IBM Personal Communications Version 14.0 for Windows operating systems
First Edition
This document contains information supplementary to the online help and the publications, including newly added functions, hints, tips, restrictions, and corrections. See the Personal Communications Information Center for other considerations when using Personal Communications Version 14.0, and for complete product documentation.
For information on installing IBM Personal Communications for Windows, refer to the Installation Guide for Installation document. Refer to Quick Beginnings for information about the new features and functionality of Version 14.0.
Names and license terms for third-party components are referenced in license.txt, which is located in the Personal Communications installation directory or in the product installation image.
Thank you for choosing Personal Communications Version 14.0.
Introducing 64-bit PCOMM
Installer Enhancements
Session Manager Online
Preferences
Subscribing to Support News
IBM SupportAssistant
Installing or migrating Personal Communications with Communications Server
Displaying Arabic data in the VBHLLAPI sample program
Personal Communications Version 14.0 is based on the popular Personal Communications Version 13.0. If you are familiar with Personal Communications Version 13.0, you might want to review the following new functions and enhancements.
Starting from version 14.0, 64-bit version of PCOMM will be supported so that PCOMM can run as a native 64-bit application on all supported 64-bit Windows OS. Switching to 64-bit offers various performance advantages as well as better interoperability/integration with other applications as more and more applications are being ported to 64-bit.
Notes:
For details regarding the changes in IBM Personal Communications for 64-bit PCOMM, and the list of unsupported features, see 'Updates for 64-Bit PCOMM' in the Quick Beginnings Guide.
As part of Managed IBM Personal Communications (MPCOMM) feature, a new panel has been added to the IBM Personal Communications Installer, where a user can provide the HACP Server configuration details in the installation panel.
Here are the configuration parameters,
The HACP server configuration is optional only, user can click next to skip the configuration and can configure this through "Preferences" utility post installation.
Starting from version 14.0, automatic upgrade of PCOMM will be supported. HACP administrators can manage the upgradation of PCOMM clients by placing the upgrade configuration file in the Web Server, which has the information of recommended Fix packs/Refresh packs that are available on the Web Server. The Web Sever URL can be provided during installation or can be configured via the "Preferences" utility.
When a User invokes the "Start or Configure Sessions - Online", the application checks if the installed version of PCOMM is lower than the recommended version. If the PCOMM installed on the system is of a lower version, the User gets a notification of the latest available PCOMM version. The User can either choose to upgrade or decline the upgrade option.
Note:
The upgrade configuration file is unique for every Refresh pack installer and is shipped along with the Fix pack/Refresh pack package.
For details regarding the Managed PCOMM Configuration parameters and Auto-upgrade feature, see 'HACP Server Details' in the Quick Beginnings Guide.
Personal Communications uses the Session Manager Online dialog to provide easy access to workstation profiles and batch files on the HACP Server. HACP Server is the IBM Host On-Demand service manager. For Session Manager Online to work, the "Allow users to create accounts" check box must be enabled on the HOD admin console.
You can use the Session Manager Online to start a single or multiple sessions, and create a new session or batch file. Workstation profiles and batch files are stored on HACP Server. Users can create a user entry on the HACP Server, Logon to HACP Server and migrate the existing files to HACP Server. Auto-upgrade to later version Personal Communications is supported on Session Manager Online.
For details regarding Session Manager Online, see 'Session Manager Online' in the Quick Beginnings Guide.
HACP Server Configuration is added under the 'Advanced' Tab. Users can configure the 'Web Server URL', where Personal Communications patch installer would be available for auto-upgrade. User can also configure HACP server and port where the user's Workstation profiles and batch files are maintained.
For details regarding Preference changes, see the 'Preferences' section in the Quick Beginnings Guide.
You can find documentation and links to other resources at the IBM Documentation for
Personal Communications Version 14.0
.To receive Personal Communications support news flashes, complete the following steps:
http://www.ibm.com/software/network/pcomm/support
The IBM Support Assistant enables you to easily resolve software questions. The Support Assistant provides the following components:
Help desk personnel and Personal Communications administrators might want to install Support Assistant in order to better support end users. The Support Assistant can be downloaded from the following address:
http://www.ibm.com/software/support/isa/index.html
If you have both Personal Communications and IBM Communications Server for Windows installed on a system, you should not use automatic migration when installing a newer version of Personal Communications.
