New Features

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Hyena v8.1 New Features

User Communication Portal

The User Communication Portal is a new option available for Active Directory users. 

The Communication Portal queries the known Active Directory attributes that are related to email, phone, and web addresses and displays the values. Templates can then be created for email and phone contacts, or web addresses can be visited directly.  The email communication uses the mailto:: protocol. This protocol supports specifying default values for the subject, cc:, bcc:, and message body of the email. These are all optional values and are stored into the template. By creating multiple templates, a different message type can be configured for different purposes, ie a scheduled system shutdown, company announcement, etc. 

The calling communication uses the callto:: protocol. This protocol uses a number of parameters and settings, and can be used with NetMeeting, Skype, and other communication systems.

New Update Check Utility

Hyena's older 'Check for Updates' facility has been disabled when run on Windows Vista and later, due to problems with the User Account Control (UAC) facility. In order to have greater control and UAC compatibility, we've created our own update checking system.  When executed, a small dialog is displayed which shows the license information currently being used.  This new system can be run manually from Hyena, through its own shortcut, or automatically (the default) every 30 days when running Hyena.

Exporter Pro Improvements

Exporter Pro can now be used to export Terminal Server session and process information. These new exports are available on the 'Other' export properties tab.

Exporter Pro 64-bit Version

To prevent errors caused by missing 32-bit libraries, Exporter Pro is now available in a native 64-bit version.

Hyena v8.0 New Features

Now Available for the x64 Platform

Hyena v8.0 is the first release built to support the 64-bit platform.  Take advantage of the full potential of the 64-bit processor and Windows 64-bit components, especially for large-scale Active Directory projects.  To upgrade to any 64-bit version, simply download and install the 64-bit version (English, French, German, or Spanish)

Support for Windows 2008 Fine-Grained Password Policies

Windows 2008 introduced a great new feature for creating multiple levels of password policies.  Unfortunately, there isn't any direct GUI interface in Windows to manage these new policies...until now!.

Improved Remote Desktop Integration
 

Hyena can now directly access the built-in Remote Desktop (RD) client without the need for custom tools.  Moreover, the options used can be completely customized for any RD configuration.  

Other Changes

Event Time Offsets - Showing events using an offset filter allows an interval of time to be specified instead of a definitive starting and ending time. Offset settings can be aa set internal of days, hours, or minutes.  

Improved Active Directory Attribute Management - The attribute editor of the Manage Directory Attribute function can now be directly accessed for a single attribute for one or more selected objects in any AD query. For example, to modify the logon script of one or more users, execute an AD query that contains the 'scriptPath' attribute. Select one or more users, then right click somewhere in the column area of the logon script attribute in the right window. The menu option will be titled Modify 'Script'. Hyena will then display the attribute editor and allow updating the logon script attribute.

Additionally, the resulting view from the 'View All Directory Attributes' function has been improved to also support modification of any attribute displayed.

See the 'What's New' section in Hyena's help file for a complete list of changes in v8.0

Hyena v7.7 New Features

Terminal Server Session Management

For Enterprise Edition users, Terminal Server sessions can now be viewed and managed (disconnect, log off, send message). Over two dozen informational columns can be displayed for terminal server sessions; individual columns can be customized by the user. The Terminal Server 'Send Message' function has more capabilities than the standard Windows user messaging function. In particular, the icon used for the message dialog box can be customized, and an optional response can be captured from the user. As responses are received or timed out, Hyena will update the Send Message dialog; this information can be copied to the clipboard if desired.

Processes can also be viewed and terminated on a per-session basis.

Extensive Logging Capabilities

While nearly all Active Directory tools lack any sort of logging capability, Hyena adds this much-needed feature by logging each AD modification or object access, yet also puts you in control of what actions get logged. The log file format is a tab-delimited text file, so loading it into a database or spreadsheet is an easy task.

More User Active Directory Attributes

A number of new properties have been added to Hyena's User Properties dialogs:

'Object dialog' - The cn of the 'Managed By' account is now displayed directly above the full path for easier viewing.

'Organizational dialog' - 'Direct Reports' has been added, plus 'Employee Type' and 'Building No'. These new attributes are already part of the Active Directory schema and have been added for ease of access.

