Release Notes for BackupAssist v4

• Fixed: "Chinese character email report" – issue fixed. Caused by some mail servers interpreting the email as UTF-16 instead of UTF-8.

• Fixed: Resolved occasional save/load errors in the destination content panel.
• Fixed: Occasional 'weird' characters that sometimes appeared in email reports will no longer appear.
• Improved: Better cleanup of some console resources.
  
• Fixed: (1) will no longer be appended to job names when saving the overview screen.
  
• Fixed: FTP test page. Skip button has been replaced with cancel.  No longer throws an exception when the page is closed before the test is complete. Test is now cancelled properly when the user hits cancel rather than continuing to run in the background.
  
• Fixed: Report button on the monitor screen should more reliably activate when a job finishes.
  
• Fixed: Alternate (now default) email component now works on 64bit machines.
  
• Improved: Users customized media labels will now show in the report screen.
  
• Improved: Reports show only the media label, the 'duplicate' backup media field has been removed.
  
• Fixed: Resolved an error that could cause the remote files and folders tab to become inaccessible on some translated versions.
  
• Fixed: Full + Incremental scheme. Media rotation now works correctly when the day for the full archive is changed from Monday.
  
• Fixed: Manual backup scheme. UI has been slightly
• improved. Run now button on the schedule screen is now more reliable.
  
• Fixed: Recent log files should again be received by support when the user sends diagnostics.
  
• Fixed: Running through the job wizard at great speeds should no longer cause an error.
  
• Fixed: BackupAssist advanced open files addon option no longer shows in the open files tab if the OS is 64 bit (since the addon does not support 64 bit).

• NEW: Added Windows imaging engine for Vista and Server 2008
• NEW: Validation has been improved across the console. Entry fields should now be more consistent and easier to use
• NEW: Icons for NTBackup are now greyed out when using Vista and up, and Imaging icons greyed out when using 2003 and down
• NEW: Added restore option for Imaging engine, to give easy access to the Windows restore options
• Fixed problem that could cause report conditions not to appear in the summary section on 64 bit machines
• Fixed invalid path characters now removed from entered paths to avoid possible exceptions
• Initial setup wizard, backup user id now confirms authentication only when the identity has changed
• Changing the REV drive letter now properly activates the apply button
• Prepare media step in wizard now updates correctly if the destination setup step is changed
• Default Email component has been swapped. The alternative component is now the default, and the old default component can be accessed by checking the 'use legacy component' option

• NEW: The user can define how the job should handle pre-script and post-script errors (when the exit code is non-zero) – ignore the error, report a minor/major warning, or report an error and fail the backup (including aborting the backup if the pre-script fails)
• Enhanced: The estimate size functionality has been improved with progress totals and a cancel option (if trawling over local and/or network drives is slowing down the system)
• Enhanced: The email server settings screen has been updated to be easier to use
• Enhanced: HTML report generation has been speed-optimized, and is now handled by the executor application, so that the service isn’t bogged down when creating HTML for notifications and disk storage. This has also improved the speed of viewing the reports in the UI. This fix may also reduce the incidence of timeout exceptions causing problems with the console for some users.
• Enhanced: The FTP component now uses a regular “keep alive” ping to avoid timeouts causing long transfers to report failure on some ftp servers even if the send worked successfully
• Fixed: Some popups occasionally hid behind the main form, rendering the console useless - this is now fixed
• Fixed: The UI “click twice to enable” bug is now fixed (sometimes needed to click twice in some controls before typing would work)
• Fixed: 64bit detection fixed (were only using this feature to report system info in diagnostics)
• Fixed: Further improvements to media usage diskspace reporting (when outrageous figures were accidentally reported)
• Fixed: Bug where double quotes in media labels would cause ntbackup to fail to start
• Fixed: If a “run now” job is queued by the service, the monitor now tells the user this, rather than reporting that there might be a problem
• Enhanced: Improved the Cleanup Service maintenance option to reset dependencies properly

