At 3Ds, we are constantly adding to our product range, enhancing existing solutions and, if required, correcting issues that have arisen. The table below shows the most recent versions & updates to the Sentry-go product range.  

For information on the latest versions of Sentry-go software, please select one of the following links. See below for more information on the recent changes & updates made ...

• Fix: Monitoring Service
   
  Continual access ti the recent errors web report, including the publishing of the report to an external web server caused the monitoring service to use additional memory. Over time, excessive memory load could be observed. This issue has been corrected in v6.1.3, which is available free to all v5.x & v6.x customers.

• Enhancement: Monitoring service
   
  The monitor now verifies access to key directories at startup, reporting any errors in the log and shutting down automatically.
   
• Fix: Enterprise Option
   
  In cases where logged errors are larger than normal (e.g. long file monitoring lists), the monitor could fail to log enterprise information. This issue has been corrected in v6.1.1.
   
• Enhancement: Client Console
   
  When synchronizing settings across servers, the Console now allows any configuration values to be copied. Previously, only those available to all selected monitors could be copied.

• Enhancement: File Monitor
   
  The file monitor has been enhanced to provide the otpion of triggering alerts when the monitor is first started. The default behaviour is to only trigger alerts at the shceduled monitoring time or interval.
    
• Enhancement: Alert Correction Monitor
   
  From v6.1 introduces a new Alert Correction Mechanism (ACM). With it youm can configure a check so that if it should fail, only a single alert will be triggered. From then on, the check continues to run but the monitor waits until it is resolved before re-enabling the alert. With the ACM, the monitor can also notify the alert group when the problem is fixed.
   
• New: Remote Update Wizard
   
  A new Update Wizard is now available which allows Sentry-go monitors to be remotely updated across the network. Simply upgrade a single copy locally and let the Wizard use this installation to remotely update others monitors automatically.
   
• Fix: Client Tools
   
  Under some conditions, particularly when the local PC uses proxy settings, Sentry-go client tools may fail to connect to the internet (e.g. for when accessing Sentry-goSolutions & 'ShowMe' help). The client reports no connection is available even though a browser can connect. This issue has been corrected.
   
• Enhancement: Configuration Client Tools
   
  Configured lists are now displayed sorted, in ascending sequence for ease of use.

• Fix: Disk Monitor
   
  In version 5.x, larger disk space as incorrectly shown in alerts & web reports. This has now been corrected.
   
• Enhancement: Server Configuration
   
  It is now possible to configured whether scheduled checks are run/not run at startup when the specified time has already past.
   
• Enhancement: E-mail Alerts & Send/Receive Monitor  
   
  You can now include environment variables within the sending e-mail address m- e.g. to sepcify the machine name automatically.
    
• Fix: WMI memory leak
   
  In version 5.x, poorly performing WMI providers could cause an error within WMI itself, leading to a failure of the Sentry-go monitoring service. In version 6.x, this issue has been corrected in two ways. Components (such as Shadow Events) detect WMI errors and re-request information automatically if issues are detected. For installations with numerous WMI errors, you can now enable/disable the use of WMI information from within Sentry-go.
   
• Enhancement: goNetMail.exe
    
  By default, the utility now continues, even if SSL/TLS connections fail due to a certificate error. This behaviour is now the default when sending autrhentication/secure e-mails using .NET from within Sentry-go.
   
  New command line parameters SSL-CERT & TLS-CERT operate in addition to the previous SSL & TLS. These new parameters re-enable certificate checking and cause the utility to fail with an error if the SSL certificate is found to be in error or expired.
   
  
• Enhancement: TCP/IP Port Monitor
    
  The port monitor has been enhanced to become the Windows Firewall & TCP/IP Port monitor. With it you can additionally monitor the status of the Windows firewall, allowing users to autoamtically re-enable the firewall if found to be disabled. Exisitng v5.x users of this component can upgrade for free.
   
• Fix: All Monitors
    
  When a specific user is configured to run a monitoring check or send an alert etc., the user's Windows profile is now correctly loaded. Previously this could fail, or fail to load a roaming profile if available. 
   
