closes network streams when not needed, reducing CPU usage
- Windows XP service pack 2 support.
- Resolved issue of Windows Agent not preserving multiple Notification Admins when the Agent is upgraded.
- Resolved issue of Windows SDS client redownloading and reinstalling a software package that already has been installed successfully.
- Resolved issue with setting up Notification Admins through an AppleScript on a Mac Agent.
- Resolved password character limit for Launch from TCP Server dialog on a Mac Agent.
- Fixed conflicts between netOctopus and Symantec Anti-virus and a Cisco VPN client that caused the agent to fail.
Software Delivery System (SDS)
The Software Delivery System (SDS) is the major new feature in netOctopus 5.1. It now lets you perform software installations on client computers not only directly from the administrator computer, as before, but also offers you the choice to offload this task to a system of conveniently located staging servers, i.e., file servers tied together by a central coordinating server.
The SDS is described in detail in iInstalling, Updating, and Editing Softwarei chapter of the Technical Guide.
Rearranged Menus
- To accommodate the menu commands for the SDS, the previous Report and Communication menus have been combined into the new Tools menu, where the SDS commands are also found.
- To avoid confusion with the new SDS feature, the Install command has been renamed Transfer File/Folder.
Notification System
The notification administrator can now be specified by its DNS name, in addition of by its IP address.
Information Items
Information items related to the SDS have been added. Information items related to AppleTalk support in the netOctopus Agent have been removed.
- The Common>Agent Information>Distribution Center category with four new information items has been added.
- Six information items related to the use of AppleTalk and TCP/IP have been removed from the Common>Agent Information>Network category.
- All information items related to the notification system settings of the Agents have been moved into the new Common>Agent Information>Notification System category.
- A new category, Distribution Center Log, has been created with seven information items.
Scripting
- Support for the SDS has been added to the scripting dictionary. The Install command has been renamed TransferFile.
- A new class, DCSSettingsInfo, has been added to the Administrator dictionary.
- Two new properties, DistributionCenterLogDB and DistributionCenterLogWindow have been added to the Application class.
- A new property, SaveDistributionCenterLogDatabaseOnQuit, has been added to the DatabaseSettingsInfo class.
Other
- The specific type of new Macintosh models is now displayed.
- The iinstallation regioni is now called itarget regioni to avoid confusion.
- Several other small interface changes were made.
- "Panther" Mac OS 10.3 support.
- Automatic software updates for the netOctopus Administrator.
- Added the new and improved Gather Software Changes command.
- A new and improved version of netDeploy now integrated into the Windows Administrator.
- Improved mutihomed support.
- New user-defined Custom Information Items.
- Redesigned the menus for Appointing Administrators and Set Notification Administrator.
- Improved backend SQL support.
- New information items
- Common/Agent Information/Other/Agent Build Number
- Common/System Hardware/IDE/IDE Bus
- Common/System Hardware/IDE/IDE Connection
- Common/System Hardware/IDE/IDE Device ATA Version
- Common/System Software/TCP/Adapter MAC Address
- Windows/System Hardware/Other/CPU HyperThreading Enabled
- Windows/System Hardware/Other/CPU HyperThreading Supported
- Windows/System Hardware/Other/Processor Count (Logical)
- Windows/System Software/Other/NT Domain Member
- Windows/System Software/Other/Workgroup Member
- Renamed Information Items
- Common/Agent Information/Network/TCP/IP Number is now Active IP Address
- Common/Agent Information/Network/TCP/IP Portis now Active IP Port
- Common/System Software/TCP/Domain Names is now DNS Search Domains
- Common/System Software/TCP/Name Server is now DNS Servers
- Common/System Software/TCP/Port is now Adapter
- Windows/System Software/Component Versions/OS Build Number is now PC OS Build Number
- Windows/System Software/Component Versions/OS Version String is now PC OS Version String
- Windows/System Software/TCP/Domain is now DNS Suffix
- Merged Information Items
- The Mac OS/System Software/Component Versions/Mac OS Version and Windows/System Software/Component Versions/OS Version information items have been merged into the Common/System Software/Other/OS Version item.
- The Windows/System Software/TCP/Primary WINS Server and Windows/System Software/TCP/Secondary WINS Server have been merged into the new array item Windows/System Software/TCP/WINS Server.
- Added new scripting classes and commands to the Windows Administrator and Mac OS X Agent.
- Gather Installed Software for Macs.