• Enhanced: Installer now works properly on Vista and the other new OS's
• Enhanced: The Activation form now has a Manual button enabling users to choose this option directly if they don't have an Internet connection
• Enhanced: The ASR option is no longer available for users running Windows 2000 (where there is no ASR capability)
• Fixed: NTBackup advanced option Additional Command Line Parameters now working
• Fixed: Annoying domain handling when setting up the Backup User Identity
• Fixed: The SQL restore wizard won't complete if no databases have been selected
• Enhanced: schedules that allow selection of days of the week in a checkbox list now start with the culture-specific first day of the week
• Fixed: Multiple minor validation issues and other UI issues
• Fixed: When network authentication fails, the domain is now retained instead of being reset to the default
• Enhanced: If the console is started when the service isn't running, the user is asked if they want the service to be started
• Enhanced: ntbackup log file handling has been improved such that delays in the file showing up and temporary locks on the file (eg. antivirus software) don't prevent BackupAssist from being able to locate and read the log file
• NEW: All jobs may now be cancelled via the Monitor window during the main engine execution stage. The remaining steps of cancelled jobs are skipped, and the job list shows the job status as Cancelled
• Enhanced: The Exmerge and SQL engines now display more information during the backups via the Monitor window.
• Fixed: SQL backup filenames are no longer formatted using the local sql pseudonyms "." and "(local)", so that restores to the server don't have to be performed from the local server, but pre-existing filenames are still valid for SQL Restore
• Enhanced: If the Exmerge engine fails for a given period, it will no longer try to backup further periods
• NEW: The Exmerge engine offers a number of configurable options, including whether to delete original messages off the server during the export, whether to exclude specific directories from the export, whether or not to attempt to set mailbox rights before the backup, and how to handle setting the optional Domain parameter passed to Exmerge.
• Fixed: The scheduling conflict causing ntbackup jobs to fail if another job finishes during execution has been resolved by forcing ntbackup jobs to only run .one-at-a-time for the entirety of the job, and by executing jobs for other engine types without using DesktopRights.exe
• Fixed: The conventional file copy how uses an entirely new subdirectory of the user-specified working directory in order to avoid accidentally removing user files and/or backing up incidental user files.
• Fixed: NTBackup verify failure messages such as "Difference encountered in alternate file data." are now handled properly.
• Fixed: The should no longer fault when editing email addresses from the dropdown list.
• NEW: Now support sending emails via secure (SSL/TLS) smtp servers such as gmail (smtp.gmail.com) using a secondary mail component.
• Enhanced: Those experiencing issues with the default mail component may find that selecting to use the secondary mail component gives better results.
• Fixed: Configuration file saving has been improved, such that the rare issue where files are corrupted causing the service to fail should no longer occur.
• Fixed: The KnowledgeBase link for failure conditions is once again visible in emailed reports.
• Fixed: Network connections are how handled sensibly when running a job, such that the network path is tested before and after attempting to connect, thus avoiding failures from trying to connect to an already-available connection.
• Enhanced: Failures during RSM functions caused by system changes performed during installation of certain other backup software are now detected and reported specifically.
• NEW: Burning of discs can now be performed using an alternate burning component that can be used if the default component is not giving good results.
• Fixed: In rare cases the scheduler has been known to suddenly halt and hence fail to start scheduled jobs, while the remainder of the functionality was unaffected. The scheduler now includes code to detect this condition and recover silently.
• Fixed: Sometimes temporary files are left behind after a Destination Check. This problem has been fixed.
• Fixed: Out of range figures should no longer end up in the Media Usage Report.
• Fixed: System State only backups are now detected properly during the selection check.
• Fixed: The bug where the Destination Check could fail, but in some circumstances not show what the problem was, has now been fixed.
• Fixed: International characters now show up correctly in script logs.
• Fixed: Bug where large amounts of script output could cause the backup to hang.
• Fixed: System State-only jobs (with no other selections) now pass the selection check on the monitor screen (used to show Error)
• Enhanced: Added logging to assist with debugging errors with the RSM service
• Fixed: Bug where ordinals were showing up incorrectly in the monthly scheduling for maintenance notifications
• Script exit codes (using “exit <num>”) are now taken into account, zero is success, anything else failure
• The RSM service status check now assumes (hopes) unknown failures (like unauthorized access) won’t cause problems with detect