Easier Microsoft Excel Exporting

Hyena's existing copy mechanism has been modified to allow faster and easier exporting directly to Microsoft Excel. Any Hyena view can now be exported to Excel in as few as three (3) mouse clicks.

The command line used to run Excel.exe can be customized (Tools->Setings->Advanced), or an entirely different application can be run instead of Excel.exe.

Other Changes

• Additional information has been added to the Computer Properties->General dialog, showing the operating system, architecture, and features (Enterprise, Terminal Server, etc.)

• A default sort option has been added to the Active Directory Query properties (File->Manage Object View->AD Queries). Setting a default sort does NOT sort the data at the server during execution of the query (AD does not support server-side sorting). Instead, Hyena will perform the sort after the data is retrieved, saving you the step of having to click on the column in the right results window.

• The 'Add to Group' option on the More Functions menu for user objects has been changed to 'Add / Remove From Group'. A dialog is now displayed allowing selection of whether to add or remove the selected user(s) from the targeted group.
  
  
• Some attributes in Active Directory allow the inclusion of carriage returns and/or line feed characters (CR/LF). Windows will usually represent CR/LF characters as a square box visually on the screen, but when the data is sent to the clipboard or output file, it can cause problems with other applications, such as Microsoft Excel. A new advanced settings (Tools->Settings->Advanced) has been added - AdCrLfReplacementString. This new value can be set to one or more characters which will replace any CR/LF combinations found in AD data.
  
  
• When using Edit->Copy to export Active Directory data from Hyena's right window, the entire contents of columns with large amounts of data will be copied in full, instead of truncated with ...! Windows limits the amount of information that can be presented visually, but Hyena will now internally keep the entire full-length string, allowing the entire string to be copied to the clipboard or data file. This change will be primarily useful for exporting group and user membership fields.

Hyena v7.5 New Features

Improvements to User Photos in Active Directory

A number of advanced options (see below), as well as a new View option, has been added to the Active Directory user photo integration.  A new help topic has also been added to fully explain user photo storage in Active Directory.

New Advanced Options

A new 'Advanced' dialog has been added to the Tools->Settings dialog, for easier control of the many advanced settings in Hyena.  New advanced settings for user photo integration, ping, and others have been added.  See the Advanced Settings topic in Hyena's help file for a complete list and descriptions.

WMI Logging

A new option for logging WMI queries and method executions has been added to the Tools->Settings dialog.  

Exporter Pro Improvements

A number of new features have been added to Exporter Pro, including exporting of open file information and file version information.  Support has also been added for inclusion of special symbols in output file names for date and time values.  See the Release Notes section in the Exporter Pro help file for a complete list of changes.

Hyena v7.3 New Features

Improved User Copy Options

The 'Copy User' function has been improved to allow selectable attributes to be copied. Plus, named templates can be created for even faster selection of common user copying scenarios.

New Active Directory Features

• Methods to change the sequencing of AD queries on menus and adding separators for improved visual organization.
• Direct access to Group Policy Management Console (GPMC) reporting options.
• Capability to view users, groups, and computers objects as containers.

Other Changes

• Increased the maximum number of user-defined tools to 99.
• Enabled displaying a disabled user account icon when viewing group members on Windows NT or local user groups.
• Changed Hyena event searching method to always allow searching in the event description field even if its not been added to the display columns. Previously, Hyena would only enable the option to search the event description field if it was displayed.
• Modified the Send Message function to allow entry of optional 'From' field.
• Fixed a problem causing Hyena to crash when a root computer or domain controller object was right clicked on in the left tree window.
  
• Increased size of Manage Directory Attributes multi-value edit dialog and fixed problem with long text not being scrollable.
  
• Created a new warning dialog when copying data to the clipboard/file (Control-C) that may have been truncated due to Windows limitation. The warning message can be disabled after seeing it for the first time.
• Created a new warning dialog when copying data to files (Control-C) and the output file already exists and will be overwritten. The warning message can be disabled after seeing it for the first time.
• Removed the restriction of not being able to use the '\' character in a username since this character needs to be used when creating 'escaped' character sequences for LDAP compatibility.

