Remote Control Manager Release Notes

v1.4.21  14th March 2010

Bug Fix:  Connection Templates using the Domain Login variables (RDPSSO) could fail with a Run-Time error '5' / Invalid Procedure Call error message.

v1.4.20  7th March 2010

New Feature: Quick Search has been added. Bug Fix:  After creating a new device and then attempting to connect to the device would cause a BOF error.

v1.4.19 16 February 2010

New Feature:  The Domain Logins for Device / Groups has been improved. New Feature:  The online Help is in the process of being updated. New Feature:  A Search option has been added to the main console toolbar. Devices can be searched by Name, Hostname, PortNo and Comment. Review the online help / support forum for searching guide. New Feature:  New Setup Package. Stage 1 creates primary installation folder and Stage 2 for installing client setup onto computers. Bug Fix: When deleting a domain login the wrong Domain Login record was deleted.

v1.4.18  9th February 2010

New Feature: The Pre-Connection / Run Application now supports Windows System and RCM variables.  See Templates Example Forum Bug Fix: The Network Scan Timeout option was being ignored and would always default to 500 milliseonds. Bug Fix: The Network Scan options windows can now only be closed using the Set Command button.

v1.4.17  7th February 2010

Bug Fix: The importing of Devices/Groups would fail on systems when the Delimiter was not set to CSVDemilited or Delimited(,) values in the registry.  The RCM Import wizard now checks the Format value and updates it to Delimited(,) so the import will succeed.  Once the import is complete the Format value is reverted back to its original value.  See Microsoft KB290068

v1.4.16  24th January 2010

Bug Fix: The Importing of Devices / Groups no longer reports a "Key not unique in collection" error at the end of the import.   New Feature: The Importing of Duplicate records has been changed to search by Device Name instead of Device Hostname.

v1.4.15  10th January 2010

New Feature:  Shared and Personal variables can now be created.  These are especially useful in a multi-user installations. $sharedtemplates$ = Set Path to where shared connection templates exist, in multi-user setups this will be set to the same location on each computer. $sharedtools$ = Set Path to where shared tools exist, in multi-user setups this will be set to the same location on each computer. $shareddashboards$ = Set Path to where shared dashboards exist, in multi-user setups this will be set to the same location on each computer. $sharedadvtabs$ = Set Path to where shared advanced tabs exist, in multi-user setups this will be set to the same location on each computer. $mywebbrowser$ = Set Path+Filename of the users preferred web browser, in multi-user setups this can be different on each computer. These new variables can now be used in all Connections, Tools, Dashboards and Advanced Tab Templates (Program and Icons are supported). See Templates Example Forum New Feature:  Setup package now supports 64bit Operating Systems (RCM is still a 32bit program but takes into account the SysWoW64 folder during setup). Bug Fix: After saving any System / Preferences on next restart of Remote Control Manager the login would fail.

v1.4.14  31st October 2009

Remote Control Manager *** IMPORTANT *** Passwords are reset back to factory defaults in this release. New Feature: A Polling Tab has been added to the Device properties window.  Devices where polling is enabled will be scanned by the Status Checker program. New Feature:  The database upgrade now runs at the beginning of the installation, if the upgrade fails then the program updates are not installed. Bug Fix: A error would occur on exit if either the Recent Sessions or Scan Results group was selected. Bug Fix: Recent Sessions SQL queries would fail on non UK/US systems.  If problems persist contact the Support Forum and post your country code/short date format as set in your Regional Settings. Bug Fix: User passwords are now encrypted using a different method which should solve the problem with non UK/US systems failing to decrypt the passwords on login.  All existing passwords are automatically reset back to password at database upgrade.  See Database Upgrade v1.0.17 below. Bug Fix: When right clicking on a Group the popup menu would appear and disappear if Advanced Tabs existed.

Status Checker Program - v1.0.4  (v1.0.1 - v1.0.3 non public releases) New Feature: Hidden devices are no longer scanned by default. New Feature: Additional Scan options have been added, see Options / Preferences. Bug Fix:  Systems with devices in excess of 200+ could find that not all the devices were being scanned.

