Latest News and Updates
RegexMagic 2.7.3 – 18 May 2018RegexMagic 2.7.3 is now available for download. RegexMagic now officially supports .NET 4.7.2, PCRE 8.42, PHP 7.1.17, and R 3.4.4. These regex flavors are unchanged compared with previous versions. RegexMagic’s installer has been improved to better deal with Controlled Folder Access. This is the ransomware protection feature added to Windows Defender in the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update. It is unchanged in the April 2018 Update. RegexMagic’s installation will now go a bit more smoothly when Controlled Folder Access is enabled. RegexMagic’s installer now knows that when Windows Defender is not operational (because you’re using another anti-malware solution), Controlled Folder Access can’t be active and thus needn’t be dealt with. This avoids conflict between RegexMagic’s installer and certain heavy-handed anti-malware solutions such as BitDefender.
RegexBuddy 4.8.3 – 18 May 2018RegexBuddy 4.8.3 is now available for download. RegexBuddy now officially supports .NET 4.7.2, PCRE 8.42, PHP 7.1.17, and R 3.4.4. These regex flavors are unchanged compared with previous versions. Many regex flavors support the shorthand \w to match a word character. Traditionally this matches the letters A to Z (and a to z), the digits 0 to 9, and the underscore. Modern flavors add characters from various Unicode categories. RegexBuddy has accurately emulated which Unicode categories are included in \w by which flavors since version 4.0.0. Now, RegexBuddy also emulates that the XML Schema and XPath flavors, unlike all other regex flavors, do not treat the underscore as a word character. RegexBuddy’s installer has been improved to better deal with Controlled Folder Access. This is the ransomware protection feature added to Windows Defender in the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update. It is unchanged in the April 2018 Update. RegexBuddy’s installation will now go a bit more smoothly when Controlled Folder Access is enabled. RegexBuddy’s installer now knows that when Windows Defender is not operational (because you’re using another anti-malware solution), Controlled Folder Access can’t be active and thus needn’t be dealt with. This avoids conflict between RegexBuddy’s installer and certain heavy-handed anti-malware solutions such as BitDefender.
PowerGREP 5.1.5 – 16 May 2018PowerGREP 5.1.5 is now available for download. PowerGREP’s converter for XLSX files now efficiently skips over images inside XLSX files. This significantly increases its performance and reduces its memory usage on large XLSX files with many images. This does not change the results of the plain text conversion as that did not include any image references anyway. PowerGREP has supported paths longer than 260 characters since version 5.0.0. Many applications don’t support such long paths because of limitations in Windows itself. But we missed a spot. Entering or pasting a path longer than 260 characters into the Path box on the File Selector panel could cause an access violation error or a crash. This has been fixed. Remember that the Path box is only an aid to navigating the folders and files tree. Actual search paths are based on what you mark in the folders and files tree. You can make PowerGREP insert something at the start of files by searching for the regular expression \A (which matches the very start of the file) and replacing with what you want to insert. Similarly, you can insert something a the start of each line using the regular expression ^ (which matches the start of each line). Due to a bug, this did not work in previous 5.x.x releases. When a regular expression found a zero-length match at the very start of the file, like these two regexes do, the replacement for that match was not written to the target file. Zero-length matches at other places in the file were correctly replaced. Now, PowerGREP correctly replaces all zero-length matches, including at the very start of the file. Double-clicking the path of a backup file in the results now correctly opens the backup file rather than the target file it is a backup of. If the backup is a copy of the source file in a search-and-replace, the editor highlights the replaced matches in red. You can choose whether backup files are indicated in the results. You can find that option in the Results section in the Preferences. Double-clicking a file header in the results opens the file that was searched through. If the action was a search-and-replace that made replacements in a copy of the file then the Editor panel highlights the replaced matches in red. But if the action made the replacements in the same file, then the Editor needs to highlight the replacements that were made in green. This now works correctly. PowerGREP’s installer has been improved to better deal with Controlled Folder Access. This is the ransomware protection feature added to Windows Defender in the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update. It is unchanged in the April 2018 Update. PowerGREP’s installation will now go a bit more smoothly when Controlled Folder Access is enabled. PowerGREP’s installer now knows that when Windows Defender is not operational (because you’re using another anti-malware solution), Controlled Folder Access can’t be active and thus needn’t be dealt with. This avoids conflict between PowerGREP’s installer and certain heavy-handed anti-malware solutions such as BitDefender.