New Advanced Settings

• Added an advanced registry value for controlling the command used to edit Group Policy Objects. To change the default command used, which is "mmc gpedit.msc /gpobject:"%s", create a registry value named "GpoEditCmd" under the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\AdkinsResource\Hyena\Advanced registry key. Set this value to be a REG_SZ datatype and put in the command string to use. Use a %s as a placeholder for the GPO object GUID ID.

Exporter Pro Changes

• Added option to export computer Sessions.
• Added option to export user full name and comment on user group members on Windows NT or local groups.
• Added count of objects processed on export completed progress messages.
• Added NO_SD_ADMIN_ONLY as display of security settings for admin shares (ie C$, D$, etc.)

Hyena v7.0 New Features

Improved Active Directory Query Management

The Active Directory query options have been both streamlined and simplified in Hyena v7.0.  Queries can now be created or customized more easily, and a new View All Directory Attributes option lets you see all existing AD elements for any object. The 'View All' option is convenient for determining the attribute names used by Active Directory.

Custom Active Directory LDAP Filtering

Active Directory has always included a powerful mechanism that supports server-side filtering, but until now this capability was difficult to fully utilize.  Hyena now provides an easy method of assigning the LDAP filter from Microsoft's query builder to Hyena's Active Directory engine, a combination that provides for a lot of new flexibility and performance improvements.  New All Disabled Users and All Contacts default queries have been added which use this new capability and any number of other custom filters can be easily created.

Custom LDAP filters can also be executed at sub-container levels, providing the capability to search multiple directory levels, or even the entire directory at one time.

Microsoft Vista Compatibility

We've made a number of minor changes to address compatibility and integration issues with Microsoft Vista and will continue to monitor Vista feedback by our customers.

Other Changes

Added a Registry Security dialog.

Improved the Active Directory filtering options (through the AD toolbar) to improvement performance and integration with the new query options.

Added a new column (cn) for the name of the group when displaying group members.

When a column in Hyena's results window (right window) has been sorted, the sorted column will be highlighted if a Windows XP manifest file (enabled by default) is being used.

Improved the performance of reading from a shared settings file stored to a network or WAN location.

Added capability to enter multiple target computers in the Copy Printers To... option.  Also saved previous settings on this dialog.

Enabled copying (Control-C) of the SID and GUID information on the Object tab of any AD properties page.

Enabled context and property sheet extensions for Active Directory contact objects.

Added status bar message when retrieving directory information for multiple objects when using the Manage Directory Attributes function.

Enabled the Security and List Security options for Active Directory public folder objects.

Added additional space to the Computer Properties->Software->Properties dialog, and also enabled multi-select on the main computer software listing, so that multiple items can be copied to the clipboard.

Hyena v6.7 New Features

Exporter Pro Improvements

Numerous changes have been to the interface of Exporter Pro to make it easier to view and modify export settings.   We've also updated the documentation.   For a complete list of the changes to Exporter Pro v2.0, included with Hyena v6.7, see the Exporter Pro help file.

Adding Custom Active Directory Attributes to AD Queries

When creating or modifying Active Directory queries using Object Manager (File->Manage Object View->AD Queries), Hyena uses an external text file (ad_schema.dat) to control the display of the Active Directory attribute names and to categorize them by object type. This is done because Active Directory lacks any simple, fast, and flexible way to show all of the attributes for a given object type. Moreover, the majority of AD attributes are named in a very user-unfriendly way and the majority of them are not useful or undocumented.

Hyena's approach was worked well over the years but has one drawback : There isn't a readily apparent way to add custom, new, or specific attributes that are not part of Hyena's built-in attribute list (schema). Hyena now includes a mechanism to add new or custom attributes to any AD query. To access this feature, click the dropdown combo box labeled Attribute Category on the AD queries dialog in Object Manager (after selecting the query that you want to modify). Select the "Other (specify attribute)" category. The resulting dialog will prompt for the name(s) of the attributes to add. To add multiple attributes, separate each attribute with a comma ( , ), or a new line by pressing Control-Enter.

Using Home Directory Templates when Modifying Users

By default, if a user's home directory path is changed, Hyena will prompt after updating the user if a home directory template should be used to set the home directory security.

