Network Inventory Advisor is now officially ready for bigger networks. Several users reported slowdowns when scanning networks of 30000+ nodes; well, it’s surely a lot for a single network, right? But these issues should be gone by now. We rebuilt some algorithms that we used for network scanning, polished the scanning dialog a bit, and it should all be OK now.

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!