Windows 7/8 and 64-Bit Support

Windows 7/8 (x86 and x64)

The term 'Windows 7' is used in this section to describe Microsoft's latest client operating system.  Some of these items will also pertain to Windows Vista, Windows 8 and Windows Server 2008 / 2012.

User Dialin (RAS) Settings - Microsoft has disabled the RAS (dial-in) options on Windows 7.  When viewing the Shell Properties for an Active Directory user, the Dialin tab will be missing.  However, Hyena relies upon a Microsoft API to perform all dialin updates.  This API is still present, but non-functional; therefore Hyena has no way to tell that requests to read or write RAS information will fail.   When displaying Hyena's native user Properties dialog, an error may be displayed: "Unable to access RAS information for user...".  To suppress this error, select Tools->Settings->User and turn OFF the option to 'View User RAS Settings'.  

By default for new installations, this option is already disabled.  However, it was enabled by default for existing users.

Ping Settings - The ping options under Tools->Settings->View, Ping Options can be affected by the default security mechanisms on Windows Vista and Windows 7. By default, even when a user is logged in as an administrator, Windows Vista/7 will run all software applications as a non-administrator. To force the application to run as a administrator, the 'Run As Administrator' option must be used on the shortcut or program Properties.

Hyena's ping options allow the use of either the built-in tcp/ip raw sockets function or the ICMP.dll to be used. Microsoft requires full administrator rights to use the raw sockets ping interface; the ping function in ICMP.dll can be used by any user. Therefore, when running Hyena as an administrator, either interface can be used. If Hyena is used under a non-administrator account, ICMP.dll must be used.

ICMP.dll should be installed by default on Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Windows 7 Compatibility Modes - Windows 7 (and Windows Vista to a lesser extent) will attempt to set compatibility modes for applications that Windows believes are 'not running properly'.  Since Hyena must run on a wide array of Windows operating systems, some of the Windows APIs used by Hyena can trigger these compatibility modes.  Typically a message indicating 'this application may not have run properly' will be displayed either while you are using Hyena or after exiting.  Hyena v8.0 uses different techniques to run Event Viewer and the GPO editor in order to minimize this problem.

To see if Windows has set any compatibility options for hyena.exe or its associated shortcut, right click on hyena.exe or the shortcut, select Properties > Compatibility.

64-Bit Support

Hyena only supports the x64 processor architecture, meaning that the I64 architecture is not supported.

The following items are the known differences between the behaviors and conventions used between the Hyena x86 (32-bit) and 64-bit versions.

Previous x86 Installations - Both Hyena x86 and x64-based installations use the same configuration settings and licensing codes.  Due to the differences in how the 64-bit version is installed, however, it may be desirable to uninstall (using Add/Remove Program in Control Panel) any pre-existing 32-bit Hyena installation. Uninstalling Hyena, however, does NOT remove any user-created settings from the installation, profile, or registry.  If it is desired to have both 32 and 64-bit installations of Hyena, this can be accomplished by installation either into a different directory (see Installation Location below).

The ONLY file that is different between a 32 and 64-bit Hyena installation is hyena.exe (32-bit) or hyena_x64.exe (64-bit), and other executable files/DLLs.

Installation Location - Microsoft has created a convention of installing 64-bit applications into the c:\program files\ directory, yet installing 32-bit applications into the c:\program files (x86)\ directory.  This can create a lot of confusion, as applications can be installed and run from any location on a computer, regardless of their 32/64-bit architecture.  To follow these conventions, the x64 Hyena installation program will default to the '64-bit' installation location of c:\program files, but you may install Hyena anywhere you choose to.

64-bit Executable Name - The 64-bit version of hyena.exe is named 'Hyena_x64.exe'.  

Registry Reflection and Redirection - Microsoft chose to create different areas of some registry locations for 32 vs 64-bit applications.  Some of these areas are kept in sync with each other, while others are automatically redirected.  This convention has also changed between various Windows 64-bit releases of Windows Vista, Windows 7/8 and Windows 2008/2012.  To best understand how this may affect some operations, search the internet for "32-bit and 64-bit Application Data in the Registry" for the Microsoft MSDN articles.

Hyena retrieves a great deal of information from the registry, but in particular the installed software listing (Computer Properties > Software) comes from the registry.  This listing may appear incomplete due to registry redirection.  See the Advanced Settings topic for settings that can be used to force a particular registry location (32 vs 64-bit) to be read.