Ivanti Blog: Posts by

My Apps My Rules

Fri, 08 Jul 2016 06:03:50 Z

*This post originally appeared on the AppSense blog prior to the rebrand in January 2017, when AppSense, LANDESK, Shavlik, Wavelink, and HEAT Software merged under the new name Ivanti.

I’m sure those of you reading this who are at all familiar with AppSense products will be well aware of the recent release of DesktopNow v10. As well as a cleaner user interface v10 provides a number of new and improved features. I thought I would take this opportunity to highlight one of the improvements in Application Manager v10.

The more powerful conditions engine which, users of Environment Manager will already know well, has been incorporated into Application Manager. This gives administrators more flexibility when creating custom rules without having to resort to writing custom scripts (although you can still do this).

Previously you were limited to specifying a Device (local or connected) and a specific user or AD group that a custom rule should apply to. The screenshot below pretty much shows the most complex customer rule which you could configure:

With the introduction of Environment Manager rule’s engine, a far wider range of conditions have been introduced as well as the ability to apply simple logic. I won’t list them all now, but the screenshot below gives you a good idea of the options which are now available to you.

custom rule. security level - conditions screenshot">

As you can see above, the computer and user conditions have been expanded and completely new conditions based on environment, file and registry have been added. It is now possible to apply the conditions to multiple users or groups and perform additional checks such as if the computer is a laptop or a VDI. I encourage you to have a look and see what is available.

For those who are interested in analysing Application Manager Logs, it is worth noting that because Application Manager now uses the conditions engine from Environment Manager, it shares the same ETW logging method as EM for the custom rules engine only. This may mean that you have to refer to both Application Manager’s standard logs and the etl logs when troubleshooting issues with custom rules.

Custom conditions are checked as part of phase 3 of AM’s processing. If you are not sure what that means then I encourage you to read this blog, which gives a good outline of AM’s processing (towards the bottom of the blog):

http://blog.appsense.com/2016/04/application-manager-basic-concepts-and-troubleshooting/

During Phase 3 Custom Conditions, rules processing passes over to the assistant to run the condition. This processing will be output to the etl file. Once the condition has been evaluated control flow returns to the agent.

ETW Logging is configured when AMLogger.exe or the Support Toolkit is used to enable logging, but it can also be configured through the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\AppSense\Diagnostics\Application Manager\AMAgent.exe\EventTracing

The ApplicationManager.etl file should be generated in your configured log directory. Note that once logging is configured an Application Manager Service restart is required for the file to be generated.

The resultant etl file can be reviewed by using the tool EMMon which is available in the Environment Manager tools msi:

Alternatively it is possible to use the etl2txt.exe command line tool which is contained in the Environment Manager Agent folder to convert the resultant etl file to a text file.

I hope that you have enjoyed reading this blog and encourage you to check out the v10 release to see this and the other new features.

The AppSense Support Portal

Fri, 19 Feb 2016 08:00:00 Z

*This post originally appeared on the AppSense blog prior to the rebrand in January 2017, when AppSense, LANDESK, Shavlik, Wavelink, and HEAT Software merged under the new name Ivanti.

You may have noticed a couple of months ago that myAppSense.com and a couple of our other web sites were decommissioned and consolidated into the new AppSense Support Portal. In this blog I am going to discuss some of the reasons behind the decision to do this as well as detail some of the common features of the Support Portal.

The Support Portal is available as a link from the main www.appsense.com web site and by navigating to support.appsense.com or www.appsense.com/support. If you had an active myAppSense account, then you should have already received an email informing how to set your password.

Once you have navigated to the portal you have the option to browse the content which has been made available to guest users, register for the portal, or if you already have an account, Login.

One of the main drivers behind the launch of the new Support Portal is to try and make our internal knowledge and collateral available and accessible to those of you who are using our software. Our aim is to make it easier for you to find solutions to the problems and configuration issues which you run into. There are a number of ways that we are doing this.

Firstly we have made a lot of our knowledge and resources available to Anonymous users. This means that a large proportion of content, including the product documentation, is available without even needing to have a login to the portal.

In addition we have consolidated all of our knowledge and resources into a single location, for example the ‘Tools & Configs’, which were previously available via the AppSense-Exchange web site are now available from the Support Portal. You will also notice that a large amount of content which was never available before has now been published via the Support Portal. An example of this is the Technical Videos which include short and concise presentations describing and giving examples of how new features in a release can be configured.

