Inside the PowerFuse SR2 Release

Yesterday August 23rd 2010, RES Software released the anticipated Service Release 2 for RES PowerFuse 2010. The focus of this release is primarily User Settings. Among other things, this release contains User Settings templates for some of the most common applications on the market. More further down.

For OS migration purposes, there is one feature you cannot afford to miss: A new option has been added, called “Capture targeted items once, then track further changes”.  Essentially what this option does is to flip the zero profile mode from Specified to Immediate, combined with a run-once flag.

To quote the releasenotes: “By using this mode it becomes very easy to use User Settings to migrate personal settings from one machine to another: With the Capture targeted items on application/session start/end mode it is easy to transfer all stored changes that were made on system A and track all new changes on system B with Track any setting changed by application immediately.”

The other key feature in this release are the User Settings templates. When you edit your managed applications, you now have a pleatora of standard applications for which PowerFuse now includes pre-canned user settings. In order to use them. To find the templates go to the User Settings part of a new managed application and select Targeted Items. When you hit the Add button, you will now see a Templates menu, which includes many standard apps. Below is a complete list of all the included templates and the versions of the applications they support:

• MS Access, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Project, Publisher, Visio, Word, Office Common, Office Tools: Versions 2003, 2007 and 2010
• MS Frontpage 2003
• MS Groove 2007
• MS InfoPath: Versions 2003, 2007, Designer 2010, Filler 2010
• MS OneNote: 2007 and 2010
• MS SharePoint: Designer 2007, Designer 2010, WorkSpace 2010
• MS Internet Explorer: Versions 6..8
• MS Outlook Express (no specific versions)
• MSN Messenger: Versions 7.0 and 7.5
• Adobe Acrobat Professional: Versions 6..9
• Adobe Acrobat Reader: Versions 6..9
• AOL Instant messenger (no specific versions)
• Filezilla: Versions 2 and 3
• Mozilla Firefox: Versions 1..3
• Winzip: Versions 9, 12 and 14
  
• Yahoo Messenger: Versions 7.5 and 8

In addition to the above application specific user settings templates, you also have the ability to grab user settings for the control panel. This can however only be done using a global user setting, as found in the Composition | User settings node. The templates available here currently are:

• Display (XP only)
• Internet Options
• Keyboard Settings
• Mouse settings
• Regional and Language options
• All Control Panel settings

The above settings should make it much easier for you to get a proof-of-concept job going and to harness the full capabilities of RES PowerFuse Zero Profile technology. If your application is not listed here, do not despair though. You still have the ability to create custom User Settings and import them through buildingblocks. This leaves you two options. Either you can check in the Forums if somebody has or would like to share some user settings they’ve created. I’d probably go look in the BuildingBlock board. Second you can always create your own. Using the sampling mode to figure out what an unknown application is doing is a very valuable tool as the log of the sampling mode can be converted directly into user settings.

In addition to the above described key features, there are a bunch of usefull new registry tweaks and enhancements and about 53 fixes. To get all the details, see the releasenotes which you can download below.

Click here to download the SR2 releasenotes:

Last minute update: I was informed by my good friend Mr. De Koster over at CDG UK that an problem with the license count, using the Workspace Designer seems also to have been solved in SR2. Alledgedly, under some circumstances the workspace designer would not allow you to analyze the number of .DTS files than you actually had licenses for. This has been fixed.

New videos – Updated article

A set of new videoclips related to PowerFuse 2010 has been released. These explain what workspace management is all about. There is also a nice video which highlights the new stuff in 2010, mainly focussing on the desktop transformation bits. Anyway, I’ve updated the old RG01D article which refers to all the videos which are currently out there.

Go have a look at the updated article

PowerFuse 2010 – It’s ALIVE!

From the Hot-off-the-press dept. Finally Febuary 16th has arrived and it’s ReleaseDay! PowerFuse 2010 RC2 is now available on the portal for download for existing customers. There are tonnes of new improvements which you can read all about in the releasenotes. While you are at it, go check out the updated Glossary which now contains definitions of all the new technology.