• Fix: File Monitor
    
  If a remote resource was access but a connection could not be established (e.g. incorrect user information), the monitor could fail & restart. This issue has now been resolved.
   
• Fix: Process Monitor
    
  If Shadow Events are being used and the monitor is reconfigured, shadow events are disabled, with an error indicating an initialization failure. This issue has been corrected in this release.
   
• Fix: Script Monitor
    
  If multiple script-based checks were run in quick succession, the 2nd could fail to run with a "could not execute" error. When manually verifying the check, however, it would work successfully. This issue has now been resolved in v6.0.
   
• Enhancement: Client Console
    
  This issue has now been resolved in v6.0.ity & web connection verification when launching web reports & accessing web resources.
   
• Fix: Performance Optimiser
    
  The Performance Optimiser now correctly records information to the log file during each cycle. Previously information was intermittently not logged.
   
• Fix: Web Publishing
    
  When the Sentry-go Summary report is published, the report is now correctly formatted. 
   
• Fix: Client Console
    
  The Script Monitor configuration page now correctly assigns & saves the "Current Directory" when specified. In addition, result strings with multiple lines are now correctly saved & displayed.
   
• New: Sentry-go Easy Access Utility
    
  This new client tool works alongside the existing Client Console and provides a quick & easy way of accessing a monitor directly from your desktop. From the Easy Access utility, you can view the monitor's current status, access web reports, configure & export/import settings.
   
• New: Sentry-go Enterprise Option
    
  The new Enterprise Option is an optional, self-contained system which uses a central SQL Server database to collect & collate monitored information from around the Sentry-go environment. It can be used in conjunction with & alongside the Sentry-go Monitoring System v5.6 and above and requires no additional hardware or software above the database itself.
   
  With it, each Sentry-go Server subscribes to the Enterprise Option by way of a licence key. Once activated, the monitor feeds information to the system in order to indicate the current status of each monitor, indicate when alerts have been triggered and indicate the current value of all monitored checks.
   
  Monitors continue to work as before and can be accessed in the normal way. However, with the Sentry-go Enterprise Option, monitoring information can additionally be accessed in a more global or "enterprise" way.

• Enhancement: Client Console, Setup Wizard & Web Site
   
  New "Show Me" links are now available from within the above client tools, giving users direct
  access to on-line demonstrations & videos via Sentry-go.com. These in turn show how a particular aspect of the Client Console, Setup Wizard & Sentry-go concepts work.
   
• Enhancement: Client Console & Alert Engine
    
  Alert Engine scripts can now be compiled directly from within the Client Console so you can see how place-markers will be expanded at runtime.
   
• Enhancement: Client Console
    
  - Alert Groups can now be named & customised - e.g. Critical Errors, SQL Errors etc.
  - Alert contacts (e-mail, network message, scripts) can now be named instead of
    simply showing the filename or e-mail address etc.
  - When configuring custom services, the service list is now presented in alphabetical order
    for easier navigation.
  - When saving, the Console now sorts the list of servers alphabetically.
   
• Enhancement: Sentry-go Service & Process Monitoring Components
    
  When shown in their respective web report, the service & process list is now shown in alphabetical order for better navigation.
   
• Enhancement: Alert & Auto-Response Engines
    
  In this release, the monitor has been enhanced to give additional diagnostic information when verifying alert e-mails, network messages, scripts and response scripts.
    
• Fix: Sentry-go Alert Engine  
• Fix: Sentry-go goNetMail Utility (v1.7)
    
  If the utility cannot connect to the SMTP server or the mail cannot be sent, the error message now includes additional diagnostics to indicate the nature of the fault.e the nature of the fault.

• New: Sentry-go Monitor
    
  By default, when an automatic response is initiated, it is monitored and timed out if the command, application or script takes longer to complete than the configured value. In this version, it is now possible to override this, and ignore the timeout check if required.
     
• New: Sentry-go Setup Wizard
    
  In previous versions, the application data folder was located in the Windows defined "ProgramData" directory. From this release, you can now override both the program files & data location.
    
