FireDaemon Pro and Pro OEM 5.4.14

FireDaemon Pro 5 is a major update to our Windows service management product. FireDaemon Pro allows you to create and run any application, program, or script interactively as a Windows service on Session 0. FireDaemon Pro allows your programs to be placed in a lightweight service container for fine-grained monitoring and control.

FireDaemon Pro 5 GUI in Dark Mode Theme

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Minimum System Requirements
FireDaemon Pro 5 End User Download
FireDaemon Pro 5 OEM Integrator Download
Windows Server Core App Compatibility Feature On Demand (FOD)
FireDaemon Pro 5 New Features
Buy FireDaemon Pro 5
FireDaemon Pro 5 Documentation
Before Upgrading To FireDaemon Pro 5
Bugs? Issues? Feature Requests?
Screenshots

Minimum System Requirements

FireDaemon Pro 5 is designed to run on all recent 64-bit versions of Microsoft Windows only. Please see the FireDaemon Pro Compatibility and Support Matrix and review the Changelog.

FireDaemon Pro 5 End User Download

FireDaemon Pro 3 & 4 license keys do not work with Pro 5. You must obtain a new license key to use FireDaemon Pro 5. Please read the "Get New License Keys" section below.

Version 5.4.14 64-bit / x64

For Microsoft Windows - Intel / AMD only

November 2024 - 30-day trial

Installer SHA2-256 Checksum

678789529A13DD9E0198EA1F5E7BA9955F87B873F79D3FE14CA2121DBF6C222E

Need to calculate the checksum? Download FireDaemon Lozenge!

FireDaemon Pro 5 OEM Integrator Download

FireDaemon Pro OEM customers can download product updates via the download link embedded in their Cleverbridge order confirmation or subscription renewal email. If you can't find that email or are unsure of their Cleverbridge reference number, please get in touch with us. FireDaemon Pro 5 OEM is available to customers with a current Software Assurance and Technical Support subscription.

Windows Server Core App Compatibility Feature On Demand (FOD)

If you are deploying FireDaemon Pro 5 on Windows Server Core (i.e. you are not installing Desktop Experience), please ensure you install the App Compatibility Feature On Demand (FOD) before using FireDaemon Pro. This Windows feature is required to allow FireDaemon Pro to display Windows Explorer dialog components correctly and to run other Windows operating system components from the FireDaemon Pro hamburger menu.