• Fixed: Scheduler now executes jobs correctly on the long and short days created by daylight savings changeover
• Fixed: Reports and other configuration data can now include text containing control characters, such as those present in some malicious email subject lines that fail to backup using Exmerge
• Fixed: SQL backup filename format now handles server/instance names containing dash characters
• Fixed: Increased timeout on email server "test ping"
• Fixed: Bug causing jobs that hadn't been run in a while to show in the job list as Cancelled
• Fixed: Input of email addresses now supports adding a new email address by editing an entry from the dropdown list
• Fixed: Issues in adding Net send notifications now resolved
• Fixed: Standalone LicenseManager now works correctly (from Windows Start menu)
• Fixed: Bug when searching for ntbackup in the PATH when it contains an empty entry (XP Home, Vista, Server 2008)
• Enhanced: Logging added to aid debugging issues with cache file deletion, job reporting and scheduling

• Fixed: Major printing issue now resolved
• Emailing through an SMTP server that does not respond no longer causes 100% CPU usage
• Fixed: Issue causing service problems during/after job execution has been resolved
• Fixed: Incorrect formatting of "original ntbackup log" from the report
• Fixed: Special characters now come through properly in the subject and address fields for emails
• Fixed: Conventional file copy can now handle long file names.
• Fixed: Bug in notification section of wizard that caused it to incorrectly show a warning about invalid emails.
• Added: BackupAssist now supports Active FTP
• Improved: Printing now handles printer and share naming better
• Improved: Uninstaller has "keep my settings" on by default
• Improved: BackupAssist will now try harder to open RSM sessions
• Improved: Report will only list the first 50 messages that couldn't be exported, to avoid excessively long reports
• Improved: Customize scheme button removed from schemes that don't support it
• Improved: Help link in reports is now much more visible
• Improved: New FTP component added, support for large files improved
  

New features/fixes include:

• NEW: Single build now supports both 32 and 64 bit OS, reducing the size of the download from 15MB to about 9MB.
• NEW: Added 'Copy' button to jobs list to allow jobs to be duplicated.
• NEW: Right clicking on a day in the Calendar allows you to cancel the backup for that day, allowing the user to skip backups on holidays. Right clicking again will allow the user to reactivate the backup.
• NEW: If a future backup is 'run now' and the user elects not to run at the scheduled time as well, that day will be marked in the calendar. Those days can now be reactivated.
• NEW: The Exchange mailbox add-on can export mailboxes of users who are disabled and hidden from the AD
• NEW: The user can explicitly select the language that the NTBackup log is in, so operating systems that run MUI packs over will still work.
• Improved: Handling of queued jobs - the service will automatically queue jobs that depend on NTBackup, and start them when it can. Also detects and handles situations where BackupAssist Executor is killed manually from Task Manager
• Improved: Handling of cancelled jobs
• Improved: Memory usage of service
• Improved: Net disconnects no longer showing in the report
• Improved: Reset service option in Troubleshooting tools is now more thorough and will clear queued jobs.
• Improved: DVD burning component updated and improved.
• Improved: Estimate size function on files and folders has been optimized for faster performance.
• Improved: Improvement to editing of Network path information and the effect on job selections.
• Improved: Report now displays a warning if there are no mailboxes to back up.
• Improved: if Exmerge directory path doesn't exist BackupAssist will attempt to create it.
• Improved: list of Exchange mailboxes messages that can't be exported for BA1791 condition are displayed in backup report.
• Improved: if SQL directory path doesn't exist BackupAssist will attempt to create it.
• Improved: added loading message to jobs list
• Improved: Printing the Calendar will now include the calendar key, job name and server name on the printout
• Improved: network paths added when NTBackup jobs are present will now detect IP addresses and suggest the NETBIOS name as a replacement
• Improved: IP addresses in NTBackup jobs now show up in the report as skipped
• Improved UI: Jobs list, calendar, files and folders tab, contact support section, icon appearance
• Improved: detect for attempts to enter a version 3 key for activation and provide appropriate advice.
  
