Updating to version 2.93

EventSentry v2.93 will make changes to your EventSentry database schema, which may take several hours to complete (see below).

EventSentry v2.93 includes important changes to the performance monitoring component, and you may be required to install a Microsoft hotfix.

The performance monitoring feature has been rewritten from scratch to support the following new features:

•	ability to collect performance data in more than one database

•	create dynamic performance data by combining two performance counters

•	improved alerts, exhibiting more information

•	leak detection, e.g. to detect memory or handle leaks

•	UI improvements when configuring performance counters

To enable some of these new features, the agent now accesses performance data directly through the registry API. Most versions of Windows Server 2003 with SP2 exhibit a bug which results in a memory and/or handle leak when querying certain performance data through the registry API. Windows 2008 does not appear to be affected by this issue. To address the issue, Microsoft hotfix 938135 needs to be installed on all affected computers.

When performance monitoring is active, the EventSentry agent will monitor its own resource usage and generate error event 12114 if it detects an usually high handle or memory usage.

In order to support 64-bit event numbers, many of the tables in the EventSentry database need to be updated. This database update may take anywhere from a few minutes to several hours (or even days), depending on the following:

•	database performance (e.g. hard disk speed, memory, etc.)

If you have a large database (e.g. > 100Gb) and/or a slow database, then you should prepare for an upgrade process that will take an extended amount of time. If the database contains outdated or obsolete data, then the database should be purged either through the purge utility or the web reports.

To resolve a variety of problems which users have encountered with the MSI-based installer, version 2.93 ships with a new installer. This change is transparent to the user but will result in a better user experience. EventSentry still includes the agent-based MSI to allow the deployment of the agent through Active Directory or similar methods.

Version 2.93 supports USB-only temperature/humidity hardware sensors which do not require serial ports.

The improved hardware inventory (available through the web reports) will show important and useful information on DELL and HP servers when the respective management software (available for free from the manufacturers web site) is installed. The following information is now captured and available:

•	Configured hardware RAIDs and hard drives in the RAID arrays

It is no longer necessary to run IIS in 32-bit mode in order to host the EventSentry web reports. If you have switched IIS to 32-bit in the past, then you can switch IIS back to 64-bit mode after you have version 2.93 installed.