SystemTools 'ToolNews' - February 4, 2020

1. News
• Hyena v13.8 Released
• Hyena v13.8.2 (rev 'C')
2. Tips
   
• Redraw Performance
• New %SYM_AD_DATE_TIME% Symbol
3. Hyena Maintenance
4. Keeping in Touch
• Help us keep you informed
• Help us spread the word !
5. Contact Information

Hyena v13.8 Released

Hyena v13.8 has been released and is available in both x86 and x64 versions in English, French, German, and Spanish. Hyena v13.8 is available as a free update if your maintenance expiration date is after November 1, 2019. See the 'Hyena Maintenance' topic below for information on updating and how to check the maintenance expiration date. Any customer which purchased a Hyena v13.5 license is eligible for a free upgrade to v13.8 as well.

Hyena v13.8 can be downloaded from:

https://www.systemtools.com/hyena/download.htm

New Primary Interface

The most dramatic change in Hyena v13.8 is the new primary interface, which also offers a lot of customization.  Besides looking a bit different than a standard menu/toolbar interface, the new Microsoft ribbon-style interface supports a number of built-in features, including:

• Eight (8) adjustable styles.
• Customizable 'Quick Access Toolbar (QAT)', which can be positioned above or below the main ribbon. Any button, button group, menu, or even custom tools can be added to the QAT.
• Optional minimizing of the ribbon, which can then be made visible by clicking on the remaining menu or keystroke (Control-F1)
• Automatic layout adjustments for resizing, screen resolution, and O/S versions.

While the images and functionality is very similar to the previous interface, the classic menu and toolbar style can be reverted to under Settings > GUI.  

Other Changes include:

• Defaulted AD container to last used container on new AD object dialog.

• Changed defaults and added 'Service Accounts' to list of object filters for AD search dialog when add group members to groups.

• Added new advanced settings EnableAdFindGrpMbrsContacts and EnableAdFindGrpMbrsComputers. See Settings > Advanced for more information on these new settings.

• Added new symbol, %SYM_AD_DATE_TIME% to be used for adding the current date/time to any AD query. See the Tips section below for more information.

Hyena v13.8 Updated to 13.8.2 (rev 'C')

Hyena v13.8 has been updated to 13.8.2 (Rev 'C').

Changes include:

• Rev 'B' - Added support for 'ms-Mcs-AdmPwdExpirationTime' attribute (display as date/time).

• Rev 'B' - Removed outdated menu references in dialogs and error messages.

• Rev 'B' - Implemented alternate new licensing key system and changed prompts.

• Rev 'B' - Changed About... dialog format and added Check for Updates option.

• Rev 'C' - Defaulted UseAdSignAndSeal to TRUE, under Settings > Advanced. This may only effect new installations, existing installations should verify and set this value if needed.

• Rev 'C' - Fixed Microsoft misspelling on ribbon bar.

• Rev 'C' - Increased size of caption for 'Comment' in Object manager to avoid large-font truncation.

• Rev 'C' - Disabled errors when attempting to get disabled status of event log, to prevent premature exit of event log listing function.

• Rev 'C' - Changed icon image in left window for EVTX logs (removed exclamation overlay).

• Rev 'C' - Re-enabled screen redraw suppression when performing GUI-intensive tasks to increase performance on some actions (ie Filtering, buffering, etc.)  Conversion to new ribbon interface in v13.8 resulted in previous refresh management being disabled, resulting in slow performance on some actions. See Tips below for more information.
  

Redraw Performance

The Windows control used by Hyena for the right window (a Windows List Control), can suffer from some performance issues when a large number of items are added or removed. Because Hyena runs on so many Windows platforms, trying to find the right optimal technique when performing large updates is difficult at best. The change to the new ribbon interface resulted in a complete change to how this window now works. A recent fix in rev 'C' can dramatically improve performance on many operations, particularly when filtering out a large number of items.

Another area that can improve performance ironically is to turn OFF the option under Settings > GUI, 'Enable double-buffering in list windows'. This option was originally added to allow better performance but seems for some customers to have the opposite effect depending on the Windows operating system being used. Hyena must be restarted after making any changes on this dialog.

New %SYM_AD_DATE_TIME% Symbol

Every now and then a feature request is both simple to implement and useful to others; in this case it was the addition of some method to include the date and time that AD data was retrieved for auditing and recordkeeping purposes. Hyena v13.8 includes a new symbol, %SYM_AD_DATE_TIME%, which will insert the current date/time into any AD query view.

The symbol is available under the 'Special AD Symbols' attribute category.

For more information on how to modify the AD queries in Hyena, watch the 'Hyena Active Directory Query Basics (201)' video available here:

https://www.youtube.com/user/SystemToolsSoftware

All Hyena licenses have a built-in maintenance expiration date, which can be displayed under the Settings > Licensing dialog. The maintenance expiration date determines whether new releases can be installed with the active license. If your maintenance has recently expired or is about to expire, it can be renewed now. For maintenance information and renewal options, visit:

https://www.systemtools.com/hyena/maint_main.htm

If you prefer to get an email quotation on maintenance renewal, send your current license information to sales@systemtools.com and request a maintenance renewal quote. You can easily get the current license information under Hyena's Settings > Licensing dialog.

If your maintenance expiration date is before November 1, 2019, the upgrade cost is only 50% of the licensing cost, which includes one year of maintenance. Maintenance expirations on or after November 1, 2019 can be renewed now.

Help us keep you informed

Help us keep you and other users in your organization informed of updates and releases of SystemTools products.

Any Hyena user can register for this newsletter (ToolNews) by selecting "Newsletter Signup" on Hyena's Help menu. You can also go directly to our ToolNews registration page as well. We could also use the help of our existing customers by passing along this newsletter to other SystemTools users within your company.

We use an automated service to handle sending this newsletter, including subscribing and unsubscribing. All new subscriptions require confirmation, and we will never share our newsletter email list with anyone.

Help us spread the word !

For over 20 years Hyena has helped tens of thousands of IT managers, administrators, help desk personnel, and auditors simplify the management and reporting of Windows. We have found over and over that the number one source of newcomers to our products has come from word-of-mouth of other happy users. The entire SystemTools Software family and community would very much appreciate it if you would mention Hyena to friends and associates that you feel could use it to simplify their jobs as well.

As our user base has grown, the amount and quality of feature recommendations has grown as well, making for an even better product for existing and future users. Simply put, the more we grow the exposure of SystemTools Software products, the more return you get from your investment.

Thank you for your help in keeping Hyena improving and growing !

Sales - sales@systemtools.com
Support - support@systemtools.com

Thank you for your support.