First, remove both Personal Communications and Communications Server for Windows from the system. You should then reinstall Communications Server, before installing the new version of Personal Communications.
For proper display of Arabic data in the VBHLLAPI sample program, you should do the following:
Refer to Emulator Programming for information about the API sample programs.
IBM Personal Communications has been updated to handle the new ligature. Conversion tables to translate between EBCDIC and UNICODE encoding have been updated. The new "Reiwa" ligature is supported by Host Code Pages 1399 and 1390 only.
The code signer certificate used to sign the previous versions of IBM Personal Communications software will expire on Jan 23, 2020. In the current version, the IBM Personal Communications software is signed with a new code signer certificate that is valid up to June 7, 2021.
This certificate is issued to "HCL America Inc." by "DigiCert SHA2 Assured ID Code Signing CA". "HCL America Inc." is the partner of "International Business Machines Corporation" authorized to sign IBM Personal Communications software.
A Refresh pack for an IBM Personal Communications release contains APARs, bug fixes and enhancements. The Refresh packs released are cumulative of the Fix packs/Refresh packs of all the previous versions over the base version.
This Refresh pack supports GUI and Silent installation (using initialization file).
When a user installs 'IBM Personal Communications RP1.msi' of version 14.0.1.0, the base package of IBM Personal Communications will be upgraded from version 14.0.0.0 to IBM Personal Communications 14.0.1.0. A new entry for IBM Personal Communications 14.0.1.0 will be added to Control Panel's 'Programs and Features' in addition to IBM Personal Communications 14.0.0.0, which is removed if the Refresh pack is uninstalled.
Refresh packs can also be installed using the Managed PCOMM feature introduced in version 14.0.0.0. For instructions to install the Refresh pack, refer to the Technote : PCOMM Refresh Pack Installer Instructions for V14.0.
This Refresh Pack contains fixes for APARS and internal defects.
Bundled IBM Java Runtime Environment (JRE) is upgraded to version 1.8 SR6 FP10.
A Refresh pack for an IBM Personal Communications release contains APARs, internal defects and enhancements. The Refresh packs released are cumulative of the Fix packs/Refresh packs of all the previous versions over the base version.
This Refresh pack supports GUI and Silent installation (using initialization file).
When a user installs 'IBM Personal Communications RP2**.msi' of version 14.0.2.0, the installer checks if the installed version of PCOMM is an earlier version than the recommended version of IBM Personal Communications and it will be upgraded from the previous version of IBM Personal Communications to 14.0.2.0. A new entry for IBM Personal Communications 14.0.2.0 will be added to Control Panel's 'Programs and Features", in addition to the previous versions of IBM Personal Communications (like 14.0.0.0, 14.0.1.0). This entry will be removed if the Refresh pack is uninstalled. Refresh packs can also be installed using the Managed PCOMM feature introduced in version 14.0.0.0. For instructions to install the Refresh pack, refer to the Technote : PCOMM Refresh Pack Installer Instructions for V14.0.
Note:
The Refresh pack update Installer for IBM Personal Communications release v14.0.2.0 is a light weight version and does not include the upgraded java, unlike the complete installer package version of 14.0.2.0.
This Refresh Pack contains fixes for APARS, internal defects and enhancements.
This feature allows Users to configure the color mapping of a session, using a color mapping configuration file (CMP). The color mapping configuration can be imported, modified and saved to a CMP file. The default color mapping configuration can also be customized for all the profiles using the default color mapping configuration file ('DefaultColorConfig.CMP').
This feature enables Users to convert a Personal Communications VBScript macro file to an XML file using the 'Convert Macro' utility. The XML Macros can be run in other Emulator products like Host On-Demand and HACP Extended Edition products.
This feature allows IBM Personal Communications (PCOMM) Users to access PCOMM profiles through IBM Host On-demand (HOD) clients as well as in HACP Extended Edition, after migrating/uploading their profiles to HACP Server. For more information on HOD-PCOMM interoperability, refer to Technote.
