Syskit 2012 R2 8.2.0 Release Note

This article describes all new features, improvements and bug fixes delivered in Syskit 2016 R2 – 8.2.0.

We have shipped Syskit 2016 R2 – 8.2.0. This minor release brings new features and improvements.

The Syskit team stepped up the capabilities of the PowerShell Script Wizard with PowerShell script modules, and the team has continued to add features and improve other functionality in Syskit 2016 R2 – 8.2.0. We’ll highlight the features and some of the key improvements. To dig out more details, read this release note.

Syskit’s PowerShell Script Wizard includes significant new features that extend its use, improve its usability, and allow you to control and manage Windows-based environments more easily and comprehensively. The major improvements are in the areas of importing and referencing PowerShell script modules and script scheduling. Now you can specify the PowerShell script type you wish to create and categorize the report and management scripts so you can more easily manage large amounts of different scripts.

Click here to download the new release.

Product version: 8.2.0 Build number: 1060 Database version: 8.2.0

Release date: Dec 6, 2016

Syskit’s Features

PowerShell Scripts

• PowerShell Scripts on the Administration tab are designed to make it as easy as possible for you to take control and simplify reporting and administration of your Windows environments.

• This category includes two script subcategories and three predefined report scripts:

  • Reports (Computers by OUs, Installed Features, Installed Roles)

    Computers by OUs: This report displays a list of all computers in a domain and their corresponding Organizational Units. Note: this script needs to be executed on a Domain Controller to return valid results;

    Installed Features: This report displays information about Windows Server features that are available for installation and installed on the target computer(s);

    Installed Roles: This report displays information about Windows Server roles and role services that are available for installation and installed on the target computer(s).

  • The Management Tasks category contains all PowerShell scripts that perform some kind of management task and only return details on whether the specified task was successfully completed or an error occurred.

PowerShell Wizard

• The built-in PowerShell Script Wizard comes with PowerShell Module Manager. You can import and edit a script module, which allows you to use a number of rules and cmdlets on your scripts.

• The PowerShell module feature within Syskit’s PowerShell Script Wizard allows combining of multiple scripts to simplify code management, accessibility, and sharing.

• Entered script and all referenced modules are validated before the wizard returns and displays the results of the script and modules you have run.

• Our built-in PowerShell Wizard supports import of:

  • Windows PowerShell scripts with a .ps1 extension,

  • PowerShell Script modules with a .ps1 and .psm1 extensions.

• Created PowerShell scripts can be scheduled for execution. The following schedule options are available:

  • Manual only – the script will be executed manually when the Run button is clicked;

  • Automatic – the script will be executed automatically on a defined schedule, which has two types: Recurrence or After another script.

Manage Scripts

• This dialog enables easier management of all created or imported PowerShell scripts.

• It also shows all the information about the scripts’ execution schedule, such as: triggers, the last and next run times, and on which computers the scripts are configured to run.

Import Wizard

• This dialog provides options for importing and configuring PowerShell scripts in SYSpr format.

• It also detects and includes all referenced PowerShell modules, if there are any, while importing / exporting a report definition in SYSpr format.

Download Scripts

• You can download and import the predefined PowerShell scripts from Acceleratio’s repository.

• Most of the available PowerShell scripts can run on all types of servers, while others are tied to a specific server role, such as Domain Controller, IIS, or Hyper-V.

Improvements

• New and improved design of emails and alerts sent by Syskit.

• With the Duplicate Monitoring Template option, now you can easily create a copy of any Monitoring Template and adjust it according to your preferences.

• Completely refactored and optimized AD Integration system job. Now it’s even better and faster! Event logging for this system job is also improved.

• Reorganized and improved verbose event logging and database log options that reveal detailed event entries for troubleshooting. The verbose event logging warning now shows if any of the available options has been enabled.

• Better Syskit Service account validation in the Configuration Wizard.

• Search has been optimized through the loaded Performance Counters list in Template Wizard.

• Loading dialogs, indicating that the application is processing user input, have been added where necessary.

• The unnecessary condition for SQL permissions in the Configuration Wizard has been removed.

• The auto-growth setting for the Syskit database was set to a fixed number of megabytes because it can get quite large over time.

Bug Fixes

• Users who weren’t members of the Local Administrators security group on Syskit’s app server couldn’t start the application.

• Deletion of old Performance Counter Alerts was not performed during the upgrade.

• Application Concurrent Usage summarization was not working in automatic mode because of incorrect UTC time zone handling.

• Users’ multiple simultaneous remote connections using Remote Desktop Services were not registered correctly by Syskit in some cases.

• Citrix Gather Mode was incorrectly set for monitored Citrix servers in some cases.