Database Upgrade Program - v1.0.17 New Feature: The upgrade wizard now prompts the end user to ask if a backup exists, if no backup exists the upgrade does not continue.  Only when the end user confirms that a backup exists will the database be upgraded. Bug Fix: All passwords are reset back to 'password' to fix encryption issues since the release of v1.4.11 To accommodate new features in Remote Control Manager v1.4.14 two new fields have been added. a) Clients.LastScanned b) Clients.PollDevice

v1.4.13  11th October 2009

Additional buttons have been added to Group and Device Notes.  The new buttons are:- Print, Font Colour, Font Size, Bullets, Left Align, Center, Right Align and Canceling a note save. Group and Device note toolbars can now be customized. Right Click / Customize... to choose what buttons will appear on the Notes toolbars. Devices that are Online, Warning and Offline state can now be customised by the end user.  See Options / Preferences / Devices Tab. Status Checker Program - v1.0.1 The Status Checker program automates the process of finding devices that are online/offline. The Status Checker program has replaced the AutoITv3 Script for finding online devices so has been removed.   Database Upgrade Program - v1.0.16 Bug Fix: The upgrade program could get stuck in a endless loop if the database dbversion was set to a higher value than what the Database Upgrade program was expecting.

v1.4.12   6th September 2009

A Pre-Connection tab has been added to the Device properties dialog which allows an application to run prior to connecting to the device. If the database version did not match the version required by rcm.exe a error would occur on exit.  This has been fixed. Database Upgrade Program - v1.0.15 a) Clients.ProgramDelay field added.

v1.4.11   31th August 2009

The Device List Status view now keeps a record of when when a user selected to check if the device was online. Green/Online: Device was checked in the last 5 minutes. Amber: Device was last checked between 6-10 minutes. Grey/Unknown: Device has not been checked for 11+ minutes or has never been checked. Red/Offline: Device was offline when checked. A basic automated Find Online Devices has been included with this release. See .\Remote Control Manager\scripts\AutoFindOnlineDevices.exe / AutoFindOnlineDevices.au3 The script is written in AutoIT v3 and requires a computer to be running Remote Control Manager only, the program sends the F3 (Find Online Devices shortcut) to the Remote Control Manager Window to automate the scanning of devices. Use Windows Task Scheduler to run the script every 5 minutes and leave RCM logged in with the All Devices view selected. A standalone Device scanner will be available in a future release. Device notes were not being saved correctly.  On editing a device note the Device List window is now locked and a notification label appears requesting the user to save the note before the Device List will be unlocked. Group / Device Notes import file selection was not showing any files in the Open Dialog Window. This has been fixed. Saving a Group note did not succeed if no device was selected.  This issue has been fixed. User passwords are now encrypted in the database. Devices listening on a TCP port greater than 32767 cannot be scanned due to a limitation with the SocketWrench control.  There is no workaround in Remote Control Manager for this issue.  When the scan comes across a device with a port number greater than 32767 the device is automatically marked as offline. Microsoft SQL 2005/2008 Database structure has been added to the .\Remote Control Manager\dbstructure folder, see mssql2005_dbstructure.txt Database Upgrade Program - v1.0.14 a) Clients.LastContact field added. b) Clients.IsOffline field added. c) Users.Password field has been increased from field size 10 to 255. d) Due to the notes issues some records may have become duplicated within the Notes table.  During the upgrade process the utility will check for duplicate notes. If duplicates are found please contact support@cgreen.me.uk for assistance with removing these records.

v1.4.10   27th August 2009

Non UK/US systems would generate a error on selecting the Recent Sessions folder. The problem was due to the Regional Settings using a date format of dd.mm.yyyy.  The same date issue would also cause a error on exit.  RCM now converts non UK/US dates into a compatible date format. Known Issues Saving a Group note does not succeed if no device is selected.  Note that no error occurs.

