Oracle support

Oracle still has the largest market share in the RDBMS market (source Gartner 2012) and we will keep supporting the Oracle platform for as long as our customers request us to do so.

• Resumed Oracle support - Resumed Oracle support for Scense Workspace Management, Live Profiles and the Migration Toolkit. Scense 8.1 will offer full Oracle support from versions 9i and up.

Enhancements to improve BYOC support

Because of the increasing demand to support BYOC projects, we implemented a number of improvements to support this use case even better.

• Improved delivery protocols for MSI- and generic applications. - Improved delivery protocols for MSI- and generic applications now support additional download files. This will address the challenges with external cab files or installing custom format generic applications in BYOC scenarios.
• New scriptable access to AD User and Computer – Especially for unmanaged, on premises, workstations this is the only way of accessing the user’s Active Directory object in a safe way, without using an external system or exposing the user’s credentials. Access to the users Active Directory object allows retrieval of the typical AD attributes like Organizational Unit (OU) and the User Principal Name (UPN) which would normally be nearly impossible to do from a non-domain computer.

Enhancements for Value added Resellers

We implemented a number of enhancements that allow our partners to address complex desktop management challenges and help them to reuse the solutions the designed at other customer sites.

• Live Profiles Filter Sets import\export. - Live Profiles Filter Sets can now be imported and exported directly from Scense Explorer. Previously an external tool was offered to handle the import and export of Live Profiles Filter Sets, now it conveniently integrated in Scense Explorer.
• Custom Criteria import\export. – Custom Criteria can now be imported and exported directly from Scense Explorer. – In Scense 8.0 one could create custom criteria, but there was no way to save them or transport them to another Scense system. Now with Scense 8.1 these custom criteria can be exported and imported right from Scense Explorer, making it possible to freely exchange your custom criteria between Scense systems.
• Improved Action Templates – Action templates now support multi-line textboxes. This makes it possible to manipulate file content as part of the Action.

Enhancements to reduce complexity and increase manageability in multi-site, multi-tenant and other complex environments

The more complex the environment, the more we shine. A large chunk of our development capacity was invested in functionality to further reduce the complexity in desktop environments.

• Site determination supports domain and forest trusts. – This enhancement allows Scense to work with more complex domain- and forest structures to support for instance multi-tenant implementations.
• Scense_UserInit is now more flexible. – Scense_UserInit is now more flexible towards previously installed software – The userinit ‘hack’ can be used by multiple products (e.g. Quest, AppSense or RES Software solutions). If this is the case Scense will now be very forgiving if the userinit ‘seat’ is already taken.
• Standard windows performance counters implemented. – The new performance counters for the Scense Engine will allow more sophisticated monitoring of the Scense server. It will help to analyze trends and determine if measures need to be taken like the implementation of NLB.
• All log files are now gathered in one location – No more searching for log files. In Scense 8.1 all Scense log files will be placed in a single logical structure; %Temp%\ScenseLogFiles\
• Alternate TaskSet now supports error handling – This will allow a centralized error recovery, logging or monitoring as well as the feeding of third party management tooling (e.g. via snmp traps) .
• New variable: UserSID – As requested by some of our customers, Scense now supports the UserSID variable. This variable makes it possible to identify a user using the SID rather than the account name, which can be used in Scense actions and scripts to address registry or file system areas.
• Extended conditions for the Variable- and Registry criterion – New conditions ‘starts with’, ‘ends with’ and ‘contains’ are added to the Variable- and Registry criterion.
• Database backup during upgrade is now optional – The mandatory database backup during upgrade is now made optional because in most cases the database was already backed up by the regular daily database backup plan.

User interface and performance enhancements

Feedback from partners and customers helps us to further increase the ease of use and performance of our solutions.

• French language for Scense Client – Next to English, German, Italian and Dutch, the Scense Client now also supports the French language.
• Demote from global scope to empty scope – We added an option to detach from a global scope directly to an empty scope. This makes it possible to detach an application or task from the Scense runtime system in just one step without disabling it.
• Icons are now stored in global icon cache – Icons for globally created shortcuts are now stored in global icon cache. In case of shortcuts created for All Users, the related cached icons should be available for All Users as well. This enhancement makes it possible to include the creation of shortcuts in a machine-based pre-install, to further save time during user logon.
• ‘Delete-enforce’ filters for Live Profiles control - Manually created filters now also support the ‘Delete Enforce’ functionality. To prevent Live Profiles to continuously restore deleted registry values the ‘Delete Enforce’ option can be switched on for a filter. This will remove all values from a registry key before Live Profiles will restore any application settings. Previously this behavior was available only to the self-learning filters, but now it can also be used by manually created filters.

