Templafy Desktop Host

Templafy Desktop consists of a host and a client. For more information, please see here.

Released in September 2024

Templafy Desktop Host 3.3

Update Templafy Desktop Client and Host to new brand

• Prepared Templafy Desktop Client and Host to support the rebrand by adding the new assets, images, colors and enable showing them based on whether the new brand is live.

Minor refactoring and cleanup

• Minor code refactoring and cleanup. Those changes are safe and do not affect any logic.

Add quotes to Templafy Desktop exe startup shortcut to comply to mitigate security finding

• This is a change to the Templafy Desktop msi which encapsulates the startup path in double quotes to prevent potential path interception.

Security audit: DLL Hijacking

• This release ensures Templafy Desktop Host will only load external assemblies from the Windows System32 directory. This prevents potential DLL hijacking.

Released in August 2022

Templafy Desktop Host 3.1 

Signing of the host executable

• The Templafy Desktop Host executable distributed through the installer (.msi) is digitally signed allowing the customer's IT administration to ensure Templafy as its provider.

Remove pre-requisite check for Tools for Office (VSTO runtime) and WebView2

• VSTO runtime and WebView2 check is removed from pre-requisites when installing Templafy Desktop. Only .NET Framework 4.7.2 remains.

Show a dialog for locked files during manual Templafy Desktop uninstall

• Combined with Templafy Desktop Client version 3.4.57 or higher, a dialog was added to inform the user what applications are preventing Templafy Desktop from uninstalling.  Additionally, we added support for silent uninstallation by passing /qn or quiet arguments in the  msiexec command.

Templafy Desktop does not respect DNS changes

• DNS changes to Templafy network infrastructure are now automatically updated in Templafy Desktop without requiring a restart of the application.
  
  

Use startup arguments to temporary disable upgrade of Templafy Desktop Client

• This release contains a fix to the issue where Templafy Desktop would be in a continuous restart loop when having a new Templafy Desktop Client upgrade required due to network-related issues impeding Templafy Desktop Host to access Templafy's platform. This fix also entails advanced logging capabilities in the host and requires Templafy Desktop Client version 3.4.64 or above.
  
  

Host 3.1 requires Client version 2.5 or above

• To support the transition from Templafy One to Hive, we are now allowing Desktop Client version 2.5 or above to run with Desktop Host 3.1.
  
  

Released in February 2021

Templafy Desktop Host 3.0

Templafy Desktop now runs as a 32-bit process

• To ensure Seamless Single Sign-On in hybrid environments, the host process has to run in 32-bit. The previous versions of Templafy Desktop ran in the same bitness as the operating system, which caused issues with Seamless Single Sign-On. Switching to a 32-bit process solves this issue.
  
  

.NET Framework 4.7.2 is now required

• Since WebView2 is the new browser used by Templafy Desktop (and the Office add-ins), the minimum required .NET Framework version has been increased to 4.7.2.
  
  

Added MSI installer option SKIP_PREREQUISITE_CHECK="1"

• To allow skipping the prerequisites checks and allow installing Templafy Desktop before the VSTO Runtime, WebView2 Runtime and the .NET Framework, a new installer option is now provided. Skipping prerequisites is an advanced feature and should only be used under special circumstances.

Host 3.0 requires Client version 2.5 or above

• To support the transition from Templafy One to Hive, we are now allowing Desktop Client version 2.5 or above to run with Desktop Host 3.0.
• The requirement of the Client version being greater than the Host version will be reintroduced in the next Host version.

Released in May 2019

Templafy Desktop Host Version 2.2.0.103

Templafy Desktop 2.2 host requires a client with the same or higher version.

Templafy Desktop Host Version 2.1.0.96

Upgrading to Templafy Desktop 2.1 host will require a client with the same or higher version

Installer

• Updated Terms and license agreement
• Bug fixes for Citrix environment installation validation.

Templafy Desktop Host Version 2.1.0.96

Uninstaller functionality is now possible while offline: When we attempt to uninstall Templafy Desktop, a request is made to fetch the latest version of Templafy Desktop Client to ensure the latest uninstaller is used. If the uninstall happened while offline or proxy authorization is not granted, Templafy Desktop Host could not proceed to uninstall. This story supports to complete the uninstall offline if the update request is not possible, by default to the latest Client available on the machine

Released in January 2019

Templafy Desktop Host Version 2.0.0.93 

Upgrading to Templafy Desktop host 2.0.0 XXX requires Templafy Desktop client version with the same or higher version.