A new option has been added to the user Profile and Terminal Server Profile dialogs to select a template. When a template is selected through the Use Template... button, Hyena will update the profile path, logon script (non-Terminal Server profile only), drive connection, and home directory path with the values from the template. The template values will only be used if the settings to be replaced are currently empty.

When the user is updated after clicking the OK button to close the User Properties dialog, Hyena will apply the security settings, if any, from the template on the user's home directory; Hyena will not re-prompt for the home directory template again, as its assumed that the template selected previously should be used when setting security options.

This new option has been added for instances where it is desirable to have an existing user get a standard set of Profile values without the need to manually enter the settings, and potentially cause problems if typographical errors are introduced.

This new option is not available when adding users or performing multi-user updates.

Entering Active Directory Alternate Credentials

Active Directory lacks a domain-level 'logon' capability other than logging in as a particular user or running an entire application under a particular security context ('Run As'). Instead, Active Directory allows an application to provide a username and password each time any directory object is accessed. Previously, Hyena would let Windows use the current username and password for any directory operation. Now, an optional different set of credentials can be provided for any domain in Hyena's console.  

Hyena Windows XP Manifest File

Some time ago with the release of Windows XP, Microsoft created a little-known mechanism for developers (or users) to get their applications to use the newer Windows XP 'look' by using a specially formatted XML file called a 'manifest'. Hyena now includes a manifest file in its installation. The file is named hyena.exe.manifest and will be installed into the application directory. You can view the contents of the file if you want; its in XML.  

What the manifest file essentially does is forces Windows to use the newer v6.x of comctl32.dll, which is available on Windows XP.

Hyena has nothing to do with this mechanism and should not be affected by the changes in the GUI that result when using a manifest file.

Using a manifest also fixes a problem if you have installed the newer Windows 2003 administration tools and are trying to use the Microsoft Shell Properties dialog for an OU.   If you have the Windows 2003 Admin Tools loaded, the Group Policy tab on the Properties dialog for OUs will have a hotlink to the newer GPMC tool. Without the manifest, this tab won't function properly if you click on it. With the manifest file present, it works as expected.   Note that all 'Shell Properties' are not Hyena functions per-se, but are Microsoft-created mechanisms.

If you prefer the 'older' look of Hyena when run on Windows XP, simply rename the hyena.exe.manifest file to something else.   Note that it will be re-installed when installing updates or patches.

Visual Studio 2003 Conversion

Hyena and Exporter Pro have been rebuilt using Microsoft Visual Studio 2003, including using new MFC and runtime 'C' libraries. Due to this change, a new installation program is included, which copies new library (.dll) files.  

These new .dll files are named mfc71u.dll, msvcp71.dll, and msvcr71.dll

Visual Studio 2003 is also referred to as the .Net architecture.

Hyena v6.6 New Features

Support for Active Directory Shell (MMC) Property Page and Context Menu Extensions

Hyena can display the Active Directory shell property sheet for any directory object when the "Shell Properties" or "Properties" option is selected. This dialog will appear the same as it would in any MMC snapin for the same directory object. Hyena v6.6 can now display extensions to MMC property pages. Generally, property page extensions are used to add additional functionality to the Properties dialog for a directory object, such as adding a fingerprint identification page for user identification. In additional to 3rd party extensions, Microsoft also will add the Group Policy page (tab) to many directory objects as well.

The same mechanism that is used to display the property page extensions is also used to add context menu extensions. One extension that we have found and tested is the Microsoft Group Policy Management Console (GPMC) which adds an RSOP option to OU context menus. For more information on the GPMC, click here:

Replacable Parameters in Manage Directory Attributes Function

The Manage Directory Attributes feature for Active Directory objects has been modified to allow the existing value of a directory attribute to be used when modifying other directory attributes. The syntax for specifying that the value of a directory attribute should be used as any portion of a new value for a directory attribute is:

%Active_Directory_Attribute_Name:Length%

The :Length portion is optional; if omitted, the entire directory value will be used.