Bug fixes

• Pressing the [Enter] key in a multiline textbox will no longer close the property page
• Problem with Multiple computer delete in Scense Explorer.
• Problems with upgrade from Scense 7.5.
• Problems with handling MSSQL named instances.
• Several problems with Taskpad plug-ins.
• Problems with shortcuts if the database was down.
• Problems persisting manually connected printers in Scense Client.
• Problem recovering from invalid IP-address cache entry.
• The ‘AllowDesktopSync’ registry key for SLP now also controls the wallpaper.
• Site determination based on AD group and AD Site fixed.
• Scense Update Site determination fixed.

Oracle Support

Scense 8.1 will offer full Oracle support from versions 9i and up. Oracle still has the largest market share in the RDBMS market (source Gartner 2012) and we will keep supporting the Oracle platform for as long as our customers request us to do so.

Increased flexibility

Because of recurring requests we made some changes to allow our customers to keep using tooling or point solutions already in use, next to Scense functionality. Starting Scense 8.1, our solutions will work nicely next to some well-known tools of companies like Quest, RES and Appsense.

Increased monitoring capabilities

We implemented standard Windows performance counters in the Scense engine. The health of your Scense system will be visible and can be monitored in a way that’s most familiar to you.

Improvements in the application delivery protocols

Starting Scense 8 we support Internet delivery protocols for application delivery purposes. We added major improvements in the support of Windows Installer and generic applications.

And many more …

Next to the improvements and features mentioned above we implemented lots of improvements to increase the usability and performance of Scense. The complete list with improvements will be available soon.

Analyst reports tell us that the topics on most 2013 CIO agendas are making things even worse: Consumerization of IT, Software as a Service, Mobile and Context Aware Computing: complex topics that force us to reevaluate our existing IT environments. Thinking about these topics, we are almost tempted to think of a Windows migration as a walk in the park.

Meanwhile the IT market is telling you that paradigm shift in IT is imminent and you as an IT professional and IT organization should adapt. Your 2013 budgets are telling you otherwise. Who is telling the truth? You survived December 21th but how should you deal with 2013?

Speaking for ourselves, we look forward to 2013 because this is exactly what we like about IT: it is challenging, inspiring and is moving very fast.

We wish you and your loved ones a very successful year in your personal and your professional life. Of course we will assist you where possible during this challenging year with the release of next generation solutions to address your IT challenges in the way you are accustomed to: smart and effective.

Happy 2013!

The Scense Team

Scense 8 has been the result of loyalty to our initial, user-centric vision of IT in combination with feedback from our customers and partners. Next to some major changes to the Scense architectural design, we implemented lots of features to increase the ease of use of our solution.  As always, a two day training should be sufficient to use Scense to its full extend and start facilitating your end users the way they expect today.

• New feature: Support Windows Communication Foundation – With the support of WCF, the Scense Engines now run within Microsoft’s Internet Information Services. IIS’s scalable and open architecture is ready to handle the most demanding tasks. The switch to WCF also results in a change of communication protocols. The DCOM protocol will be replaced by HTTP by default,opening up some new application scenarios. The full Scense service portfolio will be available over the internet, including application distribution.

• New Feature: Context Awareness – In Scense 8, ‘scopes’ are introduced. Scopes are collections of ‘criteria’, and these criteria can be used to specify a group of users or computers based on its context. In Scense 8 the scopes are everywhere, used for application-,  printer- and other assignments.  Scense 8 includes over 20 criteria types that cover all old conditions and new ones like IP subnet checks, Operating System- and Hardware attributes and ‘Computer Location’.

• New Feature: Location Services – Scense 8 includes ‘Location services’ that allow contextual behavior that depends on the computer’s location. Administrators will be able to create a‘Location tree’ which is a hierarchical structure representing the company’s locations like buildings, floors etcetera.This ‘map’ can be used to provision (or block) applications and other resources based on the user’s location.

