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Version: Printer Activity Monitor 3.6 [29 December 2009]

Added

• A new column("Version") has been added to the "Agents Management" page. It contains version of the agent installed on a computer

Fixed

• Incorrect console operation on a computers with multiple displays
• Incorrect agents update
• Blocking of the printing process when print job was submitted onto some Ricoh printing devices
• Negative values in the "Bytes Printed" column
• Errors with submiting print jobs onto some printing devices operating under Windows 7
• Memory leaks in Data Center service
• Memory leaks in agent service
• Several issues in agent operating in "Client Side Monitoring" mode

Changed/Improved

• Help file has been renewed
• Process of removing of outdated printed documents snapshots has been optimized
• Perfomance of the agent operating in "Client Side Monitoring" mode has been optimized dramatically
• Agent install and uninstall speed
• Agent start up speed. Decreased memory consumption

Upgrade instructions

The program supports in-place upgrade, i.e. the new version can be installed over the current version without removing it. All settings and data will be kept. After the main modules of the program are updated, you should use the console to update all installed agents

Version: Printer Activity Monitor 3.5 [19 October 2009]

Added

• New icons in console
• New column "Description" on the "Agents Management" page. Shows description of a computer on which agent is installed
• New printing preferences dialog for virtual printers
• Possibility to select refresh rate of agents statuses
• Possibility to use Oracle as data storage

Fixed

• Several bugs on printing to virtual printers
• Several bugs in agent module operating in Client Side Monitoring mode

Changed/Improved

• Help file has been renewed

Upgrade instructions

The program supports in-place upgrade, i.e. the new version can be installed over the current version without removing it. All settings and data will be kept. After the main modules of the program are updated, you should use the console to update all installed agents.

Version: Printer Activity Monitor 3.4 [07 August 2009]

Added

• Command to install agents using MSI package has been added in console
• Possibility to assign special access rights for «Security Officer» account type has been added

Changed/Improved

• Improved algorithms of configuration and agents statuses updates
• Load generated by the Data Center component has been reduced significantly
• Improved algorithms of PDF images proccessing on the Data Center. Data Center now is optimized for storing more that 50 000 documents.

Fixed

• Format of generated PDF files
• Import computer names from Active Directory
• IUSR_PAM_COMMBRIDGE account creation on some operation systems

Upgrade instructions

The program supports in-place upgrade, i.e. the new version can be installed over the current version without removing it. All settings and data will be kept. After the main modules of the program are updated, you should use the console to update all installed agents.

Attention! After installation of the new version, the binary objects upgrade process will be started. This process may take a while and its duration depends on size of current activity database. Please be patient and wait untill it finishes.

Version: Printer Activity Monitor 3.3 [19 June 2009]

Added

• Now it is possible to control the actual state of the data storage: size on disk, records dates range, etc
• Now it is possible to preview a printed documents snapshots in the main program window. For this feature Adobe Acrobat Reader v7.0 or higher is required. Adobe Acrobat Reader can be downloaded from Adobe.com for free by the following link: Adobe Acrobat Reader

Changed/Improved

• Help file has been renewed
• Installation package size has been reduced
• MSI file allowing installation of remote agents using Active Directory Group Policies has beed added into the installation package

Fixed

• Incorrect licensed objects counting
• Incorrect dialogs painting on systems with large fonts

Upgrade instructions

The program supports in-place upgrade, i.e. the new version can be installed over the current version without removing it. All settings and data will be kept. After the main modules of the program are updated, you should use the console to update all installed agents.

Attention! After installation of the new version, the data schema upgrade process will be started. This process may take a while and its duration depends on size of current activity database. Please be patient and wait untill it finishes.

Version: Printer Activity Monitor 3.2 [25 May 2009]

Added

• Now it is possible to search text in printed documents
• Now it is possible to control processor resources allocation on agent
• Now it is possible to watch the actual state of the data storage: size on disk, number of records, etc

Changed/Improved

• The data scheme has been modified
• The algorithm of PDF documents creation has been improved
• Microsoft Access and Microsoft SQL Server support has been improved
• The algorithm of redirecting documents to the real printing device has been improved

Fixed

• Incorect reports in some rare cases
• Incorrect agent's temporary files deletion
• Agent installation on Windows 2000 systems
• Creation of empty printed documents snapshots
• Incorrect username resolving through Active Directory
• Creation of incorrect printed documents snapshots in case of use agent on a computers with Terminal Services installed

Upgrade instructions

The program supports in-place upgrade, i.e. the new version can be installed over the current version without removing it. All settings and data will be kept. After the main modules of the program are updated, you should use the console to update all installed agents

Attention! After installation of the new version, the data schema upgrade process will be started. This process may take a while and its duration depends on size of current activity database. Please be patient and wait untill it finishes.

