I don’t think this list was ever published (I think I had a Wisdom one too) but I thought I’d share it just to show how much the PowerFuse product has come on since the 2008 release. I might get around to updating the list with new features for the ones that have made it in to the product. As you can see five of these wishes have been implemented fully within the RES PowerFuse 2010 product and two have been implemented partially. Kudos RES!
Original Post
Oh this list could have been so much longer! Why the list? Just wanted to put on “paper” my wish list so that someone might read it but, more importantly so that the rest of the world can add their comments and wishes to it too…
- Licensing – Change the licensing model to a modular/vertical approach. The Express, Standard and Enterprise Editions are a start but they don’t go far enough for the UK market. I’ll cover my thoughts on this in another post some time..
- Branding – For a product that interacts with user is such an obvious way, the inability to brand the log on banner with company information amazes me! OK – your company name is displayed but the RES branding takes up 75% of the available space. It’s the #1 request I get from people as soon as they see the product. I don’t necessarily think that the RES branding should be able to be taken away completely but your company logo/colours should be definable and more prominent than RES’s. They’ll do it – but you’ll get handsomely charged for the privilege. Update: RES PowerFuse 2010 can be rebranded via a signed XML file generated by RES with enough justification.
- Local Groups – You can enable local group enumeration but you can’t add a “global” local group. For example, you can specify “CLIENT1\Administrators” and “CLIENT2\Administrators” as exceptions to the PowerFuse shell. I’d like to be able to specify “.\Administrators” so that all local administrators (including the local Administrator) can be excluded. This doesn’t break the AD integration and makes supporting non-domain or not trusted domain members easier. Update: Local groups are now supported but the implementation is limited. Remember PowerFuse finds the first match in its Directory Services definitions and then stops. If we have an Active Directory and Local Computer definition, we can only enumerate one. For example, if we target the local “Administrators” group then we apply different settings but we can’t then see their domain credentials as well!
- Default Application Settings When Importing – it would be great to be able to set the default options when importing applications, either a global default or as part of the wizard. It’s a pain to have to go and change the “Maximum Instances” field to 3 or “Check application availability on client” for instance on all the imported applications. FIXED.
- User Preferences – By default they’re stored in a compressed format and cannot be opened. It’d be handy to be able to get inside and delete a file or registry setting if it’s causing problems. Currently you have to wipe all the information and start again (argh!). FIXED: We can now browse and export both file and registry User Preferences/Settings.
- Multi-Language Applications – There is no default way to attached language specific application Titles and Descriptions to each application. The current work arounds are either to create a lot of environment variables or create an application for each language variation which is just crazy!
- Custom Backgrounds – We can enable custom backgrounds by removing the check in Desktop Management > Lockdown > Workspace Manager > Hide Change “Desktop Picture” in PowerPanel option. Unfortunately, if we want custom backgrounds, i.e. BGINFO, we have to let the user have the option of changing it. The ability to specify a custom background in the PWRUSER.INI file but remove the users’ ability to change it would be handy. FIXED: With the RES PowerFuse 2010 Workspace Model we can manage the background independently.
- RES Wisdom Tasks on Applications – If you could launch an external RES Wisdom task prior to launching an application would enable us to install it on first launch. Rather than making sure all applications are installed on all computers this would be a great addition. Obviously we’d have to let people know that an application is being installed whilst they have to wait. FIXED.
- PowerFuse Shell Redesign – The existing PowerFuse shell is great but now looks more than just a little bit dated. From some of the discussions I’ve had with RES employees there might be a change coming. It might be similar to the Windows Server 2008 shell which would be a great improvement.
- Database Creation – When installing PowerFuse for the first time it requires an SQL account with SA privileges. In the corporate environment the SQL DBA’s won’t give you this permission ‘just to install and create the database’. Whilst there are workarounds, having the option to use an account that has DBO rights on a ‘pre-configured, blank database’ would make my life a lot more simpler when on customer sites! FIXED.