• New feature: Dynamic Printer Management – The Scense Client includes a brand new printer page used by the end-user to browse and search for printers by location or feature. Users can see which printers are available on a specific location and connect to one. At the same time, administrators will be able to define default printers for a certain location.With the new printer page, Scense 8 also introduces the printer object resembling Scense’s application object, including an embedded task set. This printer object completely defines the printer with network share data, feature data and location data. The embedded task set takes care of the runtime aspects of printer connection, disconnection and driver installation.

• Enhanced Feature: Scense Live Profiles – With the shipment on Scense Live Profiles in Scense version 7.6 we already promised further integration of Scense Live Profiles in the Scense client. With Scense 8, end users are able to revert application settings and windows settings to an earlier stage. Also, with Scense 8, application settings will be synchronized between managed, corporate devices and unmanaged devices like an employee owned laptop or home-pc.

• And many more -Next to the features mentioned above, Scense 8 also includes support of Windows Server 2012, SQL Server 2012 and Windows 8 support.

Known Issues Scense 8

• Scense 8 does not support Oracle databases

Other product improvements and bugfixes

• An issue in the Registry browser was fixed

• ThinApp support has been improved

• An issue with Multiuser deletion incl. Profile was fixed

• A Scense Explorer hang was fixed Several

• Icon cache issues were fixed

• The Nogui parameter issue for the Scense client was fixed

• The Delayed script screensaver dependency issue was fixed

• The Password entered in a Network action is now hidden

• Several FTA issues were fixed

• Several bugs in documentation were fixed

A second challenge with these traditional solutions is their ineffectiveness to manage mobile notebook users. Notebooks need to be connected to the corporate network to install new software and updates or receive support, resulting in large accumulations of software and patches to be installed when a rare connection is established.

The most logical answer to these challenges is an easy to use solution that provides workspace management and application distribution as a service. We did some major changes in the Scense architecture delivering just that: Workspace Management and application distribution functionality via the Internet. The result is Scense 8.

Gartner’s Terrence Cosgrove wrote a good paper on this subject: “SaaS Client Management Tools Fit Some Scenarios, but They’re Still Incomplete” (dated 23 August 2012). Although he states this market is still immature, he discusses some scenario’s that should be considered as a use case for SaaS client management tooling. These scenarios are interesting to us because they can be addressed today by using Scense 8.

• Small or midsized businesses (i.e. fewer than 1,000PCs) that have struggled with traditional, on premise, tools. These businesses don’t need the full spectrum of functionality available in traditional solutions but could do with inventory, patching, software distribution, software usage monitoring, remote control and security configuration management.

• Large organizations should, according to Terrence, consider these types of solutions complimentary to their existing client management tooling. As an example he mentions patching and remote control for mobile notebook users.

• Organization that deal with multiple mergers and acquisitions. It is very hard to integrate PC’s on different domains in existing client management tools. SaaS tooling results in immediate management of these new PC environments.

Terrence also mentions the added value of SaaS client management tools in addition to client side virtualization solutions. These solutions lack full life cycle management functionality and could benefit from a SaaS client management tool.

Terrence’s paper was a very good read and also strengthens my belief that we are heading in the right direction by launching Scense 8. The increase in mobile users, Consumerization of IT and concepts like BYO\CYO need a service oriented approach to IT management. Scense 8 is future ready.

Export and import application filter sets – This functionality will export and import application filter-sets created by Scense’s self-learning agent. Scense consultants and customers will be able to re-use these templates in distributed and/or multi-tenant Scense environments. The format used is the well known Microsoft UE-V format. To use this functionality unzip the package with tools. Use Scense_SLP_Pack.exe to import and export filtersets on a machine with Scense Explorer installed.

By supporting the UE-V template format, templates created for UE-V can be imported as filters for Live profiles and filter-sets created by Scense in Windows XP or Windows 7 environments, are also useful in Windows 7 UE-V. IT departments that need to migrate from Windows XP desktops to Windows 7 desktops and consultants that need to support both Scense Live Profile and Microsoft UE-V environments can use the reusable Scense filter-sets to support both environments and simplify a Windows 7 or Windows 8 Microsoft UE-V implementation.

