As Chris and Neil already mentioned - we released the new version of ExBPA. Here is "what is new", as listed by Paul Bowden:
1.1 provides some improvements and refinements to the overall ExBPA experience. There are no major code changes in 1.1, we've focused mainly on usability improvements.
Here's a quick list of the improvements in 1.1
Installation
- You can in-place upgrade from 1.0 to 1.1 (i.e. no need to remove previous versions from Add/Remove Programs)
- You can now specify the data directory (where the output XML files are kept)
- Ability to launch ExBPA at the end of the MSI install
- Incorporates the very latest ExBPA.Config.xml (configuration & rules) and ExBPA.chm files (version 1.6.3.1)
Update Checking
- ExBPA checks to see if a new version of the binaries are available (in addition to the ExBPA.Config.xml file)
- ExBPA can auto-download new binaries and perform in-place upgrades of the tool
- There's a new "Cancel this check" option if you wish to bypass update checking
- Better text and error messages
General
- Text clean-up in the user interface. Reworded many sentences.
- Uses a global catalog server rather than domain controller to ensure mailbox count is correct
- Validation performed on credentials (if entered)
Scan Options
- You can now enter an identifying label for the scan. This label will be part of the output XML filename as well.
Scan Results
- More report options providing a better breakdown of items found
- Non-Default Settings, Recently Changed Settings, and Baseline output is broken out into separate reports
- 'Items of Interest' report lists out all information events
- 'Run Time Log' shows the list of events and errors encountered during collection and analysis
- The 'Tell me more.' links for non-problem events (such as a Non-Default setting) is more appropriate
- Pressing CTRL-E on a node whilst in the Summary/Detailed View expands all child nodes (NOTE: This option can be resource intensive)
- Better support for launching non-IE browsers
You can get the tool here.
One thing I wanted to add - this version has the same ExBPA config rules major version as the update we released not long ago (even though the minor version is newer). That means that you might want to read this blog post if you did not upgrade your config rules to 1.6.x.x before this new ExBPA 1.1 version.
- Nino Bilic
