In order to support “user” folders, we changed the meaning of “Download if Missing” folder folders to mean that the folder should be ignored completely if it already exists on the destination machine.
Because of increasing incompatibilities, we have removed the Run at Shutdown extension. We have also added an Assimilator Helper extension which lets you run Assimilator as an application and allows it to know whether it should shutdown, restart or quit after it has finished (although it will only quit if it does nothing at all, which will only happen if you carefully tune your source folder’s labels).
We added warning alerts for when a machine is not found in the database, as well as for when an unreadable folder is found in the source folder.
Assimilator now unmounts server volumes before assimilating - previously Assimilator would be unable to mount the source volume if the user had already logged in to the server.
Assimilator now interoperates well with MacPrefect and MacAdministrator <http://www.hi-resolution.com/>.
Support for New Systems
Assimilator now supports Open Transport and PCI machines. Under Open Transport, Assimilator can now set the IP address like it does under MacTCP (although this will likely break when Open Transport 1.5 ships). Assimilator can now find the Ethernet address of PCI machines.
Bug Fixes and Enhancements
Assimilator (as a startup extension) now avoids crashing the Finder when the desktop database needs to be rebuilt (The Finder crashes if an application asks it to quit while it is rebuilding the desktop database). This is accomplished by launching Assimilator instead of the Finder at the end of boot time. Assimilator runs, and then launches the Finder and the Startup Items.
Assimilator is safer in several ways. When downloading files, it waits until the file is fully downloaded before trashing the original. This is especially important under low disk space conditions where Assimilator could previously have trashed the System file and then fail to download a new one, causing the machine to become unbootable. Also, Assimilator is more rigorous in flushing the volume before restarting - previously this could cause harddisk corruptions, and you may want to consider erasing or formatting the harddisk and then running the new version to ensure there are no problems with previously corrupted harddisks.
Assimilator now handles locked files (deleting them and preserving the locked state of files on the source folder).
Special files like VM Storage are now properly ignored.
Assimilator is better at blessing a new system folder.
The trash folder now mirrors the hierarchy of the harddisk which avoids having a trash folder with thousands of files in a single directory.
General Comments
Make sure you are running System 7.0 or later, 7.6 recommended.
Please send any questions or comments to <mailto:support@stairways.com.au>.
Also, please remember to pay your shareware fee (use the Register program and send the output to Kagi Shareware <mailto:shareware@kagi.com>, or <http://www.stairways.com/register/topay.html>). The upgrade is free if you purchased your copy of Assimilator after January 1, 1996. Otherwise the upgrade is 50% of the normal price.