Reverse application settings –This functionality will revert application settings per user. This functionality is a temporary solution because the next release of Scense Live Profiles will provide the end user with the ability to revert application settings by himself. To use this functionality unzip the package with tools. Use Scense_SLP_Rollback.exe on a machine with Scense Explorer installed to revert user settings for a specific application and user.

To download the package with tools click here (logon with scense@scense.com and pwd scense)

New in Scense Live Profiles 1.1

• Learning mode and production mode – Scense’s profile management solution is self-learning. To increase the administrator’s control of Scense Live Profiles, the learning mechanism can now be stopped for an application. If the administrator decides that the created filter-set is finished and optimal, the learning mode of the application can be changed to production mode.
• Reverse application settings – New functionality is added to help administrators to revert application settings per user. This functionality is a temporary solution because the next release of Scense Live Profiles will provide the end user with the ability to revert application settings by himself.
• Export and import application filter sets – Functionality was added to export and import application filter-sets created by Scense’s self-learning agent. Scense consultants and customers will be able to re-use these templates in distributed and/or multi-tenant Scense environments.

Microsoft UE-V format

By supporting the template format of Microsoft’s UE-V, templates created for UE-V can be imported as filters for Live profiles and filter-sets created by Scense in Windows XP or Windows 7 environments, are also useful in Windows 7 UE-V. IT departments that need to migrate from Windows XP desktops to Windows 7 desktops and consultants that need to support both Scense Live Profile and Microsoft UE-V environments can use the reusable Scense filter-sets to support both environments and simplify a Windows 7 or Windows 8 Microsoft UE-V implementation.

Enhancements and improvements

Scense Live Profiles 1.1 includes changes in the architecture resulting in major improvements in performance and stability:

• Consolidation folders and registry keys – Folders and registry keys found by the Scense Live Profiles agent are consolidated to decrease the amount of entries to capture, package and store. This results in a major improvement of the loading and storing of application settings in comparison with the previous version.
• Improvements delete handling – The deleting of parts of the user profile could not be controlled by the administrator, possibly resulting in inconsistencies. Now the administrator has now the option to enforce the deletion of parts of the user profile before the settings from the Profile Store are restored.
• Other improvements – To further increase the performance of Scense Live Profiles, improvements have been implemented related to the log-off process, the management of child processes and the server processes.

The functionality to reverse application settings and export or import application filter-sets are not available on the Scense CD but will be available for download on the Scense blog soon.

Scense has been supporting the ability for end users to install their own applications. The requirements mentioned in the video help to explain how:

• Conflict resolution – Applications installed by (locked down) users might conflict with applications already deployed by the administrator. Scense adaptive installer will resolve these conflicts on-the-fly. So an end user will be able to install Firefox 10 on a machine containing Firefox 3 and use it. But the same user will also be able to start using Firefox 3 again.
• App Types supported – As long as a package is available, the end user will be able to install applications on his (locked down) device.
• Physical and virtual devices – the solution supports physical and virtual devices. The application will be stored centrally so the application will roam with the user: even on non-persistent virtual desktops.
• Single Instance Storage – Applications installed by end users are within the span of control of the administrator. He or she might enforce single instance storage.
• Kernel Drivers – the solution supports kernel drivers. Anti-virus software can be installed without and hassle.
• Architecture: The solution is agent based, uses existing components of the Scense stack and will run on virtual and physical desktop environments.

Conclusion: Implementing User Installed Apps becomes feasible with a solution like Scense. If you want to enable this functionality within your Scense environment, contact our support department.

Microsoft has been relying for years on roaming profiles to help end users with a consistent user experience on multiple devices. The drawbacks of this solution are well known: long logon times, last writer wins issues, profile corruption, inconsistency between OS versions etc.

We welcome Microsoft addressing the issue of roaming profiles. It validates the direction the desktop market is heading in: Workspace Management. This solution is, in our opinion, an important step for the market as a whole. The implementation of the product itself however received mixed reactions :

• Microsoft UE-V does not support Windows XP and will therefore not help you in your migration projects. 
• Microsoft UE-V is not free. It is part of the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack. Software Assurance is needed to obtain this pack.
• Microsoft UE-V needs a template for each application in use. The Microsoft community will probably take care of the most common templates. For the other application in use within your organization, you need to create these templates yourself. 
• Microsoft UE-V supports locally installed applications and App-V. Other application virtualization techniques are not supported.