Previous host versions (1.3.0.61 and lower) will still work with the new client, although upgrading the host is advised due to the added TLS 1.2 support.

Installer

Server mode install blocked on workstations

• Some customers have Templafy Desktop installed in server mode on normal workstation PC (standard Windows client installation). This is not a supported scenario and will now be blocked. If an admin tries to install Templafy Desktop with the TEMPLAFYOPTIONS="SERVERMODE" installation parameter on a normal workstation, the installation will be aborted with an error message. The server mode installation parameter is only supported on Windows Server and Citrix.

Support install in managed, elevated mode

• A lot of customers deploy Templafy Desktop through a managed installation like SCCM. This is often done in elevated mode, which was not correctly handled by the installer. This caused the installation to fail in such cases with an error stating the .NET Framework version 4.5.2 was not installed. We have not corrected this and made sure such deployments are working correctly.

Host

Signed Templafy.Desktop.exe

• In previous version of Templafy Desktop, the host application executable was not being signed. This could be an issue in some environments where certain policies required all executable to be digitally signed. We have now made sure the Templafy.Desktop.exe file is properly signed.

TLS 1.2 support

• Some customers have complained about Templafy Desktop not supporting TLS 1.2, which is rolling out and making older TLS versions obsolete. Templafy Desktop previously only supported TLS 1.0 and was not configured to support any other version. This is the default in .NET 4.5.2 which is the required version for Templafy Desktop to run. Customers enforcing TLS 1.2 was not able to download the Templafy Desktop client from the host, as it did not understand that protocol. We have now added this support to the host so it will be able to download the client.

Enforce FIPS policy

• Some customers in the US had the Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) policy enabled due to different requirements. Because the .NET Framework effectively disables certain encryption algorithms when this policy is enabled, Templafy Desktop was unable to verify the files downloaded from blob storage. Azure uses the MD5 hashing algorithm as a checksum, which Templafy Desktop uses to ensure files are correctly downloaded. This algorithm is not FIPS compliant, making the verification fail when Templafy Desktop was downloading content. Since customers with FIPS enabled would have to manually alter the Templafy Desktop configuration file, it is now added by default when Templafy Desktop is installed. It should be noted that Templafy Desktop is not violating the FIPS policy by disabling it. The MD5 algorithm is only used for verification and not for encryption, which would be a violation.

Integrity check when download new client zip-files

• The client zip-files, downloaded by the host, are now verified before extracting by using the MD5 checksum provided by blob storage. A couple of customers have had issues with proxy servers caching corrupt zip-files in the past, which this verification should alleviate. Unfortunately due to the number of different proxy servers and different behavior, it is not possible to guarantee this will avoid the issue in all situations, but it's the best possible option available.

AuthenticationMethod install parameter support

• A common request was to enable administrators to add the AuthenticationMethod to the registry, as part of the Templafy Desktop installation. This is now possible by adding AUTHENTICATIONMETHOD={authentication method} as an installation parameter. As with the TEMPLAFYOPTIONS this parameter will be stored in either HKLM or HKCU depending on the installation context.

New high resolution icon

• A minor, yet requested, feature is a new high resolution icon. The icon is properly displayed in all sized ranging from 16x16px to 256x256px.

Removed redundant files from installation folder

• Previous installations of Templafy Desktop contained xml-files which were related to the development but irrelevant to the execution. These files took up a couple of megabytes on disk, and have now been stripped from the installation.

Templafy Desktop Host Version 1.3.0.61

Added support for proxy servers that requires manual input of credentials Minor bug fixes for Citrix Improved error logging

Templafy Desktop Host Version 1.2.0.35

Support for Local Machine / Citrix installation Minor bug fixes

Templafy Desktop Host Version 1.1.0.21

Improved error logging Improved encoding-handling Support for installing in Local Machine (HKLM) Minor bug fixes

Templafy Desktop Host Version 1.0.0.0

Support for installing in Current User context (HKCU) without admin rights required. Support for automatic updating the Updater