EditPad Pro 7.6.4 – 11 May 2018EditPad Pro 7.6.4 is now available for download. Previous versions of EditPad already scaled themselves quite well on high resolution displays. This release brings a few more tweaks to make EditPad look even better. Most obviously, the tabs that hold your files are now better proportioned on high DPI systems. The character map now scales its minimum cell size to keep large characters sets like Unicode legible on high resolution screens. Using the Search|Highlight command with a regular expression and the Line By Line option turned on was broken since version 7.6.0. This has been fixed. The status bar indicator for the number of search matches is now reset to zero when a search using a new search term fails. Previously a search using a new search term had to find a match for the status bar indicator to restart counting from one. File|Save now works correctly on files that are in use by another application as long as that other application does not keep a write lock on the file. Previously, File|Save would fail with an error message even if the other application did not keep a write lock. On the Encoding page in the file type configuration, you can specify a default line break style for each file type. This line break style is used for line breaks that you insert by pressing Enter when you start with a new file of that type using the File|New submenu. It is also used if you use the Options|File Type submenu to change the file type of a file that does not yet have any line breaks. If you open an existing file that already has line breaks, then pressing Enter uses the line break style that is dominant in the file. New in 7.6.4 is that the default line break style is also used when you open an existing file of that type that does not yet have any line breaks. Previously, CRLF was used for such files. The Block|Rectangular Selections menu item allows you to make rectangular selections the default selection type. It offers to turn off word wrap and switch to a monospaced font as needed to make rectangular selections possible. If it did turn off word wrap, then previously you had to click Options|Word Wrap twice to turn word wrap back on. Now once is enough. Turning on Block|Rectangular Selections allows the cursor to move beyond the end of a line to make it easy to select a rectangle covering lines of different lengths. Switching to another file that does not allow rectangular selections (because of font or word wrap) while Block|Rectangular Selections is still enabled caused the cursor to be allowed beyond the end of a line in the other file too. Now Block|Rectangular Selections no longer does this. If want the cursor to always be allowed beyond the end of a line, you can turn on the option for that in the Editor Preferences. EditPad’s installer has been improved to better deal with Controlled Folder Access. This is the ransomware protection feature added to Windows Defender in the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update. It is unchanged in the April 2018 Update. EditPad’s installation will now go a bit more smoothly when Controlled Folder Access is enabled. EditPad’s installer now knows that when Windows Defender is not operational (because you’re using another anti-malware solution), Controlled Folder Access can’t be active and thus needn’t be dealt with. This avoids conflict between EditPad’s installer and certain heavy-handed anti-malware solutions such as BitDefender. On the Files page in the tool configuration, you can select to reload the current file after running the tool. You should turn this on if the tool modifies the active file. If you also turned on the option in the Preferences to automatically reload files that have changed on disk, this could cause EditPad to reload the file more than once if it noticed that it had changed on disk before the tool finished. In a rare set of circumstances this double reload could cause EditPad to become unresponsive. Now, if a file is scheduled to be reloaded when a tool finishes running, EditPad will not reload that file until the tool finishes. If you want a tool to work on an unsaved file, you can turn on the options to save the current file into a temporary file and to replace the file’s contents with the temporary file after running the tool. Previously, replacing the file’s contents with the temporary file could cause an “access violation” or “list index out of bounds” error when trying to close the file. This has been fixed.
EditPad Lite 7.6.4 – 11 May 2018EditPad Lite 7.6.4 is now available for download. Previous versions of EditPad already scaled themselves quite well on high resolution displays. This release brings a few more tweaks to make EditPad look even better. Most obviously, the tabs that hold your files are now better proportioned on high DPI systems. The character map now scales its minimum cell size to keep large characters sets like Unicode legible on high resolution screens. Using the Search|Highlight command with a regular expression and the Line By Line option turned on was broken since version 7.6.0. This has been fixed. File|Save now works correctly on files that are in use by another application as long as that other application does not keep a write lock on the file. Previously, File|Save would fail with an error message even if the other application did not keep a write lock. EditPad’s installer has been improved to better deal with Controlled Folder Access. This is the ransomware protection feature added to Windows Defender in the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update. It is unchanged in the April 2018 Update. EditPad’s installation will now go a bit more smoothly when Controlled Folder Access is enabled. EditPad’s installer now knows that when Windows Defender is not operational (because you’re using another anti-malware solution), Controlled Folder Access can’t be active and thus needn’t be dealt with. This avoids conflict between EditPad’s installer and certain heavy-handed anti-malware solutions such as BitDefender. EditPad Lite is free for personal use. Business and government users can purchase a license. HelpScribble 8.1.2 – 10 May 2018HelpScribble 8.1.2 is now available for download. HelpScribble’s installer has been improved to better deal with Controlled Folder Access. This is the ransomware protection feature added to Windows Defender in the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update. It is unchanged in the April 2018 Update. HelpScribble’s installation will now go a bit more smoothly when Controlled Folder Access is enabled. HelpScribble’s installer now knows that when Windows Defender is not operational (because you’re using another anti-malware solution), Controlled Folder Access can’t be active and thus needn’t be dealt with. This avoids conflict between HelpScribble’s installer and certain heavy-handed anti-malware solutions such as BitDefender.
