1.13. New features and changes in IDERI note Version 3.0

Version 3.0 is the first version of IDERI note that supports Active Directory® computer accounts as full-fledged message recipients. All relevant modules (IDERI note administrator, IDERI note client and IDERI note administration tools) have been revised in order to support this new product feature. Please read section 7.6 for further details on this new functionality. In case you are running the IDERI note client on the IDERI note server computer for users who interactively log in on the IDERI note server computer, please carefully read section 7.6.4 in order to understand the special considerations that apply when addressing the the Active Directory® computer account of the IDERI note server. Note that for version 3.0, old license keys from previous versions will not work anymore. As a consequence, make sure you have obtained suitable new license keys from IDERI prior to updating from a previous version to version 3.0, so you can add the license keys immediately after installation to the IDERI note service control panel applet and thus keep the downtime of your existing IDERI note infrastructure as short as possible .

Beginning with version 3.0, IDERI note comes in 3 distinct license variants:

  • Professional: This license variant builds on top of the version 2.x full license variant and adds Active Directory® computer accounts as first class message recipients. All relevant modules of the IDERI note product suite (IDERI note Administrator, IDERI note Client and IDERI note Administration Tools have been updated to support this new feature). For details on the inner workings of this feature please refer to section 7.6.
  • Standard: This license variant is the successor of the full version license variant known from all versions prior to version 3.0.
  • Lite: The lite version license variant has been introduced with IDERI note version 2.8 and remains unchanged.

In addition to the feature additions and a number of bugs fixed, version 3.0 of the IDERI note product suite now uses 32-bit system icons in all relevant portions of the user interface. Beginning with this version, the user interface portions of the IDERI note administrator components are localized into French. All modules except for the IDERI note server, where those tests do not apply, have also been submitted again to Microsoft for the “Windows® 10 Compatible” logo test and have passed the test successfully. Since IDERI note has been compiled with the latest compiler version available from Microsoft, all binaries that make up the IDERI note product suite have been recompiled for version 3.0 with the /d2guardspecload option enabled (also known under the name /Qspectre). This compiler flag adds the LFENCE assembler instruction at selected places in order to mitigate the processor vulnerability known since beginning of 2018 as “Spectre Variant 1” (CVE 2017-5753). To date, the only other known mitigation for this security flaw is a CPU microcode update.

Version 3.0 of IDERI note also requires new licensing keys, old licenses for version 2.x will not work anymore with version 3 of IDERI note. This means you should not naively update your IDERI note server with version 3.0. Instead, plan ahead, acquire new version 3.0 licenses (see section 14 for IDERI note sales contact information) and at least arrange for some downtime of your IDERI note server in order to update your installation to the new version and to apply new license keys. Also note that when updating from a previous version to version 3.0 running with the “Professional” licensing variant, the IDERI note server load will roughly double, due to the additional client connections running with the Active Directory® computer account. So prior to updating, please check if your IDERI note server is sufficiently equipped with respect to main memory and CPU capabilities.

Attention

Recommended update procedure from earlier versions

When updating from an earlier version of IDERI note, there is no technical reason why a certain upgrade sequence should be followed. IDERI note clients running version 2.x can successfully connect to an IDERI note server running version 3.0 and vice versa. The same is true for your IDERI note administrator installations. However, in order to have the smoothest possible upgrade procedure for your IDERI note environment, the following scenario is recommended:

  • Update your IDERI note administrator installations. Older versions of IDERI note administrator will remove new message properties such as the addressing mode (see section 7.6) when modifying an existing message in an otherwise fully updated IDERI note version 3 environment. Version 3 of IDERI note administrator however can still fully interoperate with a version 2.x IDERI note environment.
  • Update your IDERI note clients. Version 3.x Clients will be able to connect to your version 2.x IDERI note server using only the 2.x feature set known from previous versions.
  • Update your IDERI note server. In order to have the server running again as quickly as possible, make sure you have new version 3 license keys at hand, so you can enter the new license keys immediately after having updated your IDERI note server to version 3.
  • Update your IDERI note Administrator Components installations as usual. Note that the server support wizard from versions prior to version 3.0 will not be able to fully support version 3 of the IDERI note server as the IDERI note server, beginning with version 3 is an x64 binary.

What happens if I first install the new IDERI note server and update my IDERI note clients afterwards?

In this case, messages created with the new addressing modes “Send message to users and computers” and “Send message to computers only” (see section 7.6) will only be received by clients updated to version 3 if those messages have been created or updated at a later date than the installation time of the client update.

Note also, that the minimum operating system version of the most common IDERI note installation packages, such as the client, the server, administrator and administration tools is now Windows® Vista Service Pack 2 as a client platform and Windows® Server 2008 R2 as a server platform. Windows® 2000, Windows® XP and Windows® Server 2003 are not supported platforms anymore. In addition, x86 based computers cannot be used anymore as platforms for the IDERI note server, since the IDERI note server is 64-bits (x64) only, beginning with version 3 of IDERI note.