This Refresh Pack contains fixes for APARS and internal defects.
The code signer certificate used to sign the previous versions of IBM Personal Communications software will expire on June 07, 2021. In the current version, the IBM Personal Communications software is signed with a new code signer certificate that is valid up to April 20, 2024.
This certificate is issued to "HCL America Inc." by "DigiCert SHA2 Assured ID Code Signing CA". "HCL America Inc." is the partner of "International Business Machines Corporation" authorized to sign IBM Personal Communications software.
With this release, IBM Stand-Alone Host On-Demand is no longer bundled with IBM Personal Communications.
This Refresh Pack contains fixes for APARS and internal defects.
When the "Pass Through Host Certificate Validation" option is enabled, a warning pop-up regarding the attempt to connect to an untrusted server is displayed.
Users can suppress this pop-up by adding the new keyword "SuppressPassThroughPopup=Y" under the "[Security]" section in the pcswin.ini file.
The PasteText() EHLLAPI and HACL functions have been enhanced to process the <Tab> key functionality. This enhancement causes the cursor to move to the next unprotected field, when the Tab character in the Windows clipboard is pasted to the PCOMM emulator screen.
With this release, the PCOMM full Refresh Pack installer allows to disable the Kerberos Auto-Signon feature during the installation. When this feature is disabled, the windows logon credentials are not intercepted by PCOMM.
Interoperability between PCOMM and HOD (Host On-Demand) clients was introduced in PCOMM v14.0.3.0, which allowed PCOMM sessions to be accessed through HOD and HACP EE products after the session definitions were migrated (uploaded) to the HACP server.
With this release, PCOMM client communicates with the HACP server over HTTP/HTTPS connectivity using JSON data.
For the existing Managed PCOMM users configured with HACP server, a migration utility has been provided along with HOD v14.0.5 server component, to migrate the PCOMM session definitions stored on the HACP server to the new format. The migration is a pre-requisite for those who plan to migrate their HOD server to v14.0.5 and PCOMM client to v14.0.5.
For more information on HOD-PCOMM interoperability, see Interoperability between Personal Communications and Host On-Demand clients.
From 14.0.5.0 onwards, the Auto-upgrade feature allows Windows users who are not part of the "Administrator" group to install the "Refresh Pack Update" installer for future updates, with the base version as 14.0.5.0 or higher.
With this release, IBM JRE is no longer bundled with IBM Personal Communications. The features dependent on Java, viz., 'Run Applet Java' and 'HACL Java Automation' will work with system JRE.
This Refresh Pack contains fixes for APARS and internal defects.
PCOMM x64-bit now supports the Menu Customization Utility. Using this, the user can customize emulator session menu items.
The PCOMM x64-bit package includes the EHLLAPI x64-bit libraries and required header files. It enables the static linking of the EHLLAPI libraries (pcscal32.lib, whlap32lib) for EHLLAPI automation. This package also includes a sample that uses libraries by static linking and a "readme" file with instructions to build and use the sample.
PCOMM supports HTTPS connection over TLS 1.3 to connect to the IBM License Manager Server and HACP Server.
The file transfer policy restriction enforced in the "Data Transfer" utility disables the switch buttons(send/receive) based on the policy settings set by the user.
The "SendKeys ()" HACP API is enhanced to retrieve the return code and return the code to the calling application using HACL automation.
In this release, users do not require entering old or Expired Passwords to update the new password.
This Refresh Pack contains fixes for APARS and internal defects.
The code signer certificate used to sign the previous versions of IBM Personal Communications software will expire on April 20, 2024. In the current version, the IBM Personal Communications software is signed with a new code signer certificate that is valid up to February 25, 2026.
This certificate is issued to "International Business Machines Corporation" by "DigiCert Trusted G4 Code Signing RSA4096 SHA384 2021 CA1".
A security defect has been fixed in PCOMM's Windows service program, "pcommservice".
From this release onwards, the IBM SNA stack support has been removed.
This Refresh Pack contains fixes for APARS and internal defects.