AceText 3.5.1 – 10 May 2018AceText 3.5.1 is now available for download. Previous versions of AceText already scaled themselves quite well on high resolution displays. This release brings a few more tweaks to make AceText look even better. Most obviously, the tabs that hold your AceText collections are now better proportioned on high DPI systems. AceText’s installer has been improved to better deal with Controlled Folder Access. This is the ransomware protection feature added to Windows Defender in the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update. It is unchanged in the April 2018 Update. AceText’s installation will now go a bit more smoothly when Controlled Folder Access is enabled. AceText’s installer now knows that when Windows Defender is not operational (because you’re using another anti-malware solution), Controlled Folder Access can’t be active and thus needn’t be dealt with. This avoids conflict between AceText’s installer and certain heavy-handed anti-malware solutions such as BitDefender.
DeployMaster 6.3.0 – 9 May 2018DeployMaster 6.3.0 is now available for download. This release adds support for Windows 10 version 1803, otherwise known as the April 2018 Update, which will be rolling out to computers around the world this May. You can now select this version on the Platform page if you want to restrict your installer to specific Windows 10 versions. On the 3rd party page, you can now select to require .NET 4.7.2 which ships with the April 2018 Update. Windows 10 version 1709 (Fall Creators Update) added a new feature to Windows Defender called Controlled Folder Access. DeployMaster 6.2.0 added four new options on the Platform page to allow your installers to appropriately deal with this. The April 2018 Update retains the Controlled Folder Access feature with some changes to how it’s presented in Windows Defender. The option can now be found in a new section labeled Ransomware Protection. The wording that “most apps” would automatically be considered “friendly” and thus not be blocked has been removed. This makes it obvious that software developers will have to continue to deal with Controlled Folder Access and not expect their applications to be allowed through automatically. DeployMaster 6.3.0 brings further refinements in how the installers it builds deal with Controlled Folder Access. The most important change is that if you enable any of the options DeployMaster offers for this on the Platform page, your installer now checks whether Windows Defender is actually operational on the user’s PC. If it is not, Controlled Folder Access can’t be active. Your installer then ignores the options for dealing with it. The most likely reason for Windows Defender being disabled is that the user has installed another anti-virus solution. Allowing an executable through Controlled Folder Access requires the execution of a PowerShell command. At least one anti-virus tool, namely BitDefender, treats any application that invokes PowerShell for any reason as malicious. This made BitDefender kill installers built with DeployMaster 6.2.x in the middle of the installation process if they were ran on Windows 10 1709 or 1803 and they were built with the option to add installed executables to the list of applications allowed through Controlled Folder Access. Because BitDefender also disables Windows Defender, its heavy-handed approach no longer affects installers built with DeployMaster 6.3.0. Testing whether the installer is blocked by Controlled Folder Access is now done by checking registry keys. This avoids a warning in the notification area if it is being blocked. Adding installed executables to the list of applications allowed through Controlled Folder Access is still done regardless of whether the user turned on Controlled Folder Access. But now it’s only done if Windows Defender is operational. Your installer now also checks whether each executable is already on the list. If it is, the installer does not try to add it again. This saves a few seconds per executable. On the Registry page, selecting a value reveals a new checkbox labeled keep existing value. If you tick this, that value is not written to the registry if a value with the same name already exists when your installer is run. In that case, the value is also not removed from the registry by the uninstaller. If you tick “keep existing value” for a “dummy” value, then that value is not removed by the uninstaller either. If you don’t tick “keep existing value” then the value is always written (if it’s not a dummy) to the registry by the installer and is always removed (dummy or not) by the uninstaller. An Advanced Installation allows the user to change installation folders and select which file types should be created. You could add more folders (through a Support DLL) or add more file types (on the File Types page) than fit the height of the installer window. Now the installer will make itself taller when prompting for folders and file types, if needed. Microsoft has backpedaled most of their plans to deprecate SHA-1. Code signing certificates are now indicated as “unaffected“. Back in 2015 the plan was for Windows 10 to gradually stop trusting signatures using SHA-1 digests. Windows 10 did distrust signatures based on an SHA-1 certificate for a period of time in 2016. DeployMaster 5.0.0 and later have the ability to apply signatures using SHA-256 digests when you build your installer on Windows 7 or later. They can apply dual SHA-1 and SHA-256 signatures when you build your installer on Windows 8 or later. Windows XP and Vista do not recognize SHA-256 timestamps. DeployMaster 5.0.0 and later would also add errors to the build log if an SHA-256 signature could not be applied because you were building on an older version of Windows and requested support for Windows 10 on the Platform page. Because Windows 10 once again accepts SHA-1 digital signatures, DeployMaster 6.3.0 no longer adds errors to the build log if it cannot apply an SHA-256 signature. It will simply fall back to a applying single SHA-1 signature. But if SHA-256 or dual signatures are possible and you are targeting Windows 7 or later with your installer, then DeployMaster will still apply them. This ensures your installer gets the strongest possible signature, which may be helpful in the future if Microsoft change their mind again.
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| Page URL: http://www.just-great-software.com/newsletter.html Page last updated: 18 May 2018 Site last updated: 22 March 2018 | Published by Just Great Software Co. Ltd. Copyright © 1996-2018 Jan Goyvaerts. All rights reserved. |