v1.4.9   6th July 2009

Non System Administrator users could not run RCM.  A error would occur at the point where the console would normally appear. The SQL Statement used for retrieving/deleting Recent Sessions from a MSSQL 2005/2008 database were incorrect.  On attempting to open the Recent Sessions folder would generate a error and on exiting the automatic deletion of old Recent Session records would also cause a error.

v1.4.8   29th June 2009

Deleting a Group / Device using the DELETE key has been fixed.   Make Favorite has been removed from the Devices Context menu as its no longer used. Multiple Domain Logins can now be associated to Groups / Devices.  A Group or Device can have multiple domain logins however only one domain login can be active/live at anyone time. Connect Using.... (Domain Login) has been added to the Devices context menu.  The Connect Using sub menu will contain all the Group and Device domain logins that are associated with the selected device and allow you to execute the currently selected device against the Domain Login you choose. Recent Sessions Group gives you access to the most recent devices connected to. By default the last 7 days are kept, maximum is 30 days (see Preferences \ Groups Tab for options). On exiting the Preferences dialog the system no longer requests a restart. A Advanced Tab can be made as default and forced to stay in focus when selecting a device (see Preferences \ Advanced Tabs tab). Classes are now associated to devices.  Classes can no longer be associated with Templates. A Print / Print Preview button has been added to the Dashboards Web Control.  The print button will print the currently viewed Dashboard or Advanced Tab. A new Validation Rule for checking against RCM fields has been added. Support is limited at present to IsNumeric function only. Usage:- $group.customernumber$=IsNumeric (if statement is true then Validation has passed and tab will be enabled).  A menu item has been added to Help / View Advanced Tab Results to show why a tab passed or failed validation. Dashboard / Advanced Tab popup windows have been improved. Find Online Devices CTRL+F has been removed due to keyboard shortcut conflict with Dashboards and Advances Tabs (CTRL+F = Find). Visual Themes have been disabled due to ongoing issues with RCM not running after installation. The Advanced Tab Web Window no longer stays in focus when moving back to the Group Notes Tab. Dashboard Templates Editor field is now saved. Classes can now be applied against one or more devices at a time. Database Upgrade Program - v1.0.13 a) RecentSessions table added. b) Clients.ClassID field added. c) DomainLogins.Name and DomainLogins.Active fields added.

v1.4.7a  20th June 2009

The Setup program now disables Visual Themes on the rcm.exe program by default as its been to causing to many problems when Visual Themes was enabled.

v1.4.7    28th February 2009

Device Password encryption issues has now been fixed.  Passwords greater than 8 alphanumeric + symbols would not be encrypted into the database correctly.  When it came to decrypting them RCM would crash or the device you were connecting to could fail to authenticate if the $password$ variable was used. Terminating RCM using the top right corner button will now close RCM down correctly and not leave the rcm.exe process running in the background. Dashboard Refresh and Home buttons have been improved and they both now refresh/reload pages without having to resort to the Refresh Dashboards option. Database Updates:- If RCM is configured to use the SQL 2005 Database then the Notes.Notes field must be manually updated so the column type is varchar(8000) not nvarchar(MAX) otherwise Group or Device notes cannot be loaded or saved.

v1.4.6    8th February 2009

To support MS SQL 2005 tables containing the Field 'Public' have been renamed to 'IsPublic'. This change is required as the field 'Public' is a reserved word in Microsoft SQL Server.

v1.4.5    1st February 2009

Find Online Devices caused a crash. Find Online Devices now reports the progress of items being scanned. AdvTabs.IconName field size was incorrectly set to 50, the field size limit should be 255. The upgrade database program has been updated to include this change. Advanced Tabs now show a Loading... page prior to loading the website the Advanced Tab is set to use. The Template Wizard for Advanced Tabs Templates now checks that no more than 10 tabs exist, if a 11th tab is added the Wizard with deny the action. Advanced Tabs are limited to a maximum of 10 tabs. Blank Validation Rules are not permitted from now on, all Advanced Tabs that had a blank validation rule will be automatically updated to C:\*.* to ensure compatibility with this release. The Public check box has been removed from Advanced Tab template creation as Advanced Tabs are always public. The Class column has been added to the device details view. The ClassLinks table has been deleted from the database as its no longer required. After adding a new device all columns are updated in the Device details view. The System Tray icon has been removed. Favorites and Active Sessions have been removed.