Version: Printer Activity Monitor 3.1 [01 April 2009]

Added

• An additional role for access to the Data Center has been added(Security Officer)
• The document coverage ratio calculation has been added
• The dialog box for customizing the quality of new PDF documents has been added
• Now it is possible to print booklets on virtual printers
• Now it is possible to select the order of pages on a sheet when documents are printed on virtual printers
• In the "Install Virtual Printer" wizard, it is now possible to specify the queue parameters that will be used by default when documents are redirected to the real printing device
• The evaluation period has been extended to 30 days

Changed/Improved

• The data scheme has been modified
• The second condition has been added for the automatic cleanup of old PDF documents: a limit for the total size of the PDF document storage
• The algorithm of redirecting documents to the real printing device has been improved

Fixed

• Incorrect substitution of the administrator password for accessing the Data Center during the parameter configuration
• Distortions in the size of a document image when it is printed on a virtual printer with different DPI values by X and Y with the "Landscape" orientation
• Distortions in the size of the documents being printed when several pages are printed on one sheet (2 on 1, 6 on 1) and different DPI values by X and Y
• Distortions in the size of the page border when documents are printed with different DPI by X and Y
• The algorithm of importing the log file to the database has been modified. The " and ' characters no longer interfere with the work of the Data Center.

Upgrade instructions

The program supports in-place upgrade, i.e. the new version can be installed over the current version without removing it. All settings and data will be kept. After the main modules of the program are updated, you should use the console to update all installed agents

Version: Printer Activity Monitor 3.0 [01 March 2009]

Added

Red Line Software announces completions of more than 5 months beta-testing period and official release of Printer Activity Monitor 3.0

New version of the program has been changed significantly and has become more fail-safe and easy-to-use.

"When working on the new version we pursued two objectives: to provide 100% accuracy in counting the printed pages and copies and also make possible to capture and view printed documents images." – says Azat Akhmedshin, general director of Red Line Software LLC. - "And I believe both tasks have been fulfilled successfully. The new version has turned out to be easy-to-use, flexible, fail-safe, and the management console has become more familiar for all administrators of Windows Systems, as it is made as a snap-in for Microsoft Management Console".

New program features to be noticed:

• multitier architecture allows installing all program units on different computers.
• remote administration of the program from any computer in the network.
• allows administrating and monitoring from several workstations in the network at the same time.
• remote installation and deleting of the agents.
• two operation modes of the agents: on the users’ computers and on print-servers.
• supports SQLite, MS Access, MS SQL, MySQL, PostgreSQL as data storage.
• browsing images of printed documents.
• lots of predefined reports for analyzing the collected data from different viewpoints.
• supports Active Directory.
• Terminal Services compatibility.
• Microsoft Cluster Server compatibility.

Features to be available soon:

• printing quotas allocation.
• printing rules to delimit printer access at the level of application, username, computer, time of day, document size etc.
• support of Oracle as data storage.
• tracking users who send print jobs from *nix systems.

The licensing procedure has also been changed with new program version release.

We offer several program editions for better usability.

Upgrade instructions

All registered users can exchange their keys of 2.X version for the keys of 3.Õ version ("Medium Business Edition") free of charge. To do that send an e-mail to the sales department of the company at sales@Redline-Software.com

Version: Printer Activity Monitor 3.0b4 [26 January 2009]

Added

• Data Center: added two additional information levels - breakdown by "Print Server" and "Printer Model"
• Data Center: now it is possible to use MS Access, MS SQL Server, MySQL or PostgreSQL as data storage
• Management Console: charts color schemas was added
• Agent: added N-up function (pages per sheet)
• Small impovements: wizards, icons, messages

Changed/Improved

• Management Console: improved console stability
• Management Console: improved repository functionality; added predefined reports
• Agent: increased speed of printing on virtual printers created by the program

Fixed

• Data Center: fixed several bugs; data schema was optimized
• Agent: stability improved significally; fixed several interprocess communications problems

Upgrade instructions

Upgrading version 3.0b1, 3.0b2 to version 3.0b4:

• Upgrade procedure is the same as in 3.0b3

Upgrading version 3.0b3 to version 3.0b4:

• In place upgrade is supported. Data Center and Management Console must be upgraded first(simultaneously). At first startup, console will suggest to update installed remote monitoring agents. This must be done before using the new version of the program.

