SimpleHelp 5.3 Beta

Try out the upcoming release of SimpleHelp 5.3.
This is prerelease software and is not production ready.
Thanks for your interest in our SimpleHelp 5.3 Beta. Our beta build is available to all SimpleHelp license holders and trialling customers. Please note that this build is for testing purposes only.

Download SimpleHelp 5.3 Beta 3
31 August 2021

Windows

All Windows and Windows Server Editions.

Linux

Ubuntu, Debian, CentOS, Fedora, RHEL, etc.

macOS, Other

macOS or other operating systems

Feedback

We welcome and appreciate any feedback or comments on these prerelease versions of SimpleHelp 5.3. Please email all feedback to [email protected]. 

Changes and Improvements

We'd love all your feedback on 5.3, but below are some of the changes which we think deserve special attention. Please note that some features may be disabled if deemed to be particularly unstable or incomplete, and will subsequently be enabled in a future beta.

Remote Access Machine Tags

Tags allow you to group machines in the Access tab in a way that is more flexible than machine groups.
  • Add any number of tags to one or more remote machines.
  • Easily view tagged machines in the Access tab.
  • Add tags or remove tags as alert trigger or reset actions, helping you to identify machines that required attention.
  • Tool script API functions allow you to add or remove tags from within scripts. For example:
               ServerUtilsAddMachineTag(@ThisMachine(), Low CPU)
               ServerUtilsRemoveMachineTag(@ThisMachine(), High CPU)
  • Filter machines by tags.

Improved Download Pages

All bundled applications now include operating system specific download pages.
  • Applications are automatically downloaded.
  • Installation steps for each operating system are included. For Linux downloads console commands are also provided.

New Supported Platforms

Remote Support, Remote Access, Technician Console and Remote Work now run natively on:
  • macOS with M1 support.
  • Linux 32bit ARM.
  • Linux 64bit ARM.

Mobile Remote Support

SimpleHelp 5.3 includes the ability to connect to and support certain mobile devices. 
  • iOS and Android devices are supported.
  • Screen sharing and image sharing is supported, along with text chat.
  • Push notifications are supported and can be configured and controlled in the Administration tab.
  • We aimed to make it as easy as possible for your customers to use the app to connect to your SimpleHelp server.
    • You can configured a server-specific 6 digit connection code that customers can enter to connect to your server.
    • The SimpleHelp server has a mobile-specific page that forwards customers to the app in the App or Play stores, and once installed directs them to your SimpleHelp server automatically.
The Remote Support iOS app is currently in app review, and Android support will be released subsequently.

Windows Screen Capture Improvements

The way we capture the screen on Windows has been rewritten to support more modern capture methods. The benefits include:
  • Faster, more responsive sessions, particularly when small portions of the screen change.
  • Less bandwidth used by a running session.
  • Improved screen blanking support, particularly in multi-monitor situations.

Additional Security Features

We've added features to better protect your SimpleHelp server.
  • Ban IP addresses and Technician accounts after a certain number of failed logins.
  • Ban IP addresses permanently.
  • CIDR subnet notation, such as 192.168.1.10/10 makes it easier to specify IP restrictions.
  • API tokens now have associated permissions, allowing for finer grained control over what can be changed using API queries.
  • SimpleHelpAdmin account can now be disabled.

macOS and Linux Service Architecture Changes

Changes to how the Linux and macOS Remote Access Services operate may impact how agents are managed and how tools are run on these platforms. 
  • The Remote Access Service now runs as a LaunchDaemon on macOS. Sessions are spawned via a LaunchAgent process that is spawned when a user logs in.
  • On Linux, the service now detects multiple X server processes and decides which to spawn a session into. This means that more modern distributions where a separate X process is spawned on user login is now supported.
  • File permissions on the new installation of a Remote Access Service have now been adapted to reflect these changes.

Other Notable Changes

  • Improved Technician Group management features.
    • Create new technician groups from templates.
    • Duplicate technician groups.
    • Filter the groups list by name, or only show groups the technician is a member of.
  • File transfer panel now supports drag and drop between tables, and from the file system to the remote machine. Additionally, it is possible to drag files into the selected remote directory, or directly into any sub directory.
  • The Remote Support application will now remember previously entered in details when relaunched.
  • macOS now uses the same mitigations as on Windows and Linux to control when the background wallpaper is restored, making this more reliable in situations where the session or remote machine terminates unexpectedly.