• Fixed: Occasionally the backup job would report that it failed with a BA2 condition, when in fact it ran successfully and succeeded.
• Fixed: Occasionally the service would not respond to the UI, requiring a restart.
• Fixed: Bug with activity monitor that sometimes caused monitor to not display correct information.
• Fixed: Refresh button on monitor.
• Fixed: Memory leak in service on some systems.
• Fixed: Executor will no longer crash if using 'Delete as necessary' backup storage option when the Executor can't access the destination (e.g. when a network cable is unplugged)
• Fixed: further fixes made to the refresh button on page one of the SQL wizard. Now disables the refresh button while a refresh is being performed.
• Fixed: Integrated SQL authentication.
• Fixed: Information level events in reports now display the correct icon.
• Fixed: Conditions highlighted in backup reports.
• Fixed: SQL backup destination allows for variables in the destination path
• Fixed: rare issue causing server to crash during backup.
• Fixed: tabbing now works correctly, focus moves sensibly and visual cues for keyboard focus have been added.
• Fixed: Monitor clears when a new job is run
• Fixed: possible exception when adding a network path
• Fixed Screen contents now refresh correctly after using the settings menu to make changes
• Fixed: a bug that caused Network path details to be updated if the user hit cancel on an authorisation failure
• Fixed: calendar appearance for Vista in preparation for imaging engine
• Fixed: problem preventing Netware shares from being backed up. Added the 'This share is on a Netware server' option when editing the network path list. BackupAssist will attempt to detect Netware shares when a network path is added.
• Fixed: 7z compression options now excluded from tape jobs
• Fixed: bug in Exmerge install that caused the final step to sometimes misreport as a failure
• Fixed: bug that caused tape detection to fail on machines with multiple tape drives
• Fixed: bug that sometimes causes popup windows to appear behind other screens
• Fixed: job list last-run-status bug, where the last-run result was occasionally being populated with the result from 2 jobs ago, instead of the last job.
• Fixed: mailbox export jobs - when multiple servers are selected but unchecked (not active) then ignore these selections instead of trying to back them up
• Fixed: Network Disconnect failures now displayed with Information conditions in the report, and the status of that component is now reported as "Successful" rather than "Minor Warnings"
• Fixed: Network Disconnect processing won't try to disconnect from the same item more than once
• Fixed: List items will no longer be duplicated in reports, eg. successful connections, disconnections, destination checks, etc.
• Fixed: The Exchange mailbox add-on used to give the BA1771 error (anti-virus conflict) frequently. Whilst this is correct according to Microsoft documentation, some users experience sporadic and small numbers of messages that can't be exported. The resolution has been to set thresholds - if >50 messages can't be exported, then display the BA1771 error, as it is likely to be caused by this issue. For smaller quantities, between 10 and 50, a minor warning is displayed with the new BA1791 condition, and for under 10 messages, display an Information condition for BA1791.
• Fixed: issue with rev on win2k - automatically shares the Rev drive as \\SERVER\REV$ and directs NTBackup to that share, to work around the fact that NTBackup won't write to the REV drive automatically

New features/fixes include:

• NEW: 7-zip compression embedded into the NTBackup Engine, can now be found at the bottom of the NTBackup options screen
• NEW: File names for fixed destinations can now be edited when using schemes other than most recent full by going to the customize schedule screen
• NEW:: SQL restore wizard now includes an option to restore the master database amongst other improvements
• NEW:: Run now interface has been improved
• Fixed a bug in 4.0.12 that prevented users from going back through the 'new job' and 'initial setup' wizards
• Fixed a bug that caused an exception when a user attempted to run a job manually on a day where no backup was scheduled
• Fixed a bug that sometimes caused Monthly, Quarterly and Yearly backups to run a day early
• Fixed a bug that was causing the connection type to change even when the user hit cancel on the autotest screen under email server settings.

