Thank you for downloading this release of Parallels Plesk Panel for Microsoft Windows.
This file contains information that supplements the Parallels Plesk Panel documentation, such as requirements, information about new features, resolved bugs, known problems, and so on. This file was updated with the latest information available at the time of release.
We highly recommend that you use Parallels Installer v.3.11.0 to upgrade to Panel 10.4 for Windows. Read more about the benefits in http://kb.parallels.com/en/111593.
To see the release notes for the previous version, Panel 10.3, click here.
Legend:
[+] new feature
[-] bug resolved
[*] bug resolved and functionality improved
[+] Customizable PHP configuration. PHP settings are exposed to Panel GUI and both administrators and resellers (if allowed) have the ability to adjust them individually for each hosting plan or subscription. Moreover, customers (if allowed) can adjust their PHP settings preset individually for each of their websites and subdomains. Supported settings include 16 common tunable parameters for performance, security, debugging, and also a free-text field for even more flexibility. The settings are transparently applied to both FastCGI and CGI mode. Previously made customizations (php.ini) remain intact. Learn more about custom PHP configuration in the section Customizing PHP Configuration.
[+] Quick preview of a website. Customers are able to preview their websites even if the associated domain names are not yet configured in DNS. The websites are available as subdomains under a hosting provider's domain name (say, <site-name>.hosting-provider-domain.com).
[+] Web Matrix and Web Deploy support. Now Panel supports these two Microsoft products. Read more about how to set up the support here. For instructions on how a customer can use this feature, see this page.
[+] Quick search. Panel users can promptly find service plans, customer accounts, domain names, domain aliases, mailboxes, mailing lists, users, roles, and also run operations from Tools & Settings, left navigation menu of Server Administration panel, and the tabbed menu of Control Panel and tools of the Websites & Domains tab. The search feature is available in all views, including Power User View and Simple View, but limited to tools available in a particular Panel. For more details about this feature and the Panel interface in general, see Becoming Familiar with Panel GUI.
[+] Optionally restrict Users to access only one subscription. Customers can specify that a certain auxiliary user can log in only to a certain subscription in case the customers have multiple subscriptions on the same hosting account. This feature also eases upgrade and migration from earlier Panel versions – former domain administrators are now restricted to only their subscription instead of being switched off (as before).
Learn more in the (Advanced) Configuring Access to Hosting Account section.
[+] Hosting management from Server Administration Panel A new interface option allows administrators to manage hosting services right in Server Administration Panel. Before that, administrators could manage hosting only from Control Panel that opened in a new window. The option is turned on automatically on upgrades from 9.5 and earlier versions.
Read more about this option in Becoming Familiar with Panel GUI.
[+] Unified Tools & Settings page. It is easier for administrators to locate certain Panel tools or settings as all of them are now available from the single Tools & Settings page. In earlier versions, Panel settings and tools were located on separate pages (Settings and Tools & Utilities), which required more time to find what was needed.
[+] Simple view for customers. Shared hosting providers can offer customers a simpler interface by hiding unnecessary interface elements of Control Panel.
Learn more.
[+] Simple view for administrators. VPS and dedicated server providers can offer power users a simpler interface by hiding unnecessary elements in the user interface. Alternatively, Panel administrators themselves can voluntarily switch to Simple view and select the tools they would like to use. The view is activated in Settings > Interface Settings or in the initial configuration wizard.
[+] Usability improvements on the Domains page.
Learn more about hosting services management in Managing Subscriptions.
[+] Mailbox size in the mailboxes list. Panel users can view the disk space occupied by each mailbox in the mailboxes list on the Mail tab in Control Panel.
[+] Download log files via FTP. Customers can download site logs through FTP in addition to downloading through Control Panel.
[+] IPv6 support for PTR. Panel users can create DNS zones for IPv6 as they did for IPv4.
[+] Administrators have no need to configure a domain name for SSO. Panel and Business Manager can work together even if their IP addresses are not resolved to domain names (though this is a desired behavior).
