New Hero Lab beta - we need your help!

[Colen]

Hi everyone,

A new beta version of Hero Lab is now available, and we'd like you to install it! Before I talk about what's in the beta and where to get it, I need to explain an error you may get while installing on Windows, and why we're doing this beta in the first place.

"Windows protected your PC"

On Windows, we have to apply a special "code signing certificate" to all of our software releases. When we "sign" our releases with this certificate, your computer knows that they're legitimate programs that came from us, rather than weird viruses from the depths of the internet.

If we didn't go through this step, you'd always see a notice like this when you tried to install Hero Lab:



This message appears when Windows stops you running "unsigned" programs, and is intended to protect you if someone tricks you into downloading a program that would infect your computer and do bad things.

These certificates can typically be used for 3 years, and ours recently expired. We got a new certificate, but apparently it takes a while for it to become "accepted" by Windows - until then, Windows treats the program as unsigned, and so people will still see the message above when they install Hero Lab, even though our certificate is up-to-date.

The only way to fix this is to have a bunch of people actually use the program, to convince Windows that it's safe and not some sort of terrible virus. That means when you install the beta below on Windows, you might see the "Windows protected your PC" message - if you see it, please click the "More Info" option and click "Run anyway".

While this isn't something you should do in general, it's safe for this file. Hero Lab will install and run as normal, and after enough people do it, the warning should stop appearing for new users. Ideally, enough people will try the beta that by the time we officially release this update next week, the warning will go away.

What changed in this release?

Most importantly, the new beta should solve problems like the one reported by users in this thread:

http://forums.wolflair.com/showthread.php?t=56866

If you're experiencing crashes or errors like this when loading Pathfinder, please give the beta a try, and let us know if it doesn't fix them.

Here are some of the other changes in this beta:

• More helpful error messages are now reported when you try to load a character that uses content to which you don’t have access to, which isn’t available because you’re in demo mode, or which isn’t available because you don’t have the appropriate user content installed.
• The Hero Lab Manual (accessible from the Help menu) now includes a section to help users build their own encounter libraries.
• Error messages were being incorrectly reported for some users when loading creatures from the encounter builder.
• Fixed various crashes that could occur in rare situations.
• Making certain changes to other actors from the Tactical Console could cause unusual behavior, because the portfolio was not being updated properly.
• Under certain circumstances, a menu selection could be lost when loading a portfolio. For example, if a character had claw attacks from two different sources, and selected one of those attacks with the “improved natural attack” ability, the selection might not be recognized next time the portfolio was loaded. (If you’re affected by this bug, it should be fixed the next time you save the portfolio.)
• If the “Enable Debug Tracing” setting was enabled, it could take a very long time (over a minute) to load the Encounter Library.

Where to get the beta

You can download the betas here:

Beta testing is over - thanks everyone!

Please let me know if you run into any problems with them, by posting in this forum thread.

Thanks for your help, everyone!

[JHale1966]

Can this be installed separately from 7.6b?

[MNBlockHead]

Seems like it is primarily for fixing bugs? For users who are not experiencing any issues, are there any advantages to us or the developers of having install and run?

[ShadowChemosh]

Originally Posted by Colen

The only way to fix this is to have a bunch of people actually use the program, to convince Windows that it's safe and not some sort of terrible virus.

Originally Posted by MNBlockHead

Seems like it is primarily for fixing bugs? For users who are not experiencing any issues, are there any advantages to us or the developers of having install and run?

Yes. The more people that install this Beta the less issues everyone else will have in the next HL update.

[Colen]

Originally Posted by JHale1966

Can this be installed separately from 7.6b?

Unfortunately not, but if you experienced problems, you could download and reinstall v7.6b from our web site and reinstall it.

[VideoGeek]

Must have gotten it hammered out, 'cause Windows didn't try to protect my PC.

[Colen]

Originally Posted by VideoGeek

Must have gotten it hammered out, 'cause Windows didn't try to protect my PC.

Woohoo! Which version of windows are you running, can I ask?

[VideoGeek]

Windows 10 Home.

[WargamingR]

Will there be a similar issue for the Mac version when it comes out, or is this just a Windows issue?

[Colen]

Originally Posted by WargamingR

Will there be a similar issue for the Mac version when it comes out, or is this just a Windows issue?

I'm 95% sure this will only be a Windows issue. Apple seems to be more willing to take new certificates on trust, possibly because you get macOS code signing certificates directly from them, rather than through an intermediary like you do for Windows certificates.