v1.4.4    25th January 2009 (PM)

Device passwords are now encrypted into the database correctly when a new device is created.

v1.4.3    25th January 2009 (AM)

Added /enablelogging=basic command line switch. Usage:  "C:\Program Files\Remote Control Manager\rcm.exe" /enablelogging=basic

v1.4.2    18th January 2009

When saving a new device the Status icon now appears under the new Device Status Column. Dashboards and Advanced Tabs can now be set to not show errors using the HideWebControlErrors Registry setting under:-   HKLM\Software\VB and VBA Program Settings\Remote Control Manager\Dashboards   and   HKLM\Software\VB and VBA Program Settings\Remote Control Manager\AdvTabs     HideWebControlErrors = FALSE (Default, all errors will be shown)     HideWebControlErrors = TRUE (No errors will not be shown) The System \ Global Refresh option has been moved to sub menu item under System \ Refresh.  The System \ Refresh now includes options to perform a Global Refresh as-well as individual console area's of Advanced Tabs, Dashboards and Images. Custom Field Labels can now be updated via System \ Update Custom Field Labels menu option. Group and Device Notes can be deleted using the Delete button on the Group / Device Notes toolbar. The Note column can now be added to Device details view, if a device has a note then a Note icon will appear.  Devices that have existing notes must be selected and the note re-saved for the note icon to appear.  New notes will automatically display the note icon on saving the note. The Username column can now be added to Device details view. Columns in Device details view can now be customized. Columns Name, Hostname and Port Number always exist.  To change columns right click in the Device View and go to the View \ Field Chooser option. Browser Popup windows now resize correctly, previously when the scrollbar appeared it disappeared off the bottom of the dialog window. The About box now shows the path to the database on Windows Vista.  Windows 2003, XP and 2000 show the Data Source Name as-well as the database name. Save the Device Layout has been added to Devices \ View sub menu, previously you had to exit Remote Control Manager for the columns to be saved. Database Upgrade Program a) The update utility has been updated to include the creation of the UserDeviceView table.

v1.4.1   4th January 2009

DNS Servers can now be associated with each individual Group for resolving devices IP to Hostname and Hostname to IP.  Group DNS Server(s) take precedence over the global DNS server, the global DNS Server will be used as a last resort.  Note that only FQDN domain names with resolve back to an IP address. Auto-Refresh options are now available under System / Preferences. Maximizing Advanced Tabs now position the tabs just below the Dashboards. The Dashboards menu has been removed. The Address Bar from the main toolbar has been removed, the Address Bar can be re-enabled under System / Preferences / Dashboards Tab. Global Refresh now refreshes Groups to. F2 can now be used to rename the selected Group.  If the device view has the focus then the selected device will be renamed, if group view has the focus then the selected group will be renamed. Creating a new Group no longer scrolls to a random location in the Group view list. Advanced Tab Validation Rules has a new rule of "Specified Folder Exists". If you moved from a root group back to Groups, Devices or Search the previous selected group would still appear as open. Missing Tools now show the correct missing icon image in the Tools view. Tool custom icons are no longer being ignored.  Dashboards that spawned new windows are now opened into a Remote Control Manager managed browser window. Groups that had no Domain Logins record association would cause a crash when selecting Group Properties. Advanced Tabs Maximize / Minimize button has been improved.  It can now be found just above the Advanced Tabs, in the center on the console. A splash screen has been added to show on startup, the main purpose is to show the progress of Remote Control Manager loading objects into the console. Device status is now indicated when a device status icon is selected (Details View Only).  Device status is determined using the Hostname and Port Number. The Advanced Tab Maximize / Minimize button now hides itself when viewing dashboards. The Devices / Add to Group menu has been renamed to Move to Group. The Group Custom Field Captions can now be renamed however the RCM variable must continue to use the real field name. ie. $group.custom1$.  The renaming of the labels can only be done directly via the database, a rename custom labels dialog will be available in v1.4.2 UDP port scanning has been removed as remote hosts that are listening on the destination UDP port do not respond when data packets are sent to them. Database Upgrade Program a) The database upgrade utility now checks for the existence of the DAO 3.6 ActiveX Library, if the ActiveX control is not installed a message box appears informing the end user.  See KB for installation instructions. b) The update utility has been updated to include the creation of the CustomFieldLabels table.