[+] SmarterMail 8. Panel adds the support for SmarterMail 8.
[+] Improvements in working with subdomains. The concept of subdomains was revised to embody the following improvements:
/vhosts/<subdomain-name>.example.com/ now, just like for a regular domain.subdomains/ directory were eliminated.[+] Update and upgrade availability control and indication. Panel introduces a number of features that make keeping Panel up-to-date even easier:
[+] Backup Manager improvements. We added a number of new features to the Backup Manager tool, which make it even handier:
Learn more about configuring backup settings
[+] Migration tools refinement. Panel meets customer needs and introduces long-awaited features in migration tools:
[+] Reorganization of overuse options. In earlier versions, there were three overuse options:
[+] Adding files to archive in File Manager. Customers can add files and folders to an archive using the new Add to Archive button in the File Manager tool (in Control Panel, on the Websites & Domains tab).
Learn more about working with File Manager.
[+] Improved themes structure. The structure of Panel themes is heavily refined from legacy code making it easier to customize the Panel look and feel.
[+] Support for new languages. The Brazilian Portuguese locale (pt-BR) is now supported.
[+] Two apps can share the same directory. Customers can install a website app to a directory occupied by another app. Practically this means that installing an app to docroot does not block further installations to docroot. Administrators can prohibit this feature in panel.ini.
[+] New site_* event handlers. The list of event handlers was expanded to support new operations of creating, removing, updating, and deleting sites, domain aliases, and subdomains.
[*] DNS templates for subdomains. Administrators can create a template of a DNS record for subdomains. This record will be added to all subdomains on a domain. The template is created using the <subdomain>.<domain> wildcard.
[*] The user experience of working with phpMyAdmin is improved by removing a warning about the difference between the PHP MySQL library version and the MySQL server version.
[*] The list of a customer's subscriptions is now sorted by subscription's name.
[*] Administrators can refresh Parallels Health Monitor to let the tool detect hardware changes and update the statistics.
Read more about Health Monitor.
[*] During Panel upgrade, Parallels Installer shows the notification that Panel 10 is not compatible with hMailServer and offers the ways to migrate to another mail server.
[-] Panel no longer uses the ISAPI mode as a PHP handler.
[-] Customers failed to install any APS app with the error "Internal Error occurred during download" after the Panel upgrade if the new MySQL ODBC driver was installed before the upgrade.
[-] Customers failed to access WebAdmin for MS SQL Server (ASP.NET Enterprise Manager) with the error "500.19 – Internal Server Error".
[-] Customers failed to upload files using File Manager with the error "Unable to upload C:\myfile to //httpdocs/C:\myfile: Improper value".
[-] Administrators could not manage IP addresses after migration because Panel exposed the blank IP Addresses Management page. The problem occurred when one of IP addresses was in the wrong format.
[-] Administrators failed to convert Panel 9.5.4 backups with the pre10-backup-convert utility with the error "The called template 'createIpElement' was not found." if the backups contained domains without physical hosting.
[-] Mail autoresponder stopped sending e-mails if it reached the customer-defined limit of daily responses to a unique address. The problem appeared only when MS SQL Server was selected as a database provider.
[-] Administrators failed to convert Panel 9.5.4 backups with the pre10-backup-convert utility with the error "The called template 'createIpElement' was not found." if the backups contained domains without physical hosting.
[-] Administrators failed to get the instructions on how to change the account password in case when Panel is integrated with Business Manager because of the broken link on the Change Password page.
[-] A critical security vulnerability in Panel API RPC was eliminated.
[-] Administrators failed to log in to Panel with the fatal error "PleskMainDBException" after the upgrade.
[-] Customers failed to copy MS SQL databases if ADO.NET exceeded the connections pool size with the error "Unable to copy database dbname' to database 'dbname2'' ---> System.InvalidOperationException: Timeout expired. The timeout period elapsed prior to obtaining a connection from the pool. This may have occurred because all pooled connections were in use and max pool size was reached.".