• Enhanced: The Exmerge log parser: the "antivirus" error message is now more specific (previously it was triggering some false positives in some peoples logs); now detecting the 2 gig file limit error message; now detecting a generic information message where Exmerge says it will copy individual messages to avoid duplicates
• Enhanced: Major speed improvements in the user interface: faster loading times and faster response times when displaying current jobs in progress and past job reports
• Enhanced: Major memory usage improvements - the service's usage of memory is now very stable, even when running hundreds of jobs in succession.
• NEW:: Splash screen shows the progress of loading the console
• NEW: Error conditions in the backup report allow for easier diagnosis of backup user identity problems - eg. wrong username / password combination
• NEW:Jobs in the job list are now sorted alphabetically
• Fixed: Some mail servers were truncating the HTML reports and inserting newlines, which can result in the HTML report displaying incorrectly in mail clients.
• Fixed: Bug in transactional sql scheme preventing some coverage if the period spanned midnight
• Enhanced: Minor UI enhancements
• Fixed: Now preventing user from selecting "virtual paths" (like the Recycle Bin and Control Panel) for destination and cache folders
• Fixed: Backup execution sequence has been corrected to - Connect network connections, Run pre-script (utilising and/or fixing connections), Test selections, ..., Run post-script (utilising connections), Disconnect network connections
• Enhanced: configuration data is now stored in UTF-8
• Fixed: Desktop shortcut creation now handles job names that contain invalid characters for filenames

• NEW: Now includes a job migrater to import BackupAssist v3 jobs into version 4
• NEW: Print button added to the calendar tab.
• NEW: : Unattended execution of backups is now possible using BackupAssistManualLauncher /u (add /u to the default "desktop shortcut" command line)
• Enhanced: SQL restore wizard greatly improved. Now suggests a full backup after restore to prevent issues with recovery forks.
• Enhanced: NTBackup log parsing now catches VSS errors and Exchange Server backup failures (hrESEBackupRead)
• Enhanced: NTBackup engine and restore option now gracefully handles the situation where ntbackup.exe doesn't exist or is in an alternate location in the PATH
• Enhanced: Reports now show the standard error output of script execution (as well as standard output)
• Enhanced: Added the NWeekDaily schemes to the NAS, Local Dir and FTP destinations
• Enhanced: Multiple small improvements to the wording, look and functionality of the UI.
• Enhanced: Improved insert variable screen, variables are now in alphabetical order
• Enhanced: SQL Transactional scheme now cleans up the history folder as it goes, removing size/space overheads
• Enhanced: The emailed HTML report now has a cleaner look that excludes shortcut links that were being blocked by Outlook and other email clients
• Enhanced: The collated report for transactional backups now updates its start date and time so that changes are apparent in the reports list.
• Enhanced: Tape drive detection slightly, to reduce errors where more than one library is available.
• Fixed: Bug causing application to fail when run on older processors (eg. Pentium III)
• Fixed: Exchange authentication now uses the User Principal Name format (user@domain) when the domain is in DNS format (eg. mydomain.com), otherwise domain\user
• Fixed: SQL and Exchange mailbox directory fields now convert mapped network drive letters to their UNC equivalents (mapped drive letters caused backup failure).\
• Fixed: Significant bug in the SQL restore wizard
• Fixed: NTBackup timeout figure in the UI is now adhered to (previously was ignoring the value here and using the default - 1200 seconds)
• Fixed: Maximum NTBackup timeout increased to 10,000 minutes
• Fixed: Installer now prevents installation of the Open Files add-on on 64bit machines, where this is not supported
• Fixed: More help links are now context sensitive
• Fixed: Start menu icon for Launch BackupAssist Console is back
• Fixed: Replication section in the report now correctly represents cd/dvd burn and ftp backups
• Fixed: The "additional information" for errors are now printed separately in the emailed report (these are shown when "hovering" over the Details link when viewed from the console)
• Fixed: BackupAssist no longer reports that selections are missing when the selection was to be excluded anyway.
• Fixed: Weekly maintenance notifications now work correctly.
• Fixed: The Visual C++ 2005 MFC runtime is now installed correctly on 64bit machines, avoiding all "failed to load because the application configuration is incorrect" error messages
• Fixed: Conventional File Copy now cleans up the working directory after the backup
• Fixed: Log messages no longer going to the windows event log, except upon backup completion
• Fixed: Backups where open files are skipped with no Open Files protection in place are now reported correctly
• Fixed: Error condition for skipped files has been changed from BA701 to BA705, removing the clash on BA701 (delete old backups failure)
• Fixed: Deselected SQL server selections are now skipped in the backup