The reaction from our customers supports that Scense Live Profiles continues to be value add specifically for it’s ease of use, self-learning mechanisms and support for XP.   Most importantly is the recognition that the ability to roam user settings from device to device is just solving a tiny bit of the challenges related to  Workspace Management, such as the requirement for applications to roam with the user as well as IT policies, desktop configurations, printers, network connections etc. and the need for context adaptiveness to enforce compliancy and improve the user experience. 

We will off course continue to monitor the evolution of Microsoft UE-V and find ways to leverage its potential and use its functionality to improve our own offering.

New in Scense 7.6

• Scense Live Profiles. Scense 7.6 includes the new Live profiles feature. Live Profiles enables real-time cross platform synchronization of user settings.

• Several New Variables. We added several new variables to be used for runtime flow control. These variables e.g. allow creating a custom progress indicator for comprehensive installations.

• Package Drag & Drop. Now you can drag and drop application packages onto Scense Explorer to start the application enrollment using Scense Easy Delivery.

• Registry Mode. In order to manipulate or test the right registry keys on a 64-bit system you can now directly specify the registry mode for Registry Actions and Registry conditions.

• Check System Health. The new Scriptable Object for checking health with the Windows Security Center allows you to check the state of a variety of security settings like UAC, Firewall, Visusscanner etc.

Enhancements and improvements

• Search improvement. In Scense Explorer you can now start searching after pressing the Enter-key instead of clicking the search button which works more intuitively.
• Improved support for large icon cache. When the icon cache contains hundreds of icons we experienced slowness when choosing an icon for a shortcut in Scense Explorer. The new browser dialog will only retrieve the icons that are actually visible which significantly speeds up the loading of the Icon Browser dialog.
• Registry browser splitter implemented. The registry browser, which is used in several functions in Scense Explorer, now supports a movable splitter to better show the registry contents.
• Registry browser keys and values sorted. Registry values and keys now appear sorted alphabetically instead of the order in which they were stored in the registry. The sorted presentation is more productive.
• Action Wizard. The WriteKeyValue operation of the Registry-action now allows an empty value-field, just like in the registry action property page.
• Start notification repositioned. The application start notification was repositioned to better fit the Windows 7 taskbar height.
• Scense diagnostics. We updated the active directory test for Windows 2003 and Windows 2008 native domains. The previous test was showing slowness while the active directory was performing well.
• Scense Client ‘Application Installed’ indicator updated. Because of the extensive use of application pre-installing methods the installed/not installed indicator in the Scense Client became confusing; The application was pre-installed, but Scense Client showed it as ‘not installed’. This was due to the way Scense checks whether an application is installed completely. This is done by checking the installation status for both the computer and the user. If the user-part was not installed, then the application was not installed. Now; if the computer installation was completed the Scense Client will show the application as installed.
• Easy Delivery. Several shortcut and FTA related improvements were made to support even more applications.
• Revoke shortcuts now supports redirection. When parts of the user profile that contain shortcuts are redirected Scense will now revoke those shortcuts if necessary.
• Increased off-line license validity. The 1 month grace period for working offline has been stretched to 2 months.
• Improved support for variables in package path names. The package paths in the application property pages in Scense Explorer now support the full range of variables instead of just %InstallScripts%

Bugfixes

• AllUserProfile variable now resolves correctly
• Scense Update table checker (dbmaint) was fixed
• Pre-install for a generic application fixed and no longer needs extra conditions
• Scense Site IP-range problem fixed for low address ranges (like 10.0.0.0)
• Copied Shortcuts didn’t work properly
• ThinApp application information in Scense Client was not displayed correctly
• Empty folder name after applying security has been fixed
• Revoke Shortcuts was fixed: not all shortcut folders were removed
• File Action: MkDir operation now shows the “Browse for Folders” dialog correctly
• Shortcuts now work properly after exporting and importing with the Package Wizard
• Some extremely large registry values were not shown properly in the registry browser in Scense Explorer

Known Issues

• Oracle Support. Scense 7.6 and this version of Scense Live Profiles do not support Oracle databases.
• Support Symantec Workspace Virtualization. This version of Scense Live Profiles does not support applications virtualized with Synantec Workspace Virtualization. A workaround is available.