[-] We resolved a number issues that prevented Administrators from upgrading Panel with the error similar to "Failed to install 'C:\4d223c55df339814bad1eab08af7e372\parallels\PANEL-WIN_10.3.1\dist-msi-Microsoft-2003-i386\plesk.msi' with error 1603".
[-] Panel failed to create a valid backup of domains owned by customers under a certain reseller account. Empty tar file was created instead.
[-] After the upgrade, Panel failed to perform its daily maintenance routines with various errors related to SpamAssassin and Perl.
[-] Administrators failed to migrate domains which were aliased to IP addresses different from the subscription IPs. Such domains were not associated with physical hosting after the migration.
[-] Administrators failed to perform a full server backup using Backup Manager if the backup included a subscription with auxiliary users who did not have file sharing permissions. Panel raised the error "Unable to dump filesharing permission for user user@domain.com".
[-] Administrators failed to migrate domains which were aliased to IP addresses different from the subscription IPs. Such domains were not associated with physical hosting after the migration.
[-] Site visitors could see a white bar in the bottom of the page when opening a customer's website. This error appeared only when the website used frame forwarding to another site that used frames as well.
[-] Customers failed to copy their sites using the Website Copying tool in Control Panel. The copy process hung with the message "Copying the website domain.com to ftp://ftpdomain.com/. You will be notified of the progress by e-mail".
[-] Customers failed to set up the MailEnable mail server for their domain as the domain was shown as disabled in the MailEnable Administrator console. The problem appeared if the Panel administrators created the customer subscription in the suspended status using API RPC.
[-] Administrators and customers failed to upload SSL certificate files with the error "SSLCertificate::check_signs() failed: openssl_x509_checkpurpose() failed".
[-] The link to view what's new in available upgrades on the Administrator's dashboard opened the release notes for the current product version instead of opening the release notes for the new version.
[-] Administrators failed to view collected Health Monitor statistics with the errors "Failed to update RRD database: No such file or directory" and "Failed to create RRD database: Unrecognized consolidation function M" on Windows if the Turkish locale was set as default.
[-] Customers could not change a mailbox size for domains with the Forwarding hosting type.
[-] When the administrator changed a background image of a custom button in Tools & Settings > Custom Buttons, the changes were not applied immediately.
[-] Customers were able to see the IPv6 address selector in Websites & Domains > Web Hosting Settings even if their subscription had no IPv6 support.
[-] Parallels Installer did not apply minor updates during Panel installations if administrators ran it with the option --disable-major-updates.
[-] Administrator failed to perform a server backup if Panel contained a customer whose username ended with a dot symbol.
[-] Administrators failed to recreate the system PleskControlPanel site in IIS using the reconfigurator utility in case of the site corruption.
[-] Panel did not change the interface language immediately when Panel users selected another language on the Panel login page.
[+] Reseller accounts support. Business Manager now supports reseller accounts in addition to administrator and customer accounts. Resellers have flexible capabilities to set up their own business including online stores, accounting, payments processing and integration with domain registrars and SSL certificate authorities. Business Manager fully supports reseller model in Plesk Panel.
See the details about reseller accounts in Administrator's Guide and Reseller's Guide.
[+] Integration SDK. Business Manager SDK covers the themes of creation of own on-site payment gateway plug-ins, domain registrar plug-ins and SSL certificate provider plug-ins.
[+] Customization of schet-facturas. Business Manager now provides means to customize schet-facturas (the financial documents for the Russian market).
Learn more about schet-facturas here.
[*] Administrators can set up the SSO service to identify servers by IP addresses (in addition to host names). The system of Business Manager and connected Panel servers will work even if the Business Manager's IP does not resolve to a domain name.
[*] Automatic orders processing provides the new option to accept all incoming orders automatically.