For example, if you want to modify the value of the 'comment' attribute to be Building 118, Division , then followed by the value of the 'division' attribute, then the words ', Section 'A', use:

Building 118, Division %division%, Section A

The value of %division% will be replaced with the value of the 'division' directory attribute. To use only the first 6 characters of the division, use:

Building 118, Division %division:6%, Section A

Other Changes

Added new dialog when opening backup event files. Hyena will now prompt for one or more backup event files which can be opened, provided that they are the same event log type. Hyena has no way of knowing what type of event log is stored in the files, so this information must be manually entered; the selection of event log types is loaded from the currently selected computer. The event description will now correctly be displayed for backup logs as well. 

Added new dialog when copying window information to the clipboard that can control the columns copied and other options.  Previously used options are also automatically recalled. 

Added new buttons on the OU toolbar for displaying and controlling the behavior of the Active Directory 'Find' dialog. The 'Find' dialog is the same dialog you would get by selecting the Find button on the OU context menu.  The 'Append Find' button can be used to add (append) the results of the find operation to the current window. 

Added new registry options for renaming registry keys and saving registry key values to an external file.

And there are a lot more changes !. For a complete list, see the What's New section in Hyena's online help file after downloading/installing.

Hyena v6.5 New Features

Active Directory Attribute Management

One of the drawbacks to the conventional method used by Hyena and nearly all Microsoft applications when managing Active Directory objects, is the presentation of a dialog box to request user input.  Some of the disadvantages to the standard GUI dialog for managing Active Directory include:

Active Directory offers many more additional properties (attributes) than can be displayed on most GUI interfaces.
Limited options exist for managing the attributes for multiple directory objects at the same time, resulting in lost time performing one-by-one updates.
Extended schema attributes will not usually be available in Microsoft or 3rd party utilities.
Tools for direct access to AD attributes such as ADSI Edit are difficult and clumsy to use.
Scripting solutions offer only a non-interactive method of updating directory objects.

Hyena's new Active Directory Attribute Management functions are designed to overcome these limitations and provide new capabilities for direct access and manipulation of AD objects.  By utilizing advanced techniques and optimized directory access functions, this new capability will greatly enhance AD management, especially where multiple attributes need to be modified on a large collection of directory objects.
 
Viewing and Exporting Indirect Group Members

Both Hyena and Exporter Pro have been modified to support viewing and exporting indirect group members.  Indirect groups are groups that are included (nested) in another group.  For example, the Domain Admins group is typically part of the Administrators group.  Now, you can view, export, and manage any member or group that is included in another group without having to hunt and search for the included group.  To visually view the indirect members of a group in Hyena, right click on the group, and select View Group Members->View Direct and Indirect Members.  Hyena will show indirect members hierarchically indented under their parent group. 

To export indirect group members, select the Include Indirect (nested) Group Members option by clicking the Set Options button on any Active Directory Group-object export template.

Multi-Object Deletion Confirmation

When multiple objects are selected and the Delete option is chosen, Hyena will display a Delete Confirmation dialog showing the objects selected for deletion.  To aid in the selection of items in Hyena's right window, we recommend enabling the 'Highlight Entire Row' and 'Show Gridlines' options under Hyena's Tools->Settings->GUI dialog.  Restart Hyena after enabling either of these options. 

Active Directory (Windows 2003) Undelete Support

Microsoft has added (minimal) support for undeleting Active Directory objects in Windows 2003.  A technical article describing the mechanism to 'undelete' can be found in MSDN under the title 'Restoring Deleted Objects'.  Hyena implements the 'undelete' functionality exactly as documented by Microsoft in this article.

Using Multiple Filter Search Criteria

Hyena's right window filtering functions (available when the green filter toolbar button is clicked) has been modified to support multiple filter search criteria.  To specify that you want to search for multiple items, enter each item separated by a ';' character.  To indicate that the string is a multi-filter search, also put a leading ';' at the start of the string.  For example, to filter for only strings that contain 'user' or 'marketing', enter:
;user;marketing

Other Changes

There are too many to list !. For a complete list of all changes in Hyena 6.x and 5.x versions, see the What's New! section of Hyena's help file.