- Column sorting has been changed from an icon to a contextual menu item.
- Special Agent for Mac OS X Agent
- The Windows Administrator and Agent installers are now MSI installers.
- Software Audits will now display version number for Applications with same name.
- Information Items in Device Information windows can now be rearranged.
- Dates can now be displayed in ISO format.
- There are now Revert and Default buttons in the Settings Dialog.
- There is now a context menu for pasting columns into template wiondows.
- The location of the Template Menu Items and Script Menu Items folders has changed:
- Mac OS 9: System Folder:Application Support:netOctopus Admin:
- Mac OS X: ~/Library/netOctopus Admin/
- Windows: \Windows\Application Data\netOctopus Admin\ (Windows 9.x)
\Documents and Settings\(logged in user)\Application Data\netOctopus Admin\ (Windows NT based)
- Windows 2003 support
- Support for newer Intel CPU steppings.
- Software Audit was not tallying files properly.
- Resolved some issues with reading and writing to SQL.
- Added support for the new 17" Titanium PowerBook.
- New FileScripter Pro (Mac Only) and Mindvision Installer VISE (Mac and Windows) now included with netOctopus. This will allow you to create installers for Mac OS Classic, Mac OS X, and Windows using comparative snapshots of drives or folders. .
- New SMART (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) monitoring functionality, which can identify failed drives, and in some cases predict failure. Allows you to notify the user and send an email to an administrator.
- Adds 15 information items for SMART-enabled drives, under Common->System Hardware->S.M.A.R.T.:
- SMART Device Count
- SMART Device Model
- SMART Device Serial Number
- SMART Device Firmware
- SMART Device ATA Version
- SMART Supported
- SMART Device Health
- SMART Attribute ID
- SMART Attribute Name
- SMART Attribute Raw Value
- SMART Attribute Value
- SMART Attribute Threshold
- SMART Attribute Worst Value
- SMART Attribute Failure Time
- SMART Attribute Failure Type
- Improved installation. Added new support to the Execute Macintosh installer to be able to install applications on OS X as root, bypassing authentication dialogs which require user interaction on the Agent machines.
- The Execute Macintosh Installer command can now be used to execute shall scripts on Mac OS X clients and to install software contained in .pkg and .mpkg packages for AppleIs installer application.The latter feature makes it possible to perform system software updates remotely with netOctopus.
- Files installed with the Install command can be automatically deleted after executing.
- The new File Package Version information item provides on Mac OS computers version information on the product of which the file is a part.
Note: This information is not collected automatically during file searches. To display it, select the files in question and choose Update Info for Selection from the Commands menu.
- There is a new AppleScript property in the Mac OS and Mac OS X Agents: The agent serialnr property of the application objects allows the Agents to be bound to the netOctopus Administrator by AppleScript.
Note that it is not possible to change this property once it has been set.
- Minor improvements to searching fonts on Macintoshes.
- "Jaguar" Mac OS X v.10.2 support.
- New Gather Installed Software command with improved software recognition for Windows applications, including version number and serial number for some applications.
- Added new information items for Windows BIOS information
- Windows-> System Hardware-> Other-> BIOS ROMSize
- Windows-> System Hardware-> Other-> Board Asset Tag
- Windows-> System Hardware-> Other-> Board Manufacturer
- Windows-> System Hardware-> Other-> Board Name
- Windows-> System Hardware-> Other-> Board Serial Number
- Windows-> System Hardware-> Other-> Board Type
- Windows-> System Hardware-> Other-> Board Version
- Windows-> System Hardware-> Other-> Enclosure Asset Tag
- Windows-> System Hardware-> Other-> Enclosure Manufacturer
- Windows-> System Hardware-> Other-> Enclosure Serial Number
- Windows-> System Hardware-> Other-> Enclosure Type
- Windows-> System Hardware-> Other-> Enclosure Version
- Windows-> System Hardware-> Other-> System Manufacturer
- Windows-> System Hardware-> Other-> System Product Name
- Windows-> System Hardware-> Other-> System Service Tag
- Windows-> System Hardware-> Other-> System Version
- Mulitple Notification Administrator support.
- Improved speed when saving SQL databases.
- Command queue is fully scriptable.
- Support for installing the 4.1 Administrator on top of the 3.6.2 netOctopus Windows Administrator.
- Mac OS X Agent Updater included for fast Agent version update.
- Added new SQL commands: Read Records from SQL, Write Selected Records to SQL, Remove Records from SQL database.
