After many months of work, I'm continuing to develop DriversCloud with great passion, despite the limited time available to me.
The aim of this redesign is to prepare DriversCloud for the future, with many new features, including new services, to be released before the end of 2024. Without going into too much technical detail, at the risk of boring you, I'll simply list the major evolutions.
All the code has been reworked from A to Z, both the part dedicated to installing the agent from the website and the detection agent itself (the application installed on your computer).
In order to make these advances possible, notably the launching of the agent as a Windows service, we have unfortunately had to do without some of the old stuff. Indeed, it will no longer be possible to manually install the agent from standalone ZIP files, so don't be surprised if you no longer see these installation choices.
The application therefore becomes a background service connected to the server by the site's user account. It works in the same way as it does for mobile notifications. There's no native code running in the web browser, just secure, encrypted communication between the server and the client (DriversCloud agent) authenticated by the user account.
Rest assured, offline detection is still supported and will not require an Internet connection. However, DriversCloud now requires a free user account to operate. This is essential in order to benefit from all the new features offered by this update.
For the record, this "gateway" between the website and the agent installed on the computer was never an easy thing to set up, and above all it was extremely difficult from an ergonomic and technical point of view to reconcile the two. Now it's done, and it's the biggest major change to the site in some 15 years.
It is now possible to launch the analysis of one or more PCs directly online from a simple web browser, something previously impossible. In addition to launching the analysis and creating restore points, you can also manage driver backup and semi-automatic driver installation directly from the web browser.
This saves you the time it takes to scan all your PCs in a single pass, from a single computer - a real time-saver for anyone with several machines.
For the time being, this major update has a few limitations that will be corrected shortly, as only Windows 10 / 11 and later versions are supported. Support for Windows 7 / 8 versions will be available in the coming weeks, once I've resolved a few technical issues. Over the past 20 years, I've always provided you with fully-featured versions of all my tools, so I won't be providing you with a wobbly version today, so patience for Windows 7 and 8 users.
Here's a non-exhaustive list of other new features:
- Ability to launch a PC scan from a smartphone or tablet.
- Possibility of managing up to 10 machines directly from the user account.
- Detection options managed directly from the user account.
- The agent has been modularized and can now work with plugins.
- The internal XML parser has also been modified.
As always, it's possible that some malfunctions remain. If so, please let me know, and I'll do my best to correct them as quickly as possible. I know in advance that there will be those who are eternally dissatisfied, so come and have a chat with me instead of constantly denigrating my work, which I remind you is offered FREE OF CHARGE!
All this painstaking work wouldn't be possible without the help of certain people who help me on a daily basis, so I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Raymond in particular, who has been a great help and guide in the development of this project. A big THANK YOU also to the beta testers on the forum and in particular to AZAMOS 😊.
Last but not least, I'd like to thank you, my readers, for giving me the desire to continue developing DriversCloud.
I look forward to your opinions and comments, whether positive or negative, as long as they remain constructive and with the aim of improving things, I'll be listening.
Update 24/02/2024
I've fixed a problem sending bug reports with the agent.
Fixed a problem with the automatic installer, which didn't automatically connect the application to the site account at the end of installation.