Read more about orders processing here
.[-] Business Manager failed to automatically issue invoices for domain names renewal.
[-] Business Manager generated incorrect links like https://example.com//example.com:8443/plesk-billing/admin/ after the administrators run the update-hostname utility.
[-] Administrators could not add customer accounts from Panel to Business Manager with the error "Language not found: language_iso2=zh" if the customer had the Chinese locale in Panel.
[-] The layout of the page that summarized the information about a domain registration plan was broken if the plan offered a number of TLDs in a number of currencies.
[-] Customers failed to buy a domain name with the error "Following domains are already registered: domainname.com " if this domain name had been purchased before, and afterwards the account of the domain owner was removed from the system.
[-] Business Manager installation and upgrade procedures as well as the execution of the integration utility failed with the error "Unable to write random state".
[-] Administrators failed to upgrade Business Manager with the error "Fatal error: Call to a member function update() on a non-object".
[-] Administrator could block Business Manager functions while applying quick manual payment. The blocking was accompanied by the following text:"You have exceeded the number of customer accounts you can have in the system. Please upgrade your license. No way to continue work with billing without upgrade of license."
[-] Business Manager did not show adapted payment plug-ins in the list of installed modules.
[+] Blog. The Blog module gives users the ability to add multiple blogs on their website. Users can post their thoughts, news and other interesting bits of information by creating blog posts in a blog module the same way they create a page. Blog comes with the "cut" functionality and calendar.
[+] Comments. Based on Disqus, the most popular commenting system nowadays. The Comments module can be added to any page or blog post, allowing website visitors to leave their comments. A website owner can moderate these comments right on the website or in the editor after logging in to Disqus. This module can replace Guestbook for those who need it. Registration with Disqus (free of charge) is required to use this module.
[+] Document Manager. Small businesses will be happy to know they can easily upload price lists and other documents to their website through Document Manager. These documents can be made accessible to website visitors through standard Link functionality of the Text & Images module.
[+] Limited content import from SB 4.5. Upon selecting a website topic, users can click Import Site from SB 4.5 and input the URL to their SiteBuilder 4.5 website for importing the content and design of their old site to Web Presence Builder 10.4. Note that this functionality has some limitations – not all content and design can be imported.
[+] Hiding of editing panels. Most modules have editing panels that are not typically used more than once. To avoid these panels to come up every time you open a module, it is possible to simply click Properties to hide editing panel for this particular module. Clicking Properties again will bring the panel back again.
[+] Adding and removing website topics. Hosters can add their own website topics and remove existing topics from the list of website topics. This can be done via a special command-line utility.
Learn more about the topics modification here
.[+] Custom link to Getting Started video and Help. Hosting providers can modify links to the Getting Started video and Help in a configuration file. Different locales are supported for both video and help.
[+] Stand-alone version. Builder is now available as a stand-alone offering that does not require Panel.
[*] Improved the website generation logic.
Parallels Plesk Panel 10.4.0 for Microsoft Windows can run on the following operating systems:
Before installing Parallels Plesk Panel on Windows Server 2003, you need to install Internet Information Services (IIS) with World Wide Web (WWW) Service and File Transfer Protocol (FTP) Service support.
Before installing Parallels Plesk Panel on Windows Server 2008, you need to add the Web Server role.
A static IP address should be configured in the operating system before installing Parallels Plesk Panel for Windows.
Parallels Plesk Panel for Windows can be installed only on NTFS partition.
In order for your server to support Server Side Includes (SSI), Active Server Pages (ASP), Adobe ColdFusion, and Microsoft FrontPage Server Extensions, you need to install these components yourself.
Windows Installer 4.5 is required for Microsoft SQL Server 2008 installation. If it is not installed in the system, you can download it from the Microsoft official website.
If you plan to use Microsoft SQL Server support in Parallels Plesk Panel for Windows, the SQL Server should be installed and configured to use standard or mixed security mode. If Microsoft SQL Server is not installed, you can select it to be installed with Parallels Plesk Panel for Windows and configured with administrator name "sa" and a random password.
