Conrad Sallian's community posts

Hi Matej,

I need to correct my own answer. We are not planning to implement bulk Host settings update via GPO. Rather, we are planning to implement our own centralized policies (using self-hosted server) feature.

However, you can already mass-update Host settings using GPO. Just export the Host's settings registry key and they propagate it across your remote machines using GPO. The key is

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Usoris\Remote Utilities Host

Hello Matej,

Thank you for your message. This feature is in our future plans.

Hello,

This is to inform you that we managed to find a workaround to this problem and implement a hotfix. A new Remote Utilities version is available on the site for download. You can also use Viewer's "Check for updates" command to update Viewer in automatic mode and Simple update command to update remote Hosts.

Please, refer to this article for more information on updating the software. We recommend that you update Remote Utilities first before installing KB4503293 and KB4501375 updates.

Thank you.

Hello Bret,

I understand your frustration. Remote Utilities didn't "brick" previous Windows installations until these updates came out. Isn't this a clear indication of a bug with updates then? As I said, we reported this bug to Microsoft but so far this is all we can do.

Hello Bret,

We investigated this issue and it looks like we got to the root of the problem. When a certain function is called in one of the core RU code components/libraries it causes the whole system to crash. This bug is triggered when rebooting after installing updates KB4503293 and KB4501375 and not on each and every system, at least not in our testing.

We have reported this problem to Microsoft and hopefully they will fix. Meanwhile, here is what can be done to reduce the impact of this issue:

- Before applying these updates set the Remote Utilities Host service startup to "Manual" and then after successful updates return it back to Auto.

or, if the update has already started and there is a spinning wheel use Ctrl + Alt + Del to restart the system (or use the Reset button) - the updates should still install after the system restarts.

Hope that helps. As I said, unfortunately this is a problem beyond our control but we will do our best to reach to Microsoft and see if they can fix the problem. Sorry for any inconvenience.

Thanks.

Hello again,

It seems that this problem occurs with updates KB4503293 and KB4501375 on some systems. Here is an article on the subject https://windowsreport.com/kb4503293-boot-up-display-issues/ . Quote:

Soon after Microsoft pushed KB4503293, Windows 10 users started to complain about booting issues on Microsoft’s forums. At the time of writing this article, there is no official workaround for this bug.

Therefore, if you have not installed the update yet, it is better to pause the updates for a few days. Otherwise, you may experience some serious issues after installing KB4503293.

We will still see if we can somehow rectify this problem on our end though.

Hello,

Thank you for reporting this. We will immediately test and see if we can reproduce the issue and what might be the cause.

Hello,

Thank you for your message.
The best (and proper) solution is to restrict user administrator rights to standard user. If the user isn't supposed to run or stop any programs or processes on the computer they shouldn't be given administrator privileges in the first place.

Hello,

There were some issues - again not with the simple update itself and not even with the program itself but rather with how MSI works on a Windows computer. In the end we had to make some changes how Host installation works. Now Simple update should work ok when updating Hosts 6.10.8.0 to 6.10.9.0. However, these fixes do not work restrospectively, i.e. if you use Simple update to update your 6.8.0.1 Hosts there may still be issues.

However, even if you use Remote install tool or even manual update you don't have to build a custom installer just for the purpose of updating. Use the vanilla Host installer - in this case it will update the program files and leave your settings intact.

Hello,

Would really like to see improved update features for customised installs. It gets a little old needing to recreate my MSI/EXE/Agent from scratch every update and then push the files out individually. The application really should be capable of updating itself automatically without losing settings.

You do not have to create another agent/host installer in order to update your installations unless you want to change some Host settings in addition to just updating the program itself.

You can use simple update procedure to update your hosts in one click.

Hope that helps.