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Service Protector Changelog

What's new in Service Protector 9.5.2.83

Nov 4, 2023
  • New features:
  • New sanity check: Verify TCP/IP network connections.
  • Full support for monitoring "Automatic (Delayed Start)" services.
  • Fixes & Improvements:
  • Improved efficiency when checking the status of a service.
  • Augmented internal logging throughout the program, to provide better feedback when troubleshooting thorny customer issues.
  • Enhanced coordination with Windows when a system shutdown has been initiated, to eliminate unnecesary restarts.
  • When waiting, show the wait time in the "protected" tooltip.
  • Implemented a slight performance boost when reading Windows Event log records.
  • Detect and handle the situation when Service Protector is waiting to restart the service but it gets started by another process.
  • Updated the icons on the "Tools" menu to match those on Windows 11/10.

New in Service Protector 9.0.4.72 (Apr 8, 2023)

  • New features:
  • Introduced support for importing protectors from multiple files at once.
  • Fixes & Improvements:
  • Fixed an issue with the registration window on high-res, 4K screens.
  • Added the ability to remove the registration code, to return Service Protector to the unregistered state.
  • Improved the handling of non-English text when sending mail and reporting activity.
  • The version licensed is now mentioned in the "About" window.
  • The program now logs a line when a protector is started at boot.

New in Service Protector 8.5.3.61 (Oct 15, 2022)

  • New features:
  • Introduced a sanity check to detect when an important application isn't running.
  • Added support for date variables in the file-updated sanity check.
  • Fixes & Improvements:
  • Fixed a crash when testing a custom sanity check.
  • Improved logging when running a sanity check.
  • Reduced CPU load when scanning for crash dialogs.
  • Support for Windows 10 22H2.
  • Support for Windows 11 22H2.

New in Service Protector 8.1.3.70 (Apr 3, 2022)

  • Automatically enable the service if it's disabled.
  • Full support for Windows Server 2022.

New in Service Protector 8.0.8.62 (Nov 21, 2021)

  • New features:
  • Introduced a flexible framework for sanity checks that are able to detect when a running service is not functioning as required (and subsequently restarting it).
  • Added a sanity check to test basic TCP/IP network connectivity.
  • Added a sanity check to test if a web server is responding properly.
  • Added a sanity check to test if a file is being updated regularly.
  • Added a sanity check that runs your own custom program/script.
  • Full support for Windows 11.
  • Fixes & Improvements:
  • Improved internal logging on Windows 11.
  • Added code to tolerate systems that apply timezone settings late, a few seconds after boot.
  • Special handling for "splwow64.exe" processes, which may not exit properly following the completion of a print job.

New in Service Protector 7.0.5.29 (Feb 13, 2021)

  • New features:
  • Alert emails now include the most recent activity from the Windows Event Logs.
  • The first sanity check can now be delayed to avoid conflicts when the service starts.
  • Fixes & Improvements:
  • Improved performance when loading 50+ services.
  • Improved performance when loading 1000+ records from the Windows event logs.
  • Bug fixes for internal TCP/IP networking components.
  • Minor adjustments for Windows 10 October 2020 (20H2).
  • Several improvements to the registration windows.
  • Added the Help > FAQ menu, linking to popular FAQ entries.
  • Minor tweaks for Windows Server 2019 and Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 19577.
  • Increased the "Additional info" field in emails from 30 to 60 characters.
  • Link to our website when configuring the sanity check feature, email.

New in Service Protector 6.5.3.71 (Oct 18, 2019)

  • New features:
  • Added the ability to restart the service when the PC resumes fom a sleep/hibernation/low-power event.
  • Fixes & Improvements:
  • Single-CPU percent is now properly reported.
  • Present additional informtion on the registration windows.
  • Mention when the 30-day trial expires in the main window's title.

New in Service Protector 5.3.0.87 (Apr 3, 2017)

  • New features:
  • CPU hog detection now supports windows services that use all CPUs.
  • Fixes & Improvements:
  • Fixed a bug when dismissing Windows popups.

