Software Update: Hyena 7.7

SystemTools released version 7.7 of its software package Hyena a few days ago. Allows management of Windows NT and Windows 200x networks. With the many options in the package you can create, modify and delete users and groups, create overviews of all processes running on different NT/200x servers, and export network overviews. For an overview of all possibilities, we refer you to this page. The announcement of version 7.7 looks like this:

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.