FireDaemon Pro 5 New Features

Feature	Description
64-bit only	Microsoft ceased delivering 32-bit native operating systems in 2020. Hence, FireDaemon Pro 5 is only offered as a 64-bit product. Don't worry, FireDaemon Pro 5 still allows you to run 32-bit apps as a Windows services on 64-bit Microsoft operating systems.
Universal CRT	Historically, we shipped the most recent Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime (MSVCRT) inside the FireDaemon Pro installer as an installation prerequisite. This dependency has been removed, and FireDaemon Pro 5 uses the Universal C++ Runtime (UCRT) which comes pre-installed with the operating system and maintained via Windows Update. This results in the installer being significantly smaller.
Hardware-based code signing	All FireDaemon software products are digitally signed. Earlier FireDaemon Pro installers and binaries were signed with SHA1 and SHA256 2048-bit digests. Pro 5 implements hardware-based SHA256 4096-bit Extended Validation (EV) code signing. SHA1 has been dropped. This adheres to industry best practices and provides two levels of trust: The issuance of a hardware-based EV Code Signing Certificate is contingent on FireDaemon Technologies Limited being audited by the certificate issuer (i.e. SECTIGO) Security Teams can validate our installers and binaries to ensure they have not been tampered with by confirming the presence of our EV Code Signing Certificate and calculating corresponding installer checksums.
Themes	Three themes are available: Light Theme, Dark Theme, and Windows Default Theme. They are accessed via the hamburger menu -> View and Options dialog. Windows Default adheres to your desktop personalisation mode (e.g., Start -> Settings -> Personalization -> Colors -> Choose your mode).
Service Control Desktop Shortcuts	If you right-click on a FireDaemon Pro service in GUI, you will see an option to Create Shortcuts. If you select that option, FireDaemon Pro will create shortcuts on your desktop to start, start in session, stop, stop in session, restart, and restart in session, which is specific to the FireDaemon Pro service. This makes it easy to manage FireDaemon Pro services without having to invoke the FireDaemon Pro GUI.
Live Service Monitoring and Reporting	FireDaemon Pro 4 and earlier used a polling method to update the Status, Process, and PID columns. This was not particularly useful, as you could not see service status changes and service creation and deletion in real-time. This is resolved in FireDaemon Pro 5. The FireDaemon Pro services and Windows services lists are updated in real-time. So whenever a service changes status, a new service is created, or a service is deleted, this is seen immediately in the FireDaemon Pro 5 GUI.
Live Service Resource Monitoring	We have removed the Memory and CPU columns from the FireDaemon Pro GUI and replaced them with a real-time Resource Monitoring dialog. To view the Resource Monitoring dialog, right-click on a running service and click Resource Monitor from the context menu. A Resource Monitor dialog will open showing the service name, FireDaemon Pro service status and PID, service process and PID, CPU, Private Bytes, and Data I/O in real-time. The Resource Monitoring dialog allows you to monitor the service from start to stop without having to rely on third-party tools such as Task Manager and Process Explorer. Lastly, the Resource Monitor summarises the CPU, memory, and I/O utilisation of the entire process tree associated with the service.
Service Tagging	It's now possible to tag services. The tag allows you to organise FireDaemon Pro services logically in the FireDaemon Pro GUI. Additionally, you can list and manipulate tagged services via the FireDaemon Pro CLI (e.g. start and stop groups of tagged services). Similarly, Windows services are automatically tagged with the service's group attribute.
Windows Services Visual Grouping	Windows Services were simply listed in the Windows Service section. You can now apply a visual grouping (by pressing Ctrl+G) where Windows Services are grouped by SVCHOST group or LSASS group.
Visible, Available, and Selected Service Quantities	The FireDaemon Pro GUI now displays the number of FireDaemon Services and Windows Services visible in the GUI, the total number of services available, and the total number selected. This is useful when you have applied filters, as not all services are immediately visible in the service list.
Service Action Hints	When you hover over the main FireDaemon Pro service control buttons, additional information is displayed advising what actions can be applied to the selected services.
Selected Services Controls	If multiple selected services are being controlled at once (e.g. started), and one of the services does not respond to the control (e.g. the start is restricted by security permissions), the action will now be simply ignored. Previously, an error would have been displayed which was confusing for the end user.
Scheduling Date and Time Formats	When creating schedules, the date and time formats were previously fixed. The date and time formats now follow the system locale formatting conventions. The system locale differs from the user locale and must be set explicitly via Control Panel -> Region -> Administrative -> Change system locale. This is because FireDaemon Pro services run at a system level. Hence, the choice to use system locale makes the most sense due to FireDaemon Pro extracting service names and conducting case-insensitive comparisons using Win32 APIs that rely on the system locale. Please refer to this article to understand the side effects associated with disjoint user space and system space locale.
Improved Service Control Visual Feedback	Additional information is displayed when hovering over the Start / Stop / Restart buttons to advise why a button might be greyed out (e.g., service is already started, service cannot be stopped, etc.).
Windows Services Control Codes Display	If you hover over the Status of a running Windows Service, the tooltip displays the accepted control codes for that service (e.g. Stop, Session change, etc.). This is useful in determining the status of a Windows Service and why it cannot be stopped, for example.
Component Separation	The FireDaemon Pro 4 executable originally doubled as the actual service component and the command line interface (CLI). This was identified as a security risk. The service component and CLI component are now split into two separate binaries. Hence, FireDaemon Pro 5 is now divided into three logical components: GUI component: FireDaemonUI.exe CLI component: FireDaemonCLI.exe Service component: FireDaemon.exe
Process Containerisation	FireDaemon Pro 5 extends the notion of Windows service to that of a true process container where your app and its entire process tree are encapsulated, isolated, managed and monitored as a single unit using various techniques, including permission restrictions, nested job objects, process breakaway mitigation, discrete environments, resource accounting and limiting, and targeted and automated credential management.
CLI Rationalisation	The FireDaemon Pro 4 command line interface (CLI) comprised old, legacy FireDaemon Pro 3 commands and new FireDaemon Pro 4 commands. It was getting unwieldy and inconsistent. So we threw it all away and started again. The command line is now consistent, from a syntax perspective, with FireDaemon Zero 3 and FireDaemon Fusion 7.
ETW Logging	We often get asked why we don't include email-based notification mechanisms in FireDaemon Pro. It's intentional. Email is a terrible mechanism for informing on status changes of Windows services. It can get very noisy, be lost in the deluge of another email, or just be ignored or overlooked for several hours, resulting in extended outage scenarios. FireDaemon Pro 4 logged events to the Windows Event Application and System Logs (EventLog) using custom event sources. From a systems and service monitoring perspective, this was not particularly useful when attempting to trace the real-time progress of a FireDaemon Pro service. Further, EventLog is designed as a management-focused event system that is typically hooked by a third-party reader, which filters the events and then performs actions based on the event in question. FireDaemon Pro 5 replaces EventLog with Event Tracing for Windows (ETW). ETW is an efficient, high-speed, kernel-level tracing facility that logs events to channels for targeted consumption and tracing. FireDaemon Pro 5 logs to Applications and Services Logs -> FireDaemon Technologies Limited -> FireDaemon Pro -> Service -> Operational ETW channel which is consumed by the Windows Event Log. This means there are no custom event sources anymore. Further, you can easily trace the progress (lifecycle) of a FireDaemon Pro service by subscribing to the Operational ETW channel. This is advantageous to Security Teams from an offensive and defensive threat-hunting perspective, as the activities of FireDaemon Pro services are sometimes misidentified as being malicious. ETW facilitates a single stream of events that can be consumed, isolated, aggregated, and interrogated using tools such as SilkETW, AWS Cloudwatch, or SIEMs such as Splunk.
Security ACLs	FireDaemon Pro 5 allows you to assign specific security permissions (ACLs) to FireDaemon Pro and Windows services. This allows you to grant or revoke access to services for specific users. You might use this feature to grant service start and stop rights to a specific local or domain user on a specific server.
New Installer	FireDaemon Pro 4 and earlier installers were built using InstallShield. InstallShield does not support the detection and deployment of the Microsoft Visual Studio Runtime (MSVCRT) particularly well, forcing reboots in the event of earlier versions of the MSVCRT being present on your computer system. We have replaced the InstallShield MSI installer with an Advanced Installer MSI installer package that correctly handles MSVCRT deployments and upgrades. The installer also checks to confirm the product certificate chain is available and forces the upgrade to be installed into the same installation directory.
Extended SBoM	Earlier versions of FireDaemon Pro included a Software Bill of Materials (SBoM). The need to supply an SBoM is now often mandatory for various industries as part of a supply chain software audit. This has been enhanced and extended to include all components. See System Information (i) -> Credits.
FireDaemon Fusion Compatibility	FireDaemon Pro 5 is designed to work with FireDaemon Fusion 7 only.
Software Assurance and Priority Technical Support Subscription	FireDaemon Pro 4 offered two subscriptions to customers. A Software Assurance subscription and a Priority Technical Support subscription. This confused software upgrades and support entitlements. To resolve this we now have a single unified Software Assurance and Priority Technical Support subscription. It costs the same as both previous subscriptions. Moving forward, we feel this will be easier to manage and simpler to understand from an upgrade entitlement, software procurement, and support perspective.