From the main page you will notice the search box, this can be used to search all content which is available to you. Within the main body you will see the headings ‘Self Service’, ‘Our Software’, ‘AppSense Exchange’ and ‘AppSense Services’ which provide links to our content.

Clicking on one of the links, such as ‘Knowledge Articles’ will provide search results in filtered list containing the type of article that was clicked.

From within this main search page, there are three main ways which you can search for content. Firstly there is a free text search box to perform a general search. Below this there is a “Show Advanced Search” option to assist in constructing more complex search strings.

Across the top of the search results it is possible to filter based on taxonomy. This allows you to drill down to specific articles based on product, element and feature. Finally on the left hand side it is possible to filter by attributes such as article type, product and version numbers.

You can search for articles using 1, 2 or all 3 of these methods.

In the example above I have searched for ‘personalization’, which is quite a common term for us! I have then used the taxonomy to drill down to articles relating to Environment Manager -> EM Personalization -> Applications. Finally I have used the attributes to filter down to articles relating to Known Issues which affect Environment Manager 8.3, but have now been Resolved in a later release.

This has returned 6 articles order by relevance (Star Rating) based on the search criteria.

When clicking on a solution it will open within a modal window.

Once you have read the article there are a number of options available to you. It is possible to provide quick feedback on whether this article was helpful. In addition it is possible to add comments to the article providing further information which may be helpful to other people or asking questions if anything in the article is unclear. It is also possible to subscribe to the article so that you are notified of any updates to it.

Finally, when closing the modal window again, logged on users with a support contract have the option in the top right hand corner to manage their account.

From within this section of the Portal you have the ability to create and manage your Feature Requests and Support Incidents. You will notice that it is possible to view and manage incidents raised by colleagues, as well as those which are raised by yourself. In addition it is possible to view all the licenses and subscriptions associated with your account.

Thanks for taking the time to read this blog, I hope that it has given you a little insight into our vision here at AppSense Support. We don’t see the Support Portal as a finished product, but a constantly evolving and improving interface. As such we welcome all feedback and will use this to inform our decisions as we decide what direction the Support Portal should take in the future.

Obsessing Over the Details, So Your Users Don't Have To

Thu, 19 Feb 2015 08:20:41 Z

*This post originally appeared on the AppSense blog prior to the rebrand in January 2017, when AppSense, LANDESK, Shavlik, Wavelink, and HEAT Software merged under the new name Ivanti.

One of the big reasons that enterprise file sync and sharing (EFSS) products are so popular these days is that they take functions that are complicated behind the scenes and make them look easy to the user. This starts with the heavy lifting of moving files back and forth efficiently and reliably–the most important aspect of any EFSS solution–but it also includes the visual feedback that users see.

A good example of this is Window shell icon overlays. Whether they realize it or not, users of DataNow and other EFSS solutions are likely familiar with the icon overlays that are applied to Windows Explorer to give users instant insight into the state of a file in the cache.

At present, the DataNow Windows Client has ten such icon overlays. By default all of these overlays are enabled, but the Windows client provides the ability to control whether some of these are displayed to the end user or not. Within general preferences, the top three options relate to this:

“Highlight downloaded Files” -> Files in sync between server and client
“Highlight Server Files” -> Files which have not been downloaded to the client
“Highlight Clashed Files” -> Files which clash between Server and Client

These options are good if you wish to control these three overlays on a per-user basis. But if you want to disable more overlays or apply the setting to multiple users, it's possible to exert more control by manipulating the following setting directly within the registry:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\AppSense\DataNow\DataNowOverlayMask

You will notice that the default value is 3DE (990 in decimal) when all of the settings are enabled. If you deselect any of the above options, you'll notice that the value changes, but the logic behind the value is not immediately clear. If you'd like to know more we discuss it further in this AppSense Knowledge article.

The default value is 3DE in hex, but it is a lot easier to understand the setting if you convert this number to binary (1111011110). Each DataNow shell icon overlay is represented by one of the bits as follows:

2⁰ 0

2¹ 1 DataNetOverlayPending (Server file not synced down to client)

2² 1 DataNetOverlaySynced (File in-sync between client and Server)

2³ 1 DataNetOverlaySynching (File synchronising)

2⁴ 1 DataNetOverlayUserAction (File conflict between server & client)

2⁵ 0

2⁶ 1 DataNetFolderHome (Shows users home Map Point)

2⁷ 1 DataNetFolderReadOnly (highlights read only Map Points)

2⁸ 1 DataNetFolderShared (highlights shared folders)

2⁹ 1 DataNetFolderOffline (highlights offline Map Points)

If the bit is set to 0, the overlay icon is disabled. So if I wanted to disable the ‘Home Map Point’ and ‘User Action Required’ overlays, but leave the rest enabled, the resulting binary value would be 1110001110, or 38E in hex. Setting the value to ‘1’ will disable all overlays.