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Hyena v6.3 New Features

Improved Event Log Filtering Options

The Event filtering properties dialog has been modified for more functionality:

An option has been added to include/exclude event IDs.  
Some dialog controls and sizes have been rearranged for viewing all/more event log names.
Multi-selection of event logs is now supported.  Together with the capability to view event logs from multiple computers, you can now view any combination of events from multiple event logs.
A new option to save and recall the event filtering settings has been added. 

Exporter Pro Improvements
 
Exporter Pro v1.7, included in Hyena v6.3, now supports exporting of locally logged on user information, plus file and directory exporting options.  The new file/directory exporting options also allow exporting of NTFS security information.  For more information, see the SystemTools Exporter Pro help file (stexport.chm) in the Hyena installation directory, or use the shortcut for this file under Start->Programs->Hyena.

Support for Exchange 2003 Query Based Groups

Support has been added for Exchange 2003 Query Based Distribution Groups.  These groups will appear with a new icon, and can be seen under Universal Groups.  There is also a new option to create these types of groups as well.  Exchange 2003 must be installed to create query-based distribution groups.

Hyena v6.2 New Features

SystemViews (tm)

Hyena's SystemViews is an innovative feature that allows for fast and easy recalling of previous views of the right list window.  This feature will be especially important to those users who need a method of easily going back to a previous display or that have a large number of objects (for example, domain user accounts) that take an extremely long time to retrieve and are needed for administration throughout the day.  These views can now be retained and restored with the click of the mouse or through a keyboard shortcut.

Improved Shared Settings Support

Previous versions of Hyena supported sharing Hyena's configuration settings with other users.  However, this feature required that nearly all of the settings be shared, even if it was desired to only share particular pieces of a configuration.  Hyena v6.2 now supports sharing any portion of a configuration.

More Filtering Options

The filtering option in Hyena's right window has been improved.  New options for filtering for blank values, exact matches, and 'not' equals searches have been added.  

Managing Non-Windows Devices

Hyena's Object Manager (File->Manage Object View) can now be used to add non-Windows devices (routers, hubs, Linux computers, etc.) to Hyena's views.  Hyena does not offer any functionality for these devices, but will populate and show the tools menu when these objects are right-clicked on.  The two different object types are the Router/Switch and the Network host/Device.  The only difference between the two different types are the icon used to show the object in Hyena's windows. 

Exporter Pro Improvements

Exporter Pro can now be used to export account and audit policy (under Other Exports) for both domains and individual workstations.  The storage of active templates (Active Directory, Registry, and WMI exports) has also been moved to the export configuration (.INI) file, allowing for easier management of multiple export configurations.

Hyena v6.0 New Features

WMI Support*

Hyena can display any WMI property from any WMI class and also provides access to common WMI methods. Hyena also supports modification of most writable WMI instance information on one or multiple instances from one or more computers.

To help in understanding WMI and how it is integrated into Hyena, see the WMI section in Hyena's help file.

* Note: Full WMI functionality is only available in the Enterprise Edition. However, all Editions have access to the WMI Win32_Process class which allows Hyena to remotely start and terminate remote processes. WMI exporting functionality is also available in both Standard and Enterprise Editions.

Tool Grouping

Hyena now allows tools to be grouped into submenus. Hyena will automatically transfer all existing custom tool settings to a file named TOOL_CMDS.DAT, which can be found in the same location as other Hyena configuration files. This new tool command file provides a structure that permits the tools to be grouped and displayed on submenus.

Access to Microsoft Hotfix Information

The Computer Properties->Hotfix dialog has been modified to support viewing the online Microsoft Hotfix Support database. Either double-clicking on any 'Q' or 'KB' hotfix, or clicking the View Hotfix Information button will access the Microsoft Support web site.

Exporting Selected Active Directory Objects

Hyena now supports exporting information on selected Active Directory objects. Previously, only domains, computers, and OUs could be selected for exporting. For example:

- Display a list of Active Directory objects from an OU, such as users, in Hyena.
- Select as many objects as needed.
- Select Tools->Exporter Pro->Export Selected Objects.
- Select the Directory templates to export and select Start Export.

Exporter Pro v1.5

Exporter Pro, included with Hyena, has been improved to support exporting WMI information, user rights, network protocol information, and security information.