- Consolidated Physical Memory into Memory Installed.
- New option in the Update command to "Search for folder and update folder content."
- The command "Execute Macintosh Installer..." is now available on the Windows Administrator.
- Added new information in the Version tab of the File Information window for PC files:
- Product Version
- Description
- Company Name
- Product Name
- Legal Trademarks
- Internal Name
- Original File Name
- Added new feature in command Execute Macintosh Installer that you can type the path of the file that you want to execute.
- Backward compatibility support for FileScripter Installer scripts
- Native support for Mac OS X
- File Transfer Status window
- Increased speed when installing files
- Improved Log window
- Unicode support
- Administrator modules integrated in the Administrator
- Persistent command queue
- Databases can be stored in SQL backend database
- Improved Save as Text and Save as HTML commands
- History layer in individual computer windows
- Enhanced Execute AppleScript dialog
- Additional option do display dialog for "Execute PC Installer"
- Added new information items
- Common-> Other -> Administrators
- Mac OS-> System Hardware -> Memory-> RAM Module Location
- Mac OS-> System Hardware -> Memory-> RAM Module Size
- Mac OS-> System Hardware -> Memory-> RAM Module Type
- Mac OS-> System Hardware -> Other -> Machine Color
- Mac OS-> System Hardware -> Other -> Machine Serialnumber
- Mac OS-> System Hardware -> Other -> Machine Production Date
- Mac OS-> System Hardware -> Other -> Machine Production Factory
- Mac OS-> System Hardware -> Other -> Mac OS X Build
- Mac OS-> System Software -> Feature Support -> Wake On LAN Enabled
- Mac OS-> System Software -> Feature Support -> Wake On LAN Supported
- Mac OS-> System Software -> Other -> System Wide Owner Name
- Other-> Files -> File is Native Mac OS X App
- Many more new Information Items
- Support for new Mac OS X special folder locations
- Support for Mac OS 9.2.1.
- Added support for identifying the new Power PC 7450 G4 processor, PowerMacs, G4 Titanium PowerBook, and iMacs released in February 2001.
- Improved support for Macs running MacManager.
- Included Mac OS 9.1 installation scripts.
- Added support for identifying new CPUs (Intel Pentium III & IV CPUs).
- Support for Windows ME.
- Support for Mac OS 9.1.
- Improved support for identifying the machine types of newly-released Macs (G4, Cube, iBook)
- Improved support for multiple users running on Mac OS 9.x.
- Added PCI Device descriptions, to recognize more PCI devices.
- Improved installation support for Macintosh files that have the "init" flag set.
- Improved installation support for applications that insist on installing in the context of the user logged on to Windows NT and 2000.
- Support for virus scanning with Norton AntiVirus 6.x
- Improved Execute PC Installer command
- The AppleScript "open file" command, which is related to the netOctopus Open File command, has been renamed to "launch file" in the AppleScript dictionary.
- Enhancements for the WakeOnLan MacAgent have been rolled into the netOctopus 3.6.2 MacAgent. You need to install the WakeOnLan module only for the Admin; there is no need to update the MacAgent.
- Improved PC Agent to Admin notification message.
- The PC Agent is now active on Windows 9x systems even when no user is logged in.
- An extension has been added for registry handling. Valuename (Default) is mapped to Default Value (empty value name) on the client. Default Values appear to the Admin with the name (Default), and any operation on the value (Default) is mapped to the Default Value.
- Support for "Information Item Changes" and "Software Changes" allowing Historical Analysis for Windows machines.
- New activation key structure. This new activation key structure provides an easier, more flexible means of upgrading netOctopus or enabling various add-on netOctopus packages and modules.
- Support for netOctopus Windows 2000 Readiness Kit features and functionality. This includes special Windows 2000 Readiness templates and filters that are provided to gather hardware information from the Agent, and to determine whether or not your systems are compatible with Windows 2000 installation. netOctopus incorporates Microsoft's Windows 2000 Readiness Analyzer tool. Results from running this tool are outputted to netOctopus and saved as a text document.
- Improved support for editing large files over 1.2 MB.
- Improved support for displaying the machine types of newly-released Macintosh machines (iMac DV, PowerBook, G4, and so on).
Microsoft Windows Updates
The Windows netOctopus Administrator requires the following Windows systems components to work correctly. If your system has an older version of these system components, we recommend that you download these updates from Microsoft:
Windows 95 Updates
Windows 98 Updates
Windows NT