• New: Client Console 
    
  In this release, you can now access & control the running status of the Sentry-go monitoring service from within the Console, either locally or remotely. The monitor's diagnostic log file can also be accesed directly, lcoally or remotely from within the Console.
   
  You can now verify command & script-based responses direct from within the Client Console.
   
• Fix: Sentry-go Available Disk Space Monitor 
    
  Support is now provided for larger disk sizes.
   
• Fix: Sentry-go Process Monitor 
    
  In previous versions, if a response was specified, it was always actioned as a direct command, despite other options being selected (e.g. Run as VBScript) in the configuration settings. This has been resolved in this version.
    
• Fix: Sentry-go Monitor 
    
  If the PDH.DLL and/or PSAPI.DLL (depending on Windows version) cannot be loaded during the startup sequence, the monitor could stop. Although this indicates a configuration error within Windows, in many cases the information is not required.
   
  From v5.4.6, if these DLLs cannot be accessed a warning is logged, but the monitor will continue its start-up sequence.
    
• Fix: Sentry-go Setup Wizard
    
  When primary Performance Counters are verified, the Setup Wizard now checks both direct & Virtual Machine (VM) based counters. When requried, the VM-equivalent counter is automatically used instead of the default.
   
  The Setup Wizard also now verifies that directories can be written to after creation and warns if permissions do not allow this.

• New: Sentry-goSolutions v2 web site
    
  Updated Sentry-goSolutions web site is now easier & quicker to use. It provides access to more details automatically from within the monitor, with direct links to search Microsoft.com, MSDN, Microsoft Support, Google & Yahoo web resources as well as a new custom search features.
   
  See it for yourself at http://www.Sentry-goSolutions.com.
   
• Critical Update: Monitoring Event Logs on Windows Vista, 7, 2008 or later
   
  When monitoring Event Log records on Windows Vista, 7, 2008 or later, the monitor could fail to read larger messages and report insufficient memory messages in the error log. In extreme cases, the monitor may also appear off line to connected Consoles and need to be restarted. The problem was corrected in v5.4.5.
   
  If you are monitoring Event Logs on these versions of Windows (or later), we strongly recommend upgrading to v5.4.5 to resolve this issue.
    
• Fix: Network Access Monitoring (PING)
   
  When the Network Access monitor attempted to access a server, PC or device via TCP/IP,  the PING request could intermittently fail, causing a "not responding" alert to be triggered. Although more likely to occur on slower networks, this could seeminly happen randomly to any network connection.
   
  The issue wasn't in fact an error, in that technically the PING issued wasn't receiving a response within the timeout (1 second) period. However, issuing a check immediately after would normally indicate that the device was available and responding normally.
   
  In previous versions, the PING request would not be retried and the timeout was set to 1 second. In v5.42 and above, the defaults have now been changed. The default timeout is now 5 seconds and the monitor will now retry the PING a second time, if it fails to receive a valid response.
   
  These default values can also be overidden using the Sentry-go Client Console - e.g. to allow for slower networks or devices etc.

• Critical Update: File/Directory Monitoring with User Access information being recorded
    
  If you save user access information with any file/directory monitoring check and "Configure windows auduting for this check during start-up" isenabled, it is possible that auditing will be enabled each time the monitor is started, even if it is already enabled. This is not detected by Windows and not shown when auditing options are viewed in Windows Explorer. Over time, this can cause the monitor to fail due to insufficient resources being available.
   
  To correct this, please upgrade the Sentry-go Monitoring Service to v5.4 or above.
   
• New: HTML Content Monitor now implements replacement HTTP client
   
  In previous versions, the Sentry-go HTML Content Monitor used Internet Explorer to verify URL access & content. From v5.4, a new service-based HTTP client is implemented, giving improved performance.
   
• New: Improved suppoort for native Event Logs (Windows Vista, 7 and 2008 Server)
    
  With the introduction of Windows Vista & 2008 Server, Microsoft changed the way in which Event Log entries are resolved. Although previous versions of Sentry-go worked on these O/S's, they would often fail to load the message DLL, displaying only the parameters recorded.
   