Initially, may I direct your attention to the Corp. Website where you can download alot of PowerFuse 2010 info already. Scroll down to the end of this page and you will find them.

For those already working the RC1, the major deltas are that the [+] PlusMenu now is implemented for the Workspace Model node and Active Directory Sites are now supported as a new PowerZ… erm Location Rule. The new rule looks like shown here on the right.

Over the next couple of months, expect to see many more feature related articles describing how you can put the new features of RES PowerFuse to work for YOU!

Oh, and feel free to download the ReleaseNotes here :

RESguru and RESug merged!

May 4th 2009 at 21:00 GMT, it was officially announced that the people behind the RES Software User Group and the RESguru.com website are joining forces to provide even better content and information to the entire RES community.

Yuri Haak, co-founder of RESug.com: “This is indeed a match made in heaven as the newly started community provides an officially vendor sanctioned place for all RES community members; administrators, integrators, distributors and RES employees alike to share ideas and all sorts of things. Merging with Max’s RESguru.com provides a massive influx of material which will be of great value to the community.

Max Ranzau, aka the RESguru; “This is an exiting opportunity to contribute content to this cause. Until now, due to the fact that I’m at RES Software, I was constrained to write under pseudonym for legal reasons. As RES Usergroup is an seperate legal entity, I am now allowed to write under my own name as a regular community member. It will be a pleasure to continue serving the community with new and interesting material.

So, what’s going to happen at RESguru.com? This message has been posted on both sites. In a short while, all previous content from RESguru.com will be still available in it’s current form. The forums at RESguru.com will however be replaced with the forum at RESug. We all believe that this marriage of effort will bring the best of both worlds to the RES community.

RES UserGroup Online!

This morning, the long anticipated RESug.com went online, which is now the officially endorsed RES UserGroup site (unlike the babbeling black sheep of the community here ;-) Anyway, here at the ‘Guru we absolutely welcome the site to the growing community of RES technology related sites. A big hoorray for Yuri, Marcel, Thomas and everybody else who are involved  with this.

We took note of the nice info you guys are posting. Keep it comming! ;-) Looking forward to meeting you again at PubForum this year in Dublin.

/TRG

UPDATE April 30th – it seems RESug.com is undergoing some dev & maintainance work, so we might have been a bit premature in the above announcement. Keep an eye on it however – something wonderfull might happen!

SR5 PowerFuse update

This friday, April 24th, RES Software released Service Release 5 for PowerFuse 2008. This is a major overhaul which includes many new enhancements, and fixes alot of issues.

The update can be downloaded from the RES portal. As usual there 4 different downloads to consider: Either the full installer for new installations, or the PowerPacks, either the unattended or the manual version. Besides that, there is also the stand-alone Console installer, if you need it. Remember to have your credentials for the portal handy when you use these links.

The releasenotes for SR5 are available to review here:  

Important note. This Service Release includes several new registry settings and environment variables. The reference documents maintained maintained on this site are being updated accordingly:

RG005 – PowerFuse Tips & Tricks

RG006 – Variables, Tags and Functions (more info is being added as we learn about the new variables)

SR1 Wisdom update

Okay, this is some old updates which have been sitting in the queue for a while without getting published. Nevertheless, there’s some good info in here on how to upgrade Wisdom.

March 27th, RES Software released an update package for RES Wisdom. The Service Release 1 package for Wisdom 2009 is available for download from the RES Portal. The update can be downloaded here (this requires you to have a valid SA logon).  So, what’s new in this update you might ask? There’s a good deal of fixes:

Have a look here for more info:  

If you havent’ tried upgrading Wisdom before, don’t worry. It’s piece of cake (really, it is! :) Essentially, you fire up your console and point to the update package, which is automagically uploaded and distributed thereafter. All the agents, dispatchers and consoles will upgrade themselves without you having to do anything.

1) You download the .WUP file (Yes, WUP is short for Wisdom Update Pack :). Start your Wisdom console and go to Infrastructure | Datastore | Setup | Components.

2) Here you use the button, and it’s pretty much a next, next finish job from there.

