Changes added to Network Inventory Advisor 4:

New: Meet the crispy completely reworked user interface with improved data navigation! We heard you and delivered the all-new report sidebar. This provides fast and accurate access to any node information. Now, when you select a  data category to examine, it does not change when you navigate through your networks.

New: Networks management is now a real breeze. Are you an MSP, or just a professional network consultant? Isolate your clients’ data by networks you inventory, switch among them easily and quickly. You can also import a network from its ‘information’ folder, to add it as a new network in your
networks list.

New: Full-blown licenses audit is integrated in Network Inventory Advisor 4. You kept asking for this feature since day one. Now, whenever you scan a computer, you will get the list of all the license codes that can be collected (including all products by Autodesk, Microsoft, Corel, Adobe, and other vendors.) You can now enjoy individual licensing reports by node, or collect all license keys in a joint network-level report. A new software report format includes listing all license codes, and detailed reports are now enriched with a licensing section. By deploying Network Inventory Advisor 4, you can keep any pirated applications from being installed on your network. If you are a software vendor, you can use Network Inventory Advisor to audit your clients and find out how they comply with your company’s licensing requirements.

New: Now any report can be exported to .PDF format.

New: Looking for a specific node? Now you can search and filter nodes in the network tree. Just start typing the name of the node in question, and the view on the tree will jump closer to it with each successive keystroke.

New: You can skip nodes during scanning, which is convenient for unreachable or disconnected nodes.

New: Windows Experience Index is now collected from some Windows nodes (Vista, 7, 8).

New: Network Inventory Advisor detects multiple monitors while scanning.

New: Now reports can be easily imported and exported (using internal file format) to simplify their exchange and management and improve security of the transferred data.

New: Right-click menu in the Reports tree (Reports tab) lets you quickly run or delete a specific report.

New: Device driver’s date and version are shown in the report.

New: Date of the last installation of updates and full name of the active user were added into Tabular report.

New: Quick duplication of manual nodes.

New: You will now find important news on updates and fixes, as well as your license details, in the app’s status bar.

Improved: Farewell to notes. Yes, we gave up personal notes in favor of custom fields. You may find your old notes in the Tabular report, if you want to keep them.

Improved: Running software reports becomes more effective. We isolated those numerous Windows hotfixes and updates from the main body of the software report. They are now listed under their own Hotfixes section.

Improved: Scanning for MS Office now also detects Microsoft Visio and Microsoft Project.

Improved: Details collected about a computer’s CPU are more precise now. We also added CPU multiplier to the list of collected fields.

Improved: The progress bar when actively scanning is more precise now.

Improved: Network Inventory Advisor is much faster now, thanks to optimized data loading and data segregation.

Improved: Laptops are assigned with a better node type (Laptop) than they used to be assigned (Mobile PC.)

Improved: Network summary now shows shortened list of nodes in Locations section, to optimize CPU load.

Improved: Scheduler is now capable of exporting new data in NIA’s internal format.

Improved: Tabular report now correctly sorts fields for memory and disk size.

Improved: Admin name and signature are now also available in Tabular, Detailed and software reports.

Fixed: Yeah, we were finally able to fix that old annoying node duplication bug, the one
related to DHCP networks and nodes with the same network names.

Fixed: When reports are exported into HTML, company logo and auditor’s signature are saved.

Fixed: Connection to Active Directory if the domain controller uses LDAP Signing.

Fixed: Localized versions of Network Inventory Advisor could be wrong on the software status in the “By version” pre-defined report.

Fixed: Node’s IP-address and network name are saved correctly when you export data using command-line interface.

Fixed: Sometimes Linux scanning could be unexpectedly stopped at collecting network information.

Fixed: Copying data from Scan Log is now possible, in case you need to share it with your team, or our support people.

Fixed: Scanned Linux nodes could list no “Number of logical processors” in Tabular reports.

Fixed: Custom fields are now exported correctly from a tabular report.

Fixed: Reported crashes and other internal errors.