  From v5.4, when run on supporting Windows versions (Vista, 7, 2008 and above), the later Event Log resolution is used, providing full access to messages. This is automatically used, when available for HTML Content monitoring & User Access tracking within File/Directory monitoring.
   
• New: Improved diagnostics & configuration verification
   
  From v5.4, more diagnostic information is provided when verifying configuration entries from the Client Console.
   
• New: Improved support for remote file monitoring
   
  In previous versions, remote file resources were always accessed using the user ID configured to run the Sentry-go monitoring service. From v5.4, the Console provides the option of configuring a specific user ID on a per-check basis, allowing alternate IDs with appropriate permissions to be configured.
    
• New: Client Console now offers removal of audit settings when checks deleted
   
  In this release, the Client Console verifies whether auditing is configured for a check before the check is removed. If auditing is configured, it offers the user the options of removing the audit settings automatically prior top the check being deleted from the list.
   
• New: The external Web Browser can now be defined in the Sentry-go Client Console
   
  Web reports accessed by the Console use either the Sentry-go Desktop Browser or the PCs own web browser to display information. Previously, the PC's "default" browser was always used when accessing web reports external to the Sentry-go Desktop Browser. From v5.4, you can choose to use the default browser, or enter another own application to override this. 
   
• New: Additional support for non Internet Explorer Browsers
   
  Although we recommend using Microsoft's Internet Explorer v6.x or above when accessing integrated Sentry-go web reports, additional support is now provided for alternate solutions such as Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Apple's Safari and the Opera web browse. 
   
• New: Test database connection and SQL queries from the Console
   
  From v5.4, it is now possible to verify not only the database connection, but also any defined SQL query when definining or editing a SQL Connection/Query check from within the Console.
   
• New: Additional support for e-mail alerting
   
  In this release, additional support & examples are given to show e-mail based alerting using different methods (i.e. which can be modified to meet your needs). these include ...
  
  - Sending a standard SMTP email (message)
  - Sending an authenticated SMTP message
  - Sending an encrypted SMTP message
  - Sending a message to Windows Live (HotMail)
  - Sending a message to Google's G-Mail system (using SSL/TLS)
   
• Fix: HTML Content Monitoring
   
  When issuing a POST request with parameters specified, the monitor could incorrectly send the parameters to the target server. This has been resolved in v5.4.
   
• Fix: Searching for named text within a web page
   
  When verifying an HTML or equivalent web page for available or missing text, the monitor could fail to trigger an alert. This issue has now been corrected in v5.4.
   
• Fix: Verifying E-mail Send/Receive
   
  Under some conditions, such as some configurations of Exchange 2011, it was possible for the monitor to fail to retrieve e-mail using POP3 or IMAP4. This was due to changes to the originalk message format and hence the message, although accessed, was not considered to be correct.
   
  From v5.4, the monitor's test message format is different and hence, thus avoiding such problems.
   
• Fix: Process Monitoring GPFs when alert raised
   
  Under some conditions, previous v5.x versions of the Process Monitoring component could cause the monitoring service to fail when an alert is triggered - either for the running, or non running of a monitored executable. This has been corrected in v5.4.
     
• Fix: Event Log Monitor GPFs when certain messages are retrieved
   
  Under some specific conditions, the Event Log monitoring component could fail when attempting to allcoate memory for retrieved messages - particularly larger messages or where the message DLL on the host server was missing. This issue has been resolved in v5.4.
   
• Fix: Performance Optimiser fails to save cumulative values
   
  In previous versions, if a performance counter was marked as "cumulative", the full value would still be saved by the performance optimiser & appear on associated web reports. This has now been corrected - the correct value (i.e. the difference between the latest and previous value) is now stored and shown.

• New: Additional support for secure e-mails
   
  In this version, you can now send authenticated e-mails alerts & verify SMTP e-mail access using secure (SSL/TLS) with either authentication, or no authentication.
     
