ARL Updates - MobaXterm Home vs Professional

[SManagementTea9]

Hi All

This one is a bit tricky I think.  The Home edition of MobaXterm (by Mobatek) is freeware and can only be used in a company/commercial environment by the person that downloaded it and cannot be packaged for deployment.  Under Windows 10, users can't install it themselves anyway.  If Company's want to use the app, they need to subscribe to the Professional edition.

Now...when I look at All Applications in FNMS, I can only see 2 version of MobaXterm Professional - 9.0 and 9.4 yet there are multiple versions of the Home edition ranging from v7 through to 12.3. Yet if I look at the vendor website they have like for like versions between Home and Professional editions.  Why does the App list in FNMS not reflect these other Professional versions?

We have the Professional v9.4 edition packaged for deployment but FNMS was showing these as the Home v9.4 edition and I confirmed with several users who sent me screenshots that they do actually have the Professional edition installed.  Why the mismatch between Home and Professional in FNMS?  The Installer and File Evidence in FNMS do not seem to accurately reflect the difference between the two Editions (Home vs Professional).  We had to manually create the File Evidence for the Pro edition.  Could someone please look into this?

XMind is another application with similar issues where its not clear in FNMS as to which is the freeware vs commercial version.  We have the freeware version packaged for deployment.

[Kevin_Hou]

Hello @SManagementTea9 

From what I can see based on your description, you are reporting a FNMS Content library issue (ARL) a specific application title recognition is incorrect.

I will suggest opening a support ticket via 'Get Support' button in this portal and our Flexera support will continue work with you. Once the support team collects enough information to prove there is some existing content library data issue, we will report this further to our ARL library team address and usually the fix will be published in weekly ARL release.

Hope it helps. 

Cheers

Kevin

[ChrisG]

In relation to "Why does the App list in FNMS not reflect these other Professional versions?": Most likely explanation is that evidence for all the different versions has not been handled as part of ARL enrichment, or (considering the next point) maybe evidence has been inappropriately linked.

In relation to "Why the mismatch between Home and Professional in FNMS?": From your description, it could be that the evidence gathered by inventory tools from endpoint computers does not have enough detail to be able to automatically identify the specific edition that is installed, while the recognition rules configured in the ARL may have the evidence inappropriately linked to a specific edition. If that is the case, raising a case with Flexera Support will get you connected to the Content team how can take a look at the specifics and consider if improvements can be made.

[kathy_allen]

I've opened a ticket on this as well.  I've tried creating local apps for Professional as well for now.

[SManagementTea9]

Same here Kathy. we've created local evidence and assigned it to the Home/Professional editions. We've seen a similar issue with Xmind as well.

[kathy_allen]

@SManagementTea9 can you give examples of the evidence you created to distinguish Home vs Professional? Did you use the Personal and Professional customizer exe files? We've been looking for unrecognized evidence but a lot come with paths for specific users. I was thinking to create evidence with a generic path (c:\%) or blank.

[SManagementTea9]

Hi Kathy

No we didn't use the customizer files.

I've attached the file evidence we created for the Professional edition to distinguish it from the Home edition.  Unfortunately, now it looks like the consumption count has duplicated and I can see devices with both the Home and Pro editions installed.

regards

Conny

[Kevin_Hou]

Hi MobaXterm users:

In case, the following two points can help during your research work (even I personally are not familiar with vendor software)

1. In order to use 'FileEvidence-exe' to differentiate Home vs Pro edition. Ideally it's better to find a uniqueness 'exe' exist in one edition but not the other. Then we can use the 'combination' by 'Recognition Rule' to differentiate. And it's good to find one exe and set as 'Not allowed' exe in one edition, but 'Required'  in the other.  Take the famous MS office Home vs Pro for instance, the combination can be 

EXE file	Rule for Student edition	Rule for Pro
Winword.exe	Required	Required
Exce.exe	Required	Required
MSAccess.exe	Not Allowed	Required

2. I notice one user mentioned 'FilePath' in the previous thread, please note this path 'attribute' is simply an non-primary column value for information purpose for all the windows exe file .  The primary keys of file evidence as well as used for 'Matching' are:   Name,Version,Company,Description,Size. (please see more details of online help) 

Therefore , Wildcarding the 'filepath' which only beautify the path information, but won't make it more 'powerful' to absorb more exe file. Those Primary key items are the string value you need to consider a wildcard. 

Hope it helps.

Best Regards

Kevin

[kathy_allen]

@SManagementTea9  I'm guessing the mobaxterm.exe files is assigned to both the Home and Pro applications which is why you are seeing duplicates.  Are both the highlighted evidences marked as 'required'?  If you mark the Professional exe to Required and the mobaxterm.exe to not required for recognition, does it pull just your pro installs?

[SManagementTea9]

Hi Kathy Previously the mobaxterm.exe was marked as not required for recognition and we were seeing installs reflected against the Home edition when users had Pro actually installed. We manually created evidence so yes we are now seeing duplicates. I'll talk to our team to see if we can fix that for the interim. cheers Conny