MONITORING SOFTWARE BLOG

Norton Antivirus will report presence and delete SoftActivity Monitor software and Activity Monitor Agent . You can  still install Activity Monitor on your company’s computers to monitor employees if you are authorized to do so. You will  to add a few excludes in Norton Antivirus.

1. Open Norton Antivirus main window and click Settings in Computer panel:

Norton Antivirus – click Settings for Computer

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• new: recording of Skype instant messages; both sides of conversations
• new: recording of AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) chat; both sides of conversations
• new: collect recordings from Agents by schedule without keeping Activity Monitor running
• new: View Screenshots button that allows to view all screenshots recorded for a selected computer
• new: view Agent screenshots one by one or as a slide show
• improved: no flickering of Agents list when connected to a machine with Activity Monitor via Remote Desktop
• fix: unable to type accented characters in Firefox on Winodws XP/2000 with Agent

• new: added user interface languages:
  • Italian
  • French
  • Russian
  • German
  • Portuguese
  • Spanish
  • Turkish
• improved: added Duration field for visited websites in export to Excel and CSV file
• fix: error message “The parameter is incorrect” when installing/updating Agent from Windows 2000 computer
• fix: minor fixes and improvements

SoftActivity introduces online update system for registered users of Activity Monitor. This system enables our customers to download new version of Activity Monitor software online on our website.

It requests for user’s full name, email and the registration key that was used to activate the software. It allows then to download newest version of Activity Monitor software. You will also see expiration date of your subscription to updates and support.

If your updates and support subscription has expired the system will offer an easy option to renew your subscription for 1 more year.

Registered users of Activity Monitor: Check Subscription and Download the Latest Version

• new: check for updates command in Help menu. Option to automatically check for updates weekly.
• new: automatic update of Agents to the version of Activity Monitor. Agent since version 5.2 will support automatic updates for future versions. Agents still need to be updated to version 5.2 using regular installation method as before
• new: Update/Repair Agent command that reinstalls Agent on the remote computer to fix problems with missing files etc.
• new: monitoring of Guest user accounts in Windows is supported now
• improved: saves network traffic by stopping update of screen view for invisible tabs

• fixed: remote Agent installation was in some cases installing Agent of previous version causing this error in Activity Monitor: Agent of old version is found on the computer XXX
• improved: faster start of Agent service SamSvc
• fixed: on computers with imaged systems Agent ID was not unique resulting in duplicating of computers in Activity Monitor’s list
• fixed: sometimes error 0xC000041 appeared on Win XP computers with Agent during system shutdown

• new: secure connection between Monitor and Agents using SSL. All monitoring data is securely encrypted for network transfer
• new: redesigned architecture that makes the software more reliable, secure, scalable, and easier to add new features in future
• new: more than one Monitor can connect to the same Agent computer and simultaneously watch activity in real time
• new: connect to a remote computer when no user is logged on. Screen tab will show a logon screen. You can use such commands as Turn Off, Restart Computer, Transfer Files from Agent, Change password
• new: download logs when no user is logged on to monitored computers. If a user logs off from Windows at the end of a day before leaving, Monitor can still collect logs and screenshots
• new: filter in Agents list view: Show Only Online Agents/Only Offline/Show All
• new: improved reliability of Agent service. If monitoring process stops due to crash it will restart automatically and monitoring continues
• new: full usage of multi-core capabilities of modern CPUs for improved performance and UI responsiveness
• new: Agent uses less memory (RAM) and CPU resources
• new: Agent uses only one TCP port #15163 and one UDP port #15164 for communications. This makes it easier to setup firewall exceptions. In firewall rule for Agent allow all network activity for amsvc.exe process. Such rule is created automatically in Windows Firewall during setup
• new: support of Google Chrome browser for Internet monitoring
• new: collecting recordings in Activity Monitor from remote computers silently in background without popping up Download progress window
• new: uninstall Agent remotely on any OS and not dependent on what user is logged on
• new: support of Windows 7
• new: view user activity in remote desktop (RDP) sessions on the monitored computer. This means you can now monitor even when user logs in to his office computer remotely from home.
• new: monitored users can not see files with recordings. There are no access rights to files with recordings that are temporarily kept on their computers
• new: Licensing change: now the license is required also for computers where monitoring part of the software is installed, i.e. for manager’s PC. For example, to monitor 10 employee computers by 2 managers from their computers an organization needs 12 computers license