If you have Environment Manager installed, it is easy to control this by utilizing a Registry Set Value Logon action for DataNowOverlayMask.

The Windows Operating system has a relatively low limit on the number of these shell overlays that can be configured; this limit is 15 in total. Microsoft states that out of these 15 slots, some are reserved by the system:

My testing has shown that in practice there are 12 slots available, and these are configured in the following registry key:

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\ShellIconOverlayIdentifiers

Note that this is a machine-wide setting, so disabling overlays on a per-user basis utilizing the DataNowOverlayMask value will have no impact on this list.

So, in theory, you could encounter a situation where DataNow overlays, or those of another third-party product, do not appear as expected due to competition for these 12 available slots.

This is how the registry key will look if you have Box, DataNow, OneDrive and Dropbox installed on a Windows 7 machine. Notice how the ‘space’ character is used to boost certain overlays up the list:

There are twenty-nine overlays configured on this machine: the top five overlays relating to Box, the next ten overlays relating to DataNow, the following three relating to OneDrive, the next eight to Dropbox, and the final three relating to the Windows OS. If you remember I said earlier, you know there is a limit of 12 overlays that can be added here. Only the top 12, in alphabetical order, will be used from this list. Even though most of these icon overlays will only ever apply to completely different folders, the fact that one is set higher up the list, will stop the others being displayed at all.

This can easily be verified by renaming some of the overlays so they appear higher or lower in the list. For example if I rename ‘ 01DataNetOverlaySynced’ to ‘z01DataNetOverlaySynced’ it would no longer be high enough in the list so would no longer be displayed. If you are missing any DataNow overlays, it's worth checking this list to confirm if there are any other overlays taking precedence.

I look forward to seeing whether Microsoft offers any improvements to this functionality in Windows 10!

As an aside, it is worth mentioning that only one overlay can be displayed per file or folder on a machine. If you appear to be seeing multiple overlays on a folder then it is likely that this is because the actual icon has changed. You're probably familiar with the hidden operating system file desktop.ini that appears in most folders. There are a number of parameters that determine how a folder is presented within this file. The IconResource parameter within ShellClassInfo controls the folder icon.

Creating a file called desktop.ini and populating it with the following text (on a machine with DataNow installed):

[.ShellClassInfo]

IconResource=C:\Program Files\AppSense\DataNow\Agent\DataNow_Shellext.dll,5

Then saving it within a folder will result in the icon for that folder changing to the DataNow Logo.

Finally, a message to any Apple Mac users who are reading about these shell icon overlays and feel that they are missing out: Don’t worry! The release of Mac OS X 10.10.1 (Yosemite) introduced a similar feature, which DataNow will be utilizing. Look out for these enhancements in DataNow 3.5!

Ivanti Blog: Posts by

My Apps My Rules

The AppSense Support Portal

Obsessing Over the Details, So Your Users Don't Have To

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\AppSense\DataNow\DataNowOverlayMask

20 0

21 1 DataNetOverlayPending (Server file not synced down to client)

22 1 DataNetOverlaySynced (File in-sync between client and Server)

23 1 DataNetOverlaySynching (File synchronising)

24 1 DataNetOverlayUserAction (File conflict between server & client)

25 0

26 1 DataNetFolderHome (Shows users home Map Point)

27 1 DataNetFolderReadOnly (highlights read only Map Points)

28 1 DataNetFolderShared (highlights shared folders)

29 1 DataNetFolderOffline (highlights offline Map Points)

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\ShellIconOverlayIdentifiers

[.ShellClassInfo]

IconResource=C:\Program Files\AppSense\DataNow\Agent\DataNow_Shellext.dll,5

2⁰ 0

2¹ 1 DataNetOverlayPending (Server file not synced down to client)

2² 1 DataNetOverlaySynced (File in-sync between client and Server)

2³ 1 DataNetOverlaySynching (File synchronising)

2⁴ 1 DataNetOverlayUserAction (File conflict between server & client)

2⁵ 0

2⁶ 1 DataNetFolderHome (Shows users home Map Point)

2⁷ 1 DataNetFolderReadOnly (highlights read only Map Points)

2⁸ 1 DataNetFolderShared (highlights shared folders)

2⁹ 1 DataNetFolderOffline (highlights offline Map Points)