Version: Printer Activity Monitor 3.0b3 [17 December 2008]

Added

• Data Center: now it is possible to control the lifespan of the images of printer documents. After the specified time interval expires, they can be deleted, moved to the specified folder or archived.
• Management Console: now it is possible to filter data by any item in the report and also drill down any item in the report in the "Reports" section. These two features allow you to achieve any level of detail.
• Management Console: now it is possible to edit the active report in the "Reports" section.
• Management Console: now it is possible to save a report to the report repository and later extract it from there for further formatting in the "Reports" section. The repository is physically located on the same computer where Data Center is running. It allows all administrators of the application to use one repository from different computers.
• Agent: now it is possible to enable and disable the debugging log. If it is enabled, the agent logs the detailed statistics of its work. This option must be used only to search for bugs in the agent. When the debugging mode is on, the agent performance considerably slows down that is why this mode should be used only for debugging purposes. The debugging log is intended for the technical support department

Upgrade instructions

The new version only PARTIALLY supports the upgrade mode without the removal of the previous version

• You must first remove created virtual printers and installed monitoring agents
• After that Data Center can be installed over the current version (The database will be reset(Document images are preserved))
• Then you can install Management Console over the current version
• Then you should install agents on remote computers again (You should specify all necessary passwords for accounts specified in the "Accounts" dialog)

Version: Printer Activity Monitor 3.0b2 [29 October 2008]

Added

Beta version of new Printer Activity Monitor 3.0b2 just released.

While developing the new version we has concentrated on two main issues:

• interception the images of ALL printed documents independent of printer types, their manufacturers, data formats, printer settings and driver versions
• implementation of mechanisms that make it possible to get 100% precise information about print jobs: the number of copies, the number of printed pages and so on

Both problems was successfully solved, but the principle of data collection has been completely changed.

New version features:

• monitoring printers in an organization in a centralized way
• intercepting the images of printed documents
• detecting exact print job properties: the number of copies, the number of printed pages and so on
• independent of printer types and their manufacturers
• working with an unlimited number of printers
• installing all application modules separately
• managing all application modules remotely
• integration with Active Directory
• compatibility with Terminal Services

Comment

Detailed features list, step-by-step install instructions and description of new principles of work can be found in the "Quick Start Manual" PDF file which is located in the intallation package.

Version: Printer Activity Monitor 2.0 [11 May 2006]

Added

• Some new configuration scenarios which help to configure our software were added to the documentation.
• We created MSI file which helps install remote agents on all computers in your network by using standard Windows utilities.

Changed/Improved

• Now only Microsoft Windows Network computers are displayed in the Agent Management Console.
• Now it takes less time to determine agent status in the Agent Management Console.
• Remote agent was significantly improved.

Fixed

• The bug in the Agent Management Console which denied access to the computers with description in their settings was fixed (Windows XP).
• Many minor bugs were fixed.

Comment

Update instructions (from version 1.2b):

1. Install the program on a computer with the previous version installed, and your database will be automatically converted to the new format.
2. Reactivate the program if you are a registered user.

Update instructions (from version 2.0b):

1. Install the program on a computer with the previous version installed, and your database will be automatically converted to the new format.
2. Update all your remote agents with the help of the Agent Management Console. To do this, you should stop all agents and then restart them. The executable file will be updated automatically.
3. Reactivate the program if you are a registered user.

Version: Printer Activity Monitor 2.0b [03 February 2006]

Added

• Now the program checks if there is a second running copy of the program.
• The support of wildcards (* and ?) in reports made from documents was added.
• A legend was added to the diagram.
• It is now possible to generate a report from all list items at the same time.
• It is now possible to include the time of day in the date field.
• It is now possible to change the values of some fields using the context menu in the Log. You can reset values for a certain record or for a set of selected records.
• Two buttons were added on the report control panel: "Save as User Defined Report" and "Generate Current Report" (this queues up report generation in the Task Scheduler).
• It is now possible to change the sequence of sections from which main reports are being generated.
• A quick search feature was added.
• The "Password Confirmation" field was added in the scheduler.
• The program now supports remote PAM agents.
• It is now possible to view printed documents.
• A feature to monitor new properties of the printed documents: "Printing Type" (B/W, Color) and "Page Size" was added.
• Added a French language resource file.
• There are now two report styles: flat and hierarchical. When you use the hierarchical style, you can form complex analytical samplings.

Changed/Improved

• New templates were added to the list of available templates ($YYYY$, $MMMM$ etc) in the save location. See the documentation for more information.
• Improved the stability of PAM Server service.

Fixed

• The bug with fonts in the calendar was fixed.
• The error that sometimes appeared when reports were sent by e-mail was fixed.
• Many small bugs were fixed.

Comment

Upgrade instructions:

1. Create a backup copy of C:\Program Files\Printer Activity Monitor\DB folder.
2. Uninstall the previous PAM version.
3. Install new version into the same directory.
4. Due to the built-in auto-update mechanism, the program will automatically convert the database into the new format, update custom reports and report templates, and so on. Because the program is a beta version, you should copy the entire program directory before updating the program to prevent data loss.
5. The registration key of the old version does not work with the new version of the program, which is why you should keep in mind that the program will be automatically switched to the trial version with all the corresponding limitations. The procedure for obtaining new registration keys will be published after the software beta testing period is over.