The mere thought of having a production system upgrade itself on a massive parallel scale,  may scare the  living daylights out of you. If it does, it just proves you’re still sane! :) Seriously, Wisdom is one of the most stabile platforms out there and it handles itself very safe and sanitary. One of the very little known facts of the product is that you can actually downgrade to an earlier update package version. So, if something isn’t working right, it’s possible to do a rollback. The version range where this is possible has yet to be determined, but we will ammend this post as soon as this has been clarified.

Happy upgrading

/TRG

RES Revamped!

Here’s some catchup on what’s been going on for the last month. On March 31st  at 15:30, Hell froze over, the pigs made Mach 1, and RES got a slick new website! The portal is however still pretty much the same.

Mystified by the appearance of two rectangular objects resembling containers of sorts, RESguru.com sent out their trusty investigators, Mr. Pitt and Mr. Freeman to examine the website in more detail. We now go live to an in-depth interview:

;-)

PowerFuse 2008 SR4 update 8.0.4.5

Yesterday,  RES Software released an update of the Service Release 4 for PowerFuse 2008. It is now version 8.0.4.5. This update contains many important fixes. At the bottom of this posting, there is a link to download the releasenotes. There are also several cool enhancements to this update. These are mainly some interesting registry keys which you can use to tweak PowerFuse with. Here is an overview of these new settings, quoting from the releasenotes:

Configure cache timer interval. It is now possible to configure the cache timer interval. This interval determines how often the cache checks for changes in the database or for new transactions. The default for this interval is 5 seconds. This interval can be changed by setting the following registry key:

Key   : HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareRESPowerFuse

Value : CacheTimerInterval (REG_SZ)

Data  : A value between 5 and 60 (seconds)

Warning: Changing the default of 5 seconds should only be done in special cases, such as a heavy load on the database server. 

Disable screensaver when RES PowerFuse Workspace Extender is active: When a RES PowerFuse session is started from a workstation with the RES PowerFuse Workspace Extender or the RES Subscriber Agent, the RES PowerFuse session will enable a Screensaver by default. It is now possible to change this behavior, by setting the following registry string value in either HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE or HKEY_CURRENT_USER

Key   : SOFTWARERESPowerFuse

Value : NoAgentScreensaver (REG_SZ)

Data  : Yes

Force LogOff of disconnected sessions after timeout: It is now possible to force a logoff of disconnected sessions after a specified timeout expires. This can be enabled by setting the following registry keys in either HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE or HKEY_CURRENT_USER

Key   : SoftwareRESPowerFuse

Value : ForceLogoffEnabled (REG_SZ)

  Data  : Yes or No (to enable/disable the mechanism)

Value : ForceLogoffTimeout or ForceLogoffTimeoutOnDisconnect (REG_SZ)

  Data: value in minutes

Value : ForceLogoffOnDisconnect

  Data  : Yes or No

If you are already using the ForceLogoffOnIdle mechanism, the timeout in ForceLogoffTimeout can be used to use the same timeout for both mechanisms, or you can use a different timeout to disconnect by setting a value in ForceLogoffTimeoutOnDisconnect.

Silent refresh of RES PowerFuse sessions: A silent refresh of RES PowerFuse will not show a splash screen during a refresh of the Workspace Manager, which in some cases is less intrusive for the user. A silent refresh will only be used when the refresh is a result of a display change, a USB device change or a reconnect of a disconnected session. “Silent refresh” can be enabled by setting the following registry key in either HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE or HKEY_CURRENT_USER:

Key   : SOFTWARERESPowerFuse

Value : SilentRefresh (REG_SZ)

Data  : Yes or No 

The release notes for the 8.0.4.5 update can be downloaded here:

Chinese Braindumps…

A friend of the blog tipped us off about this little number. Seems that RES Software is making it’s mark out in the APAC. Somebody once said: “A good measure of when you’re successfull is when somebody starts taking the time to make braindumps for your tests and cracks for your software…”

TestInside.com out of Shanghai apparently offers a braindump for the PowerFuse 2008 exam. However, you might consider checking out the demo before you shell out  the $120 they’re asking for it.  ;-))