Hyena
Hyena v8.6 New Features
Improved 'Manage Directory Attributes' Capability
Hyena can now modify Active Directory attributes using multiple values from existing directory attributes. Instead of using complex scripts to perform this action, now full or partial values from one or more attributes can be used to update Active Directory.
For example, to change the 'DisplayName' attribute of a user to be the contents of the first name, underscore, then the last name, and with the user having a first name of "Blake" and a last name of "Edwards", use:
%GivenName%_%sn%
...to produce "Blake_Edwards"
To use the first four (4) characters of the last name, use:
%GivenName%_%sn:4%
...to produce "Blake_Edwa"
Enhanced Active Directory User Group Membership View
Active Directory user group memberships now can be viewed more easily, including the capability to view user group membership for multiple users. By using the powerful sorting and exporting capabilities in Hyena, this information can now be quickly and easily managed or reported through Microsoft Excel.
New Advanced Settings
Two new advanced settings have been added, which can be set under Tools->Settings->Advanced.
Re-Enabling RAS (Dialin Tab) for Windows 7
Due to changes made by Microsoft in Windows 7, current release versions of Hyena will forceably disable the RAS (Dialin) properties when viewing the User Properties. This was done to prevent errors when attempting to view or save any dialin settings, since these errors were creating a large number of support incidents. These errors were the result of Microsoft changing Windows 7 system components that essentially disabled the RAS functionality. When used on Windows 7, Microsoft's own Active Directory Users and Computers snapin will also not display any RAS/Dialin settings.
Microsoft may have either addressed these issues, or this may only be a continuing issue when a Windows 7 client is used to manage a pre-Windows 2008 domain. To allow the possibility that some configurations can still be used to manage user dialin settings, the user properties Dialin tab can be re-enabled on a Windows 7 client by setting to true the Advanced setting ForceWindows7RAS. Note that you must still also turn on the option to show user RAS (dialup) information on the Tools->Settings->User dialog. This setting also has no effect on the Shell Properties for a user as these dialogs are still controlled by Microsoft.
If changing this setting, Hyena must be restarted. When enabled, the Hyena user properties dialog will have a Dialin tab. If an error is encountered when trying to view or save the Dialin settings, then the client does not have the right Microsoft support libraries to manage RAS settings. Turning this advanced setting back off will prevent the errors.
Hiding Junction Points
Microsoft uses file system Junction Points (called "Reparse Points") to provide backward compatibility for some Windows folders. These folders are usually pointers to another location and are therefore usually, but not always, inaccessible. Attempts to access the contents will result in 'Access Denied' errors. Hyena will now display these junction points with an alternate icon image, with a shortcut arrow, next to the folder, similar to what is done now in Windows Explorer when run on Windows 2008 or Windows 7. Normally, these directories are hidden by default in Windows Explorer, but they can be displayed by using the View menu options.
Hyena will by default display all system files and folders, including junction points. To turn on or off the option to view these special system pointers on directory displays, use the HideFileReparsePoints setting.
New Features - Hyena 8.5
Exchange 2007/2010 Integration
At last, Hyena now supports basic mailbox functions and Exchange properties administration for Exchange 2010. While the mailbox create/disable functions are only supported on Exchange 2010, the mailbox Properties integration will work on any Active Directory-supported Exchange version, including Exchange 2007. And, although the installation of Powershell is required for Exchange 2010 mailbox creation, the Exchange Administration tools no longer need to be installed.
Exchange 2007 users can immediately start managing user Exchange properties now !
Additional Terminal Services Features
One of the many relatively unknown features in all versions of Windows is the internal inclusion of Terminal Services. Even if Terminal Services is not used or enabled, some capabilities are still present. All Windows versions have what is called a 'console session' which represents the active session that is attached to the monitor, keyboard, and mouse. Hyena can now display only the console sessions for a computer, using either of these methods:
Right click on a computer, select Sessions->Console Sessions.
Expand a computer in the left window, select Sessions->Console Sessions.
To display the console sessions for multiple computers, select the computers in the right window. Once the console sessions are displayed, messages can be sent to them by selecting them from the right window, and selecting Send Message. This method of sending messages does NOT require the messenger service, which is now essentially removed from modern Windows versions.
Remotely Controlling Sessions
The 'Remote Control' feature found in the Microsoft Terminal Services Manager utility (TsAdmin.exe) is now available in Hyena. To remotely control another session, you must first be running Hyena in a remote session. Then, display the Terminal Server sessions for a computer, select the session to remote control, and select Remote Control from the context menu. The behavior and functionality of this feature should be the same as using TsAdmin.exe.
User Image Rules
By default, Hyena will only show a different image for disabled user accounts. Hyena can now be configured to show up to 10 (ten) different images for users depending on different states including disabled, locked, password expiration, and account expiration settings. Moreover, the application of these images can be prioritised depending on the importance you place on them.
For example, if knowing visually that an account is locked out is important, then this 'user image rule' can be placed at the top priority. Or, if accounts that have expired (passed the account expiration date) is important to know, then its image rule can be placed higher in the rule list. Individual rules can be enable/disabled as well.
AD User Query Symbols
While Active Directory contains a great deal of information, often the formatting of some elements leaves a bit to be desired. For example, while the directory (LDAP) path contains the container name where the object is found, it can be difficult to parse out for reporting. Hyena now supports several special symbols that can be placed into its AD queries for showing object container, password age, days until account expiration, and more.
New Features - Hyena 8.1
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.
New Features - Hyena 8.0
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 customised 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
New Features - Hyena 7.7
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 customised 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 customised, 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.
- 'Organisational 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 customised (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.
New Features - Hyena 7.3
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 organisation.
- 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.)
New Features - Hyena 7.0
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 customised 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 utilise. 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.