v1.4   26th October 2008

Advanced Tabs that pointed to a physical path + filename could leave the file in a open/locked state when moving away from the tab.  Moving away from the Advanced tab will now close the open file handle. Templates, Dashboards, Tools and Advanced Tabs can now be deleted from the Template Wizard screen by selecting the item and pressing the DEL key. The Template Wizard dialog would show incorrect screens for the Template type being edited when moving backwards through the wizard. Advanced Tab Templates now has a Validation option, the validation rule must return true for the tab to be enabled.  Currently only one rule exists which is a file lookup.  RCM and Windows System variables are supported. If you pressed Cancel to the select an Icon/EXE Browse window whilst in the Template Wizard a error would occur.  The Quick Connect and Device edit Template selection drop down list was not setting the default port to the one set in the Template. The Quick Connect and Device edit dialogs now include a button for resolving IP address to hostnames and hostnames to IP address.   The Preferences dialog has been updated to allow the use of one DNS Server for IP to hostname and hostname to IP lookups. The keyboard shortcut for renaming a device has been changed from CTRL+R to F2. Creating a new root level group caused a run-time error to occur. Advanced tabs that pointed to a icon file that didn't exist from the pc where RCM was running from would cause a run-time error to occur.  Advanced tab icons that cannot be found are now replaced with the unknown icon (exclamation mark). Advanced tab creation has been increased from 5 to 10 tabs. Advanced tab maximize/minimize buttons have been improved. CTRL+C no longer copies a device, use CTRL+D instead.  CTRL+C is now used to copy text to the clipboard in the Group/Device notes section. Group/Device Notes toolbar has new button for inserting current date/time. Right clicking in the notes also brings up a context menu for quick access to Insert Date/Time, Cut, Copy, Paste and Delete. Format of date/time defaults to "Long Date" and is possible to customize format via registry. The Edit menu has been renamed to System along with some of its sub menu items:- Setup Templates (Templates) Select Dashboards (Dashboard Links) Select Tools (Tool Links) Setup Users (Users) The system no longer needs to be restarted when Advanced Tabs, Dashboards, Tools and Templates are created, edited or deleted.  The system will auto refresh for the user making the updates and users who already have the RCM console open will need to run the new Global Refresh option located under the System menu. New groups are now automatically created as a sub group if a root level group is selected.  Auto expanding sub groups were being ignored. The Groups view icons has been improved to reflect when the selected group is open/closed. A Prompt is now shown for unsaved notes. Note however that the prompt only works for Group to Group or Device to Device movement, Group to Device and Device to Group movement is currently unsupported and the notes will not be saved. The Open Software Repository from the File menu has been removed, all users now access the Software Repository from the System menu. Only users with SysAdmin access can upload new software into the repository. The View Releases Notes under Help was pointing to the wrong file. Database Upgrade Program a) The Repository table was named incorrectly in database upgrade to dbversion 5, before updating to RCM v1.4 users should ensure the Repository table is set as "Repository" and not "Respository". b) All Tables containing Long Integer, Integer, Small Integer and Byte fields now have their default value set to 0.

Older Versions of Remote Control Manager

Click Here to View v1.0 - v1.3.x Release Notes