• NEW: Network path connection now occurs before the prebackup script runs, and disconnection occurs after the postbackup scripts run, so that the scripts can take advantage of the network connections
• Fixed: Exchange server and mailbox detection has been improved, using the credentials of the Backup User Identity
• Fixed: At backup time, BackupAssist will retrieve the list of mailboxes using CDOEXM as a fallback method if LDAP fails
• Fixed: Trial issue causing problems on some installs
• Fixed: Individual file selections on remote drives will cause the drive to be mapped, even when there are no folders selected on that drive

• NEW: Added backup cache management for SQL backups, including new purge after main backup option
• NEW: Added button to File selection screen called 'Check selections...' that allows the user to delete selections that no longer exist
• NEW: Added ability to skip backup estimate to NTBackup options (in the job editing section)
• NEW: Added ability to clone an existing job by right clicking on the job in the main jobs tab
• NEW: added Trouble-shooting tools page which includes options to clean up the service and to reset the RSM dabase
• NEW: Email notifications will now warn the user when the Email features in BackupAssist have not been enabled
• NEW: Added FILE_DATE and FILE_TIME replacement variables that use file- and path-friendly dates and times respectively (eg. "2007-10-31" and "21.55")
• NEW: Added WEEKDAY replacement variable that replaces with the shortened weekday name, eg. "Mon" for Monday
• Improved: Destination checks
• Improved: Console startup time
• Improved: ASR backup configuration
• Fixed: Bug causing some Queued jobs to be handled incorrectly
• Fixed: bug that caused backups to fail when perform inventory option was unchecked (tape only)
• Fixed: The Recovery Storage Group is no longer available for backup in the Exchange tab, since it can't be backed up anyway
• Fixed: Failure to free a tape no longer halts the backup
• Fixed: bug that caused the Exchange section to be added twice to reports
• Fixed: A bug causing the BA100 error in reports (DEV: Index out of range exception in MatchVerifySections)
• Fixed: A bug causing scheduled Exmerge jobs to hog cpu and memory when grouped in a single pst (also affected mailbox backups using Ntbackup engine)
• Fixed: Setting NTBackup exclusions no longer prevents job from executing when access to write to the registry key is denied
• Fixed: SBS performance report detects backups as configured even if SBS backup is disabled after BackupAssist has been running
• Fixed: Invalid trial expiry emails will no longer be sent
• Fixed: DVD-RW burning improved, reliability and speed improvements (now performing quick format/erase in place of a full erase)

• Fixed: 64bit installer now linked to 64bit .Net Framework download
• Fixed: bug preventing the console from running on certain computers
• NEW: BackupAssist version number is now displayed in reports
• Fixed: bug causing failure in tape detection

• Fixed: bug preventing scheduling at midnight
• Fixed: bug preventing ntbackup jobs from running after a crash without restarting the service
• NEW: supports .local email domains
• NEW: enhanced FTP media usage report
• NEW: software now handles daylight savings properly
• NEW: setting of NTbackup file exclusions doesn't require administrative rights
• Fixed: bug preventing correct reading of ntbackup log files on dutch installations

• Fixed buggy code causing slowdown and high cpu usage in the "copy to network" step, for network backups with local cache enabled eg. NAS

• Trial detection fix
• Addition of optional email address field on support contact forms (feedback, query, bug, error), and optional submission of diagnostics files