• Fix: File monitor incorrectly verifies files that are "not deleted"
   
  Although the monitor's documentation states that files that are "not deleted within a given timeframe" could be monitored, this option was unavailable from the Console & not directly supported by the monitoring service. This issue has now been rectified and you can now alert when files older than a given time have not been removed from a directory or subdirectory.
   
  
• New: You can now configure the file monitor not to generate an error if the top-level directory does not exist
   
  In this version, if you specify that the monitor should not generate an alert if "no matching files are found", or "the directory odes not exist", no alert will be triggered. Previously this would prevent a configuration error being sent, but a standard alert would still be triggered.   
   
• New: New <$$FILELIST> added for file monitoring alerts
   
  The <$$FILELIST> variable can be used within alert scripts & files to give direct access to the list of files affected by the check that triggered the alert. The list is a comma-separated string of names. Where applicable, additional information such as user/times accessed etc., will also be included within this list.

• New: Additional print monitor checks now available
   
  In this version, it is now possible to check for a print queue being on-line (as well as off-line). It is also possible to verify the following as individual checks ...
  
  - Monitor for essential printer errors (errors that prevent printing etc.)
  - Monitor for 'out of paper' conditions
  - Monitor for 'low on, or out of toner/ink' conditions
   
• New: Test access to printers & print queues
   
  The Client Console now supports the verification of printer & print queue access when defining a check.
     
• Fix: Incorrect Printer Offline Status shown after queue has been brought back on-line
   
  By default, Windows only reports the status of a printer when the spooler is actively sending a print job to the queue. The status information is also dependent on the driver being used. Previously, Sentry-go would verify the status (& offline status) or a printer using this information only. In this release, additional checks are also performed to ascertain the true status of the printer, making it more responsive toe rrors and quicker to pick up a resolved status. 

• New: Suppress check after response run
   
  For many checks, Sentry-go will repeat the monitoring check after a response has been run - in order to verify whether or not the original issue is now resolved. However, not all alerts are errors and there may be times when you may not wish this check - and any subsequent alert to be run. For example, if the check for a new file is used to trigger another job such as a file conversion.
   
  In this release, it is now possible to configure the monitor so that the response action is run, but the subsequent check suppressed.
   
• New: Support added for authenticated SMTP using Microsoft .NET
   
  In addition to using Microsoft CDO, support is now provided for the sending of e-mails using authenticated SMTP and Microsoft .NET. This is available within both e-mail send/receive monitoring components & the alert engine, when sending authenticated SMTP. A new utility, goNetMail is also provided.
   
  Additionally, support is also provided for SMTP servers which require authentication but with a non-secure connection.
    
• New: Improved summary e-mails
   
  Summary e-mails now show additional information such as system health & up-time as well as delayed SMTP, alerting & configruation failures.
   
• Fix: Incorrect total responses shown by the Sentry-go Monitoring Service
   
  Previously, the incorrect number of total responses could be shown if service monitoring was enabled (even if auto-responses were disabled for these checks). This fault has been corrected in v5.2.
   
• Fix: Sentry-go Client Console & licencing
   
  Under some circumstances the configuring of scripts was not available from within the Console even though a valid licence had been entered for the component. This has now been corrected.
   

• Fix: Sentry-go Plus! HTML Content Monitoring Component
  Fix: Sentry-go Quick IIS Web Monitoring Package
   
  In both the above components/monitors, if monitoring the time it takes to load an entire web page has been selected, the component could fail to access the correct image URL, especially when using HTTPS. This in turn, could lead to a excessive delay before the check completed. In addition, no alert would be triggered if any image URLs could ot be accessed or were not found.
   
  Both of these issues have now been corrected.
    
• Fix: Sentry-go Plus! Network Monitoring Component
   
  If running on a non-English verson of Windows, the network monitoring component would not detect or trigger an alert even if connectivity was lost. This fault has now been corrected.
   
• New: Sentry-go Plus! File Monitoring Component
  New: Sentry-go Quick File Monitoring Package
   
  A new check has been added that allows modifications (new files, file deletions & updates) to files within a directory to be configured as a single task. Previously, three independent checks would need to be configured for this.