Monday, September 7, 2020 - 12:08

Activation center (ACEN) 04.95.00 is out!

New build for Activation center (ACEN) has been released.

What's new:

activation center screenshot

[*] Admin interface pages moved to \admin subdirectory.

[+] Audit: Delete filtered logs option added.

[+] Maintenance options panel added.

This is where maintenance tasks can be customized.

The following options are currently available:

Maintenance tasks:

- Check for importing existing acen.config options
- Check for options which require change from their default values
- Check for default admin user password
- Check for unhashed passwords
- Check for obsolete options
- Check for Activation center updates

Logging:

- Log http exceptions
- Log unhandled exceptions
- Purge logs older than x days

[+] Automatic logs purging feature added.

Logs can be manually deleted at Audit page. Use this option to set automatic purging of old log entries.

Enable Purge logs option in maintenance options and set "Purge logs older than x days" option to appropriate number of days (default: 30 days).

NOTE: Old log entries will be permanently deleted if this option is enabled.

Information about deleted logs will be displayed in maintenance panel each time logs are deleted by this task.

[+] Editbox masking is now enabled for multiple values (mostly hexadecimal values with special format) like site code, mid code, merged site/mid code, serial number, sn seed, pcg program id and ip address for easier editing.

[+] Sorting by User, IP address and Event added to logs grid.

[*] Added check if SMTP server username is a valid email address.

If it is valid email address it will be used as default 'From' email address instead of support email to avoid relaying problems if these two addresses are different. Support email address will still be set as default 'Reply to' email address.

[*] Multiple other optimizations and fixes.

[>] UPGRADING NOTES: No database changes are requires for this release.

New PC Guard Software Protection System update has been released. This update is highly recommended for all PC Guard users.

PC Guard Software Protection System

What's new:

[+] "Check locally administered MAC address (NET ID)" option added to machine locking settings. (Default: OFF)

This option is valid in case NET ID (MAC address locking) is enabled.

If selected and in case detected MAC address is locally administered, protection code will try to determine original MAC address of network adapter. In case of failure, such adapter will not be used for locking.

Additionally, if NET ID is marked as mandatory protection code will not use network adapter with locally administered MAC address in case it is not able to determine original MAC address.

[+] Validate project option added to Project menu.

By default, all project settings are validated when protection process is started.

Use this option to validate current project settings before actually trying to protect application.

[*] Web licensing: serial number is now preserved in case of machine locking error or any other event resulting in license reset.

Next time application is run and requires reactivation original serial number will be automatically filled for end user.

Another new feature is that at this point end user can just click on Continue button and reactivate license or if required change original serial number to new one.

In case original serial number is changed by end user to different one, protection code will not proceed with reactivation but will try to obtain new license with new serial number.

[!] Web licensing: fixed problem with reactivation of license in case license is manually removed from ACEN by admin user.

[*] ACEN server settings panel now includes information if required installed web service interface modules are installed.

If correct versions are installed version number will be green. If invalid versions are installed version number will be red.

[*] Protection report now includes the following additional status information:

- Is interface dll required for protected application (yes/no)

- Is license file required for protected application (yes/no)

This is just a status note. License data is automatically handled by protection code.

- Is license data shared between applications protected with same settings. (yes/no)

[*] Last open (LastOpen) and last save (LastSave) date/time information is now by default saved to project file (PRJSTATS section) each time it is opened or saved.

[*] All hardware locks are now marked with (HW).

[!] Multiple other minor fixes, optimizations and security improvements.

[>] Flexible locking is now enabled for all PC Guard products.

[>] For those who are using PC Guard on some really old machines, protection interface (pcgint) modules (which are required for successful compilation of application using advanced protection interface) can now be used even on old Windows XP machines. Windows XP SP2 was required so far.

Tuesday, August 25, 2020 - 10:46

Activation center (ACEN) 04.90.00 is out!

New build for Activation center (ACEN) has been released.

What's new:

activation center screenshot

[+] Client interface pages renamed and moved to \client subdirectory for easier management and separation from admin interface pages.

[+] Custom error pages added. 

This includes custom 404 (page not found) and default error page which will display both error code and exception description for admin users and only error code for client users.

Custom error pages are located in \errors subdirectory.

All application exceptions are also now logged to database.

[!] Fixed problem with reactivation of web licenses which were manually removed by administrator user.

[*] Write access to acen config file is no longer required.

[*] Setup post install options now include option to open upgrading instructions among user guide and whatsnew document. 

[*] Multiple other optimizations and fixes.

[>] UPGRADING NOTES: No database changes are requires for this release.

Tuesday, July 28, 2020 - 09:38

Activation center (ACEN) 04.85.00 is out!

 New build for Activation center (ACEN) has been released.

What's new:

activation center screenshot

[+] New maintenance panel checks:

- Check for obsolete options.

Obsolete and no longer used options will be detected in database and if required, warning message will be displayed with an option to delete obsolete options from database.

- Check for Activation center updates.

If new version of activation center is available for download appropriate message will be displayed and activation center version control will be displayed with detailed information about latest version.

[+] Date range control added.

It is now much easier to define common periods for searches.

Currently available periods:

This month
Last month
Today
Yesterday
Last 7 days
Last 30 days
Last 60 days
Last 90 days
Last 180 days
Last 365 days
This year
Last year
All time
Custom period

[+] Date range control has been added to Orders, Web licenses and Logs page.

[*] Default date range period options added to admin interface options.

Use these settings to change default date range period for Orders, Web licenses and Logs pages.

Predefined, default search periods are:

Orders page: This month
Web licenses page: This month
Logs (Audit) page: Today

[*] Web licenses search panel updates.

Serial number control now includes a button for searching for all active and removed web licenses with specific serial number.

This button will display complete history of usage for serial number.

[*] Multiple other optimizations and fixes.

[>] UPGRADING NOTES: No database changes are requires for this release.

New PC Guard Software Protection System update has been released. This update is highly recommended for all PC Guard users.

PC Guard Software Protection System

What's new:

[+] Added support for Windows .NET Core applications.

Supported target .NET Core frameworks:

- .NET Core 2.x
- .NET Core 3.x

Supported output type: 

- Windows application
- Windows console application
- Windows class library

Supported platform target:

- AnyCpu, x86 (PC Guard for .NET)
- x64 (PC Guard for .NET64)

Supported target runtime: 

- win-x86 (PC Guard for .NET)
- win-x64 (PC Guard for .NET64)

Supported deployment mode: Self-contained

NOTES:

In case of .NET Core 2.x Windows applications both module (app.dll) and bootstrap exe (app.exe) application must be encrypted with appropriate version of PC Guard. If only module (dll) is encrypted it will not work.

This is not mandatory for .NET Core 3.x applications. Protected module will work just fine if run from command line with "dotnet app.dll".

[+] "Erase Debug information" option added to security settings.

Debug information is automatically removed from application during protection process. Use this option to change default behavior. If turned off, protection code will not erase Debug information. (Default: ON)

We do not recommend turning off this option for security reasons.

[!] Few other minor fixes, optimizations and security improvements.