Major ESET Remote Administrator 6 problems, questions, not SMB ready, not satisfied

[nvanaert 2]

Hello all,

 

I've recently started to try ESET Remote Administrator 6 at one of of the company's customer sites and would like to report that this software is a major PITA to use and even install (cause the installation gave A LOT of problems). Our SMB company has A LOT of SMB customers varying from 5 up to 200 users. All of these customers are using ESET Endpoint Protection Standard or ESET Endpoint Secure Business. Sadly version 6 of the ESET Remote Administrator software has been a major pain-in-the- experience so far. If this experience continues, we will re-evaluate our decision for using ESET as a security solution and look at alternatives, cause this is software we really need and makes life for maintenance easy.

 

Is there any way that I can deploy ESET Endpoint Antivirus 6 packages using ESET Remote Administrator 5? Cause whenever I try to create an MSI package with configuration file for ESET Endpoint Antivirus 6, it shows me "Error: 10055", when trying to create an MSI file with configuration, yet we would like to migrate at least the clients in an easy way to ESET Endpoint Antivirus 6.

 

Until when is ESET Remote Administrator 5 supported?

 

One of the major reasons we love and we use ESET is because:

- ESET Remote Administrator 5 is extremely easy to us;

- ESET Remote Administrator 5 has NO siginificant system requirements. A lot of our customers have budget servers, running an extra MSSQL Express instance, an Apache Tomcat Server and even more software for managing antivirus is simply ridiculous;

- ESET Remote Administrator 5 is a KISS (Keep IT Simple, Stupid) principle for me and my colleagues;

- Is there AN EASY and RAPID way to deploy an MSI package with configuration file through the Microsoft Active Directory using Remote Administrator 6? Because I've read the procedures on how to configure it and tried it with ESET Remote Administrator 6, but it seems like a extremely complicated NASA formula for deploying and managing simple antivirus software at customer sites, which is simply ridiculous.

 

Though we've been an extremely happy customer for the last 8 years (we've started using the software in 2007) and continued to use it loyally, we're definitely not satisfied with version 6 of the Remote Administrator software. If we would really need to deploy ESET Remote Administrator 6 (once version 5 is discontinued) with it's exremely high memory usage, requiring a SQL database, Apache Tomcat server and other useless software, we will re-evaluate our decision and look for an alternative security solutions and likely will switch all of our customers on the long term, which are 150+ customers, with an average of 50 - 100 users! So that's A LOT of licenses.

 

Kind Regards

[Marcos 5,070]

Endpoint v5 can be managed by ERA v6. All you need to do is deploy agent which will work as an intermediary between Endpoint v5 and ERA v6. Perhaps using a virtual appliance would be easiest for you if installing on a separate Windows server is not an option. With ERA v6 installed, you can create an agent live installer (a small batch file) which you'll deploy on clients through GPO for instance. Alternatively you can also create a custom mst file in Orca or push the live installer from ERA. For deployment options, please refer to hxxp://support.eset.com/kb3595/.

If you have both ERA v5 and ERA v6 installed, you can push agent live installer from ERA v5 as a custom installation package as well.

[nvanaert 2]

Perhap this is a solution for Enterprise deployments (which I doubt seriously), who have internal dedicated IT personnel that have the time to create custom scripts or MST files. This is still way too complicated for relatively simple SMB deployments. We've got 100's of customers to serve with different setups, thus requiring different scripts. We don't have the time to be writing custom scripts for each customer, neither the customers will pay for the extra time that is used for deployment and adaptions. Why does it have to be so complicated? I'm definitely comfortable scripting, but not for a solution like this. It used to be SO easy, by just editing the XML with the provided GUI and producing an MSI file with configuration, attaching it to the "Active Directory -> Software Installation" and have the software deploy automatically through Active Directory with configuration. We were basically be able to just edit the configuration (XML) file, change the username, password and server name and, import it at another customer site and we were done. We're supposed to be getting away from scripting, but this software seems to go towards scripting.

 

Forgot to mention that the GUI sometimes responds horribly slow and is lagging of the new ESET Remote Administrator. Is there any reason why this GUI can respond so horribly slow, while the old GUI is just a native Microsoft Windows GUI and is incredibly fast and responsive?

[nvanaert 2]

I've also watched the YouTube videos twice already, but there's also no explanation on how I can configure certain settings during the installation of the package (like I'm able to by deploying the MSI with an XML configuration file), like Remote Administrator server, Update server, Client password etc.

 

The installation is also very inefficient because you need to go to each PC to reboot it, to have a script run at start up, that downloads the agent and after the agent is downloaded and installed, you still need to deploy the antivirus and (presumably, cause I can't find anything regarding pushing configuration automatically) configure tasks to push the client specific settings. That's very inefficient.

[bbahes 29]

Welcome to v6

 

Unfortunately I have no good news for you. You can read this topic and see other people having same problems https://forum.eset.com/topic/4301-not-happy-with-era-6/

 

Regarding your question on support, you can see here for Business users what to expect: hxxp://support.eset.com/kb3592/

 

In my company we have agreed to follow this timeline with v5 and test v6 with each release, until, as we like to joke, they release final version of v6.