New in Service Protector 5.0.8.43 (Apr 14, 2016)

  • New features:
  • Added the option of starting protection immediately after adding a new Protector. The default is "on".
  • Fixes & Improvements:
  • Executable components are now signed with a SHA-256 certificate.
  • Minor improvements to a few windows in the purchase process.
  • Resolved a registry permission issue that occasionally occurred when registering the software.
  • Removed HTML centering from email messages, to avoid poor formatting when viewed in gmail.
  • Show sanity check error codes in the range of -10 to -1 as negative.
  • Events from the System log now show up on activity reports.
  • Added links to tutorials under the Help menu.
  • Tweaks for supporting Windows 10 and Windows Server 2012 R2.

New in Service Protector 4.5.3.68 (Sep 8, 2014)

  • Fixes & Improvements:
  • Mail servers actually called "mail" weren't being recorded properly.
  • Re-enabled the Desktop Security Settings entry in the Tools menu.
  • Removed Local Security Settings from the Tools menu when Windows does not provide that functionality.
  • Fixed a bug with the expansion of special sanity check command line variables.
  • Improved the log messages for CPU hogs.
  • Improved memory tracking.
  • Dates and times were inconsitently formatted on non-English localizations. These have all been normalized to the English locale, to be consistent with the rest of the program.
  • Fixed a problem sending reports at midnight when a scheduled restart was configured at the same time.

New in Service Protector 4.0.6.39 (Apr 12, 2013)

  • New features:
  • Identify and resolve service executables that remain alive after they have informed the Windows Service Control Manager that they have stopped.
  • When stopping a service, wait for at least a minute before forcibly terminating the service's executable. The wait time is configurable.
  • Multiple scheduled stops are now supported - daily or on specific days of the week.
  • Fixes & Improvements:
  • Fixed a bug when activating the main window and a warning was showing.
  • Improved licensing on virtual machines (Azure, EC2).
  • Registration would sometimes fail on PCs where there is no "C:" drive.

New in Service Protector 3.7.1.28 (Feb 13, 2012)

  • New features:
  • Added the ability to run a command when the service stops.
  • Fixes & Improvements:
  • Fix for the inability to read icons from some services.

New in Service Protector 3.5.0.91 (Jan 3, 2012)

  • New features:
  • Added the capability to define the threshold for a CPU hog.
  • Allow Protectors to be imported and exported from the command line.
  • Fixes & Improvements:
  • Cap the number of emails sent every 6 and 12 hours to avoid flooding.
  • Improved a few error messages.

New in Service Protector 3.1.1.87 (Nov 24, 2011)

  • Fixed removing the underlying service would prevent Service Protector from starting properly.

New in Service Protector 3.0.5.79 (Nov 24, 2011)

  • Added support for sending email with TLS or STARTTLS encryption (for Office 365).
  • The correct peak memory was not recorded in the activity statistics.
  • When the service is started after a delay, no entry was made to the Event Log.
  • Restarting at a scheduled time didn't work when Service Protector hadn't started/restarted the service.
  • Improved the graceful shutdown of the service when scheduled.
  • Improved the handling of services that deliberately leave a process running after they have stopped (e.g. Windows Firewall).

New in Service Protector 2.7.1.34 (Nov 24, 2011)

  • Improved licensing on virtual machines.

New in Service Protector 2.6.0.75 (Mar 26, 2011)

  • Fixes & Improvements:
  • Note when a service that takes a while to start transitions to the started/running state.
  • Reduced the number of emails sent when a service/application is repeatedly failing

New in Service Protector 2.5.9.16 (Feb 16, 2011)

  • New features:
  • Can now switch to Session 0 from the Tools menu.
  • Fixes & Improvements:
  • Fix for not detecting a hang in Windows Forms applications.
  • Fixed a daylight savings time bug with emailed reports.
  • Fixed a bug where time zones in email dates could be negative.
  • Improved the performance of reading from the Event Logs.

New in Service Protector 2.0.3.91 (Dec 11, 2010)

  • New features:
  • Provide up to 30 days of service history
  • Fixes & Improvements
  • Application crash dialogs were not always being dismissed
  • The sanity check doesn't accept a .CMD file with variables
  • Trouble licensing on Windows XP