We have also changed our licensing policy, and so from now on Network Inventory Advisor is completely free for 10 nodes for personal use. Ever planned to keep a good inventory of your household computers? Wait no more! Grab a copy of Network Inventory Advisor and get a nice overview of your local network within minutes. All reports are completely exportable and printable.

ELK GROVE, Calif., November 28, 2012 – Network Inventory Advisor, the acclaimed network inventory software app by ClearApps, announced today that it has been voted the WindowsNetworking.com Readers Choice Award Winner for the category of Network Inventory Software.

Each year, WindowsNetworking.com polls readers on their favorite product in a particular category. During the month of October, the readers voted on their favorite network inventory software application and CleapApps Network Inventory Advisor won. “This award is particularly gratifying,” says ClearApps project designer Jeff Mitchels, “because it is voted on by network specialists who are using our product out in the field. They are depending on us for accurate network audits and we are delivering.”

Network Inventory Advisor audits all network software and hardware simply and efficiently. It automatically discovers all network assets (including Windows, Mac OS, Linux, and SNMP-powered devices), scans them, and builds flexible network inventory reports. It provides detailed device statistics, including CPU, memory, operating system, audio & video, and peripherals, plus it tracks all installed software versions and licenses.

Network Inventory Advisor is the brainchild of ClearApps, LLC, based in Elk Grove, California. For more information visit www.clearapps.com.

And that’s right, there’s another update shipping now: today we are presenting Network Inventory Advisor 3.95, it’s not 4.0 yet, but it’s a huge upgrade for internal scanning engine which will also be smoothly transferred into version 4 once it goes public. Check the list of changes below, and download Network Inventory Advisor 3.95 right away here.

INTRODUCED: better import from Active Directory; even offline nodes are imported to match the correct domain structure so you can scan them later
INTRODUCED: separate Software Licenses report section where you will find registration details for Windows, MS Office, Internet Explorer, etc
INTRODUCED: node skipping if it cannot be scanned for a long time (configurable in Settings)
INTRODUCED: network disk path, last bootup time and node added date as new tabular report fields
ENHANCED: software collection if it’s listed only in the registry branch of the current user (HKEY_CURRENT_USER)
ENHANCED: detection of hard drive’s serial number
ENHANCED: network scanning dialog updates immediately even for very large networks
ENHANCED: ranges of IP-addresses are now grouped into collapsible items in the scanning dialog
ENHANCED: scanning of a node or IP range can be cancelled through the right-click menu
ENHANCED: scanning AD groups that contain unsupported characters in their names
ENHANCED: no more possible slowdowns when collecting software or hard drive data from domain nodes
ENHANCED: Active Directory Organizational Units now managed better
ENHANCED: MS Office 2010 x64 registration details are now displayed and collected correctly
ENHANCED: better smart scanning by detecting more network adapters available on the host PC
ENHANCED: scanning SNMP nodes (when Linux scanning is enabled) is now faster
ENHANCED: alerts when security software is missing are now displayed properly
ENHANCED: detection of Broadcomm network adapters
FIXED: factsheet report now correctly lists MAC-address of Linux nodes
FIXED: custom fields are now available immediately after creating in tabular reports
FIXED: domain nodes could enumerate incomplete list of software titles after scanning
FIXED: memory leak attempting to scan a very large IP range; now only those nodes that were ping’ed are added to the list
FIXED: nodes are correctly scanned with an agent utility now (even if they cannot locate themselves by localhost address)
FIXED: “Go to hardware” link in Linux node’s details incorrectly navigated to Software
FIXED: several issues in wizard’s interface when importing computer lists from file
FIXED: export into HTML now works correctly with IE9 installed
FIXED: Post-scan options are now always active when required
FIXED: crashes when managing nodes with apostrophe in the name
Well, there are quite a few other changes, enhancements, new features and bug fixes in there as well. Most of them are not that obvious, but they should all add up to a better, simpler, more stable and productive experience!

Stay tuned for more news on version 4, have fun with 3.9x now!

BTW, Windows 8 dev preview is correctly scanned and easily identified as “Windows Developer Preview” by Network Inventory Advisor!