We are also considering switch to other solutions, but as you have also said v5 was so great product that we have hard time to accept that we will have to replace it.

[nvanaert 2]

I've discussed this internally and that's what we'll do too for all of our customers. We'll stay on ESET Endpoint Antivirus 5 for now and see what happens. If they didn't change anything by the end of 2016, we'll take our security solution into re-evaluation in 2016 and we'll likely switch to another antivirus vendor in 2017.

[Marcos 5,070]

1, If you configure an activation task for the dynamic group with not activated clients and deploy agent on clients, after installing Endpoint via a software install task these clients will be activated by agent almost immediately. If this is not an option for you, please provide us with more information so that we better understand the scenario of how you deploy Endpoint and why you need some things to work differently. We listen to our customers and continually bring new features and improvements to ERA. A newer version of ERA is planned to be released soon with other versions to follow next year.

 

2, We are about to release a newer version of ERA (5.3) soon as well. It will contain some minor improvements and fixes in updater that will be backported from Endpoint v6.

[bbahes 29]

1, If you configure an activation task for the dynamic group with not activated clients and deploy agent on clients, after installing Endpoint via a software install task these clients will be activated by agent almost immediately. If this is not an option for you, please provide us with more information so that we better understand the scenario of how you deploy Endpoint and why you need some things to work differently. We listen to our customers and continually bring new features and improvements to ERA. A newer version of ERA is planned to be released soon with other versions to follow next year.

 

2, We are about to release a newer version of ERA (5.3) soon as well. It will contain some minor improvements and fixes in updater that will be backported from Endpoint v6.

 

What about documentation? Do you have timeline for releases and feature list?

 

Thank you for supporting great product like v5!

[karlisi 26]

2, We are about to release a newer version of ERA (5.3) soon as well. It will contain some minor improvements and fixes in updater that will be backported from Endpoint v6.

Very god news, thanks ESET!

[Gonzalo Alvarez 66]

Hi @nvanaert,

 

One get use to fast to the good things isn't?

 

From my point of view ERAv6 have a not fast learning curve but I believe is the necessary step to the next generation

of security layers.

 

I agree with you is not the best solution for an SMB of 5 PC (example) but for that case you can loose the ERAv6 console

and setup all terminals with AV v6 solutions mirroring 1 PC. Will be protected but lost the reports, which from a point of

view, they not even interested in have it.

 

Through the years I saw ESET made very good quality software adapting to the clients needs, so I believe you need just

to be patience, eventually ERAv6 will be another good product to deploy and use.

 

ERA v6.2 have good improvements from the v6.0 version, and as @Marcos says is going to be better both versions.

[nvanaert 2]

We will wait for ESET Remote Administrator 5.3 then. We will not upgrade to ESET Remote Administrator 6.x anytime soon. Version 6 is horrible in management, not to mention incredibily inefficient with system resources and just does not suffice for us. Who on earth uses Java (Apache Tomcat) as a webservice for local maintenance tasks. A small HTTP server would've been more than sufficient. It's like VMware moving to Adobe Flash for it's management GUI for VMware vShpere, while the whole world is moving away from Adobe Flash for having more holes than swiss cheese.

[nvanaert 2]

As requested and discussed with the Dutch distributor, this thread can be closed. Our distributor will put in a feature enhancement request and file the complaints formally

[Gonzalo Alvarez 66]

I suggest you mark your last reply as best answer, then will be up to see as anyone enters here.

 

Regards,

[bbahes 29]

As requested and discussed with the Dutch distributor, this thread can be closed. Our distributor will put in a feature enhancement request and file the complaints formally

 

I highly doubt these formal complaints will ever be effective as voicing your opinion here on forum.

This is public forum so anyone can see problems and solutions.

[Gonzalo Alvarez 66]

Hi,

 

Talking globally, that's depends on the internal politic of each company (not talking about ESET here).

I know some company who takes more serious comments on Facebook page, and others ask you to fill a

formal complaint.

 

In my opinion, a complain in forum (or rage) is talk to the wind.

[bbahes 29]

Hi,

 

Talking globally, that's depends on the internal politic of each company (not talking about ESET here).

I know some company who takes more serious comments on Facebook page, and others ask you to fill a

formal complaint.

 

In my opinion, a complain in forum (or rage) is talk to the wind.

 

I agree with you on different degree of attention different companies give on different source of customer input.

As sys admin I follow forums as most people who are in sys admin position do.

It's not that I expect ESET team is watching forums all day, but if I see many posts about many problems I can make decision to carry on with subscription or not.

[Gonzalo Alvarez 66]

yes, or to read if a fix is coming by.

 

In the case of ESET they really take care of what is say here.

[bbahes 29]

yes, or to read if a fix is coming by.

 

In the case of ESET they really take care of what is say here.

 

In the end it's "take it, or leave it" for money you give