Buy FireDaemon Pro 5

You can purchase FireDaemon Pro 5 via the website. For detailed pricing information and discounts please see the pricing page.

FireDaemon Pro 5 Documentation

The FireDaemon Pro and Pro OEM User Guide can be found here. The FireDaemon Pro 5 OEM configuration and installation guide is available here.

Before Upgrading To FireDaemon Pro 5

Before you consider upgrading to FireDaemon Pro 5, please ensure you have completed the following pre-flight checks:

Step 1. Backup

-- IMPORTANT --
Ensure you fully back up your machine so you can complete a bare metal restore or VM snapshot restore.
Ensure you export your FireDaemon Pro service definitions for safekeeping.
-- IMPORTANT --

Step 2. Get New License Keys

Your FireDaemon Pro 4 or earlier license key will not work with FireDaemon Pro 5.
If you have an active Software Assurance subscription you can upgrade to FireDaemon Pro 5 or FireDaemon Pro OEM 5 for free. Please contact us to obtain your new license keys or link to download FireDaemon Pro 5 OEM.
Otherwise, if you have purchased an earlier version of FireDaemon Pro, you must purchase a FireDaemon Pro upgrade license key.

Step 3. Check Your Upgrade Path

There is no upgrade path from any version before FireDaemon Pro 3.
If you are running FireDaemon Pro 3, install FireDaemon Pro 5 and migrate your services manually.
If you have FireDaemon Pro 4.0, 4.5 or 4.6 installed ensure you upgrade to the final version of FireDaemon Pro 4.6.3 before upgrading to FireDaemon Pro 5.
If you have FireDaemon Fusion 6.6 or earlier installed, please ensure you upgrade to FireDaemon Fusion 6.6.6 before upgrading to the latest version of Fusion 7.
If you have an earlier version of FIreDaemon Pro 5 installed, it will be upgraded to the latest build.

Step 4. Prepare for the Upgrade

Your FireDaemon Pro services will need to be stopped and restarted as part of the upgrade. Please plan for the corresponding outage.
If you have FireDaemon Fusion installed, this will need to be upgraded too. Please plan to upgrade FireDaemon Fusion. FireDaemon Fusion will need to be restarted as part of the upgrade too.
Ensure you have your FireDaemon Pro 5 license key available so it can be applied at the end of the upgrade process.

Step 5. Apply the Upgrade

Login as a local or domain administrator.
Shut down all running FireDaemon Pro services manually.
Ensure the FireDaemon Pro GUI is closed across all user sessions.
Once you are satisfied you have fully backed up your computer, and have a FireDaemon Pro 5 license key available proceed with the upgrade.