IMPORTANT: We strongly recommend that you install Parallels Plesk Panel for Microsoft Windows on a clean server; specifically, only the aforementioned operating system components should be installed.
Parallels Plesk Panel 10.4.0 for Microsoft Windows distribution packages include the following components:
This is a contracted list of supported third-party components, it does not include the components supplied with the Panel distribution, as they were already mentioned as distributed and supported.
Web servers
Mail servers
Webmail tools
Spam filtering tools
Antivirus tools
DNS servers
FTP servers
Web statistics
Web scripting
Database servers
Panel 10.3 supports upgrade from the following earlier versions:
We recommend that you read information on the product installation and upgrade before you install or upgrade Parallels Plesk Panel. This information, including detailed instructions, can be found in the Installation Guide located at http://download1.parallels.com/Plesk/PP10/10.4.0/Doc/en-US/online/plesk-installation-upgrade-guide/index.htm.
Parallels Installer and VZ Templates downloads are available at http://www.parallels.com/partnernet/rtmdownloads/panel/.
For detailed instructions on how to provision Parallels Plesk Panel to your customers if you are a Hosting Service Provider, refer to the Deployment Guide located at http://download1.parallels.com/Plesk/PP10/10.4.0/Doc/en-US/online/plesk-deployment-guide/index.htm.
For instructions on how to migrate data to Parallels Plesk Panel from other hosting servers managed by Plesk or other hosting automation software, refer to the Migration Guide located at http://download1.parallels.com/Plesk/PP10/10.2.0/Doc/en-US/online/plesk-migration-guide/index.htm.
Parallels Plesk Panel Knowledge Base can be accessed at http://kb.parallels.com.
Microupdates for Business Manager will not be applied automatically after installation of the component template Virtuozzo container for Windows. To install the microupdates manually, run the following command from the command prompt:
C:\Parallels\Install\ai.exe --reinstall-patch --target C:\Parallels\Install --debug --install-component base --select-product-id panel --select-release-id PANEL_10_3_0_WIN
We highly recommend that you use Parallels Installer v.3.10.0 to upgrade to Panel 10.3 for Windows. Read more about the benefits in http://kb.parallels.com/en/111593
Install valid licenses instantly after upgrading Panel from 8.x and 9.x to avoid problems with the connection to Business Manager. Read more in http://kb.parallels.com/en/111596
Parallels Plesk Sitebuilder 4.5 is not upgraded. Alternatively, Web Presence Builder (former SiteBuilder 5) installs beside the previous one. Hence, you have the opportunity to manage existing sites in Sitebuilder 4.5 and create new sites either in Web Presence Builder or in SiteBuilder 4.5. The upgrade of existing sites to the new format is performed manually.
Selecting Full installation on physical servers with Windows Server 2008 crashes the installation because Kaspersky Antivirus cannot be installed. Select Typical installation, or Custom and remove Kaspersky from the list of installed components.
PHP 5 is required for Web Presence Builder, so be sure to select it.
On Windows Server 2003, web server returns the Internal Server Error message instead of executing PHP scripts. This occurs when PHP works in FastCGI mode, and CPU monitoring is enabled on a customer's IIS application pool.
The firewall in the Panel cannot show and manage predefined and custom rules added directly to the Windows firewall configuration. If you need to manage such rules, configure the firewall built into the operating system.
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c/o Parallels International GMbH
Vordergasse 49
CH8200 Schaffhausen
Switzerland
Phone: +41-526-722-030
Fax: +41-526-722-010
E-mail:
For billing information, send e-mail to accounting@parallels.com
For purchasing information, send e-mail to sales@parallels.com
For technical support, use our
Online Support Form.
To report problems with Parallels Panel software, send e-mail to
bugreport@parallels.com
For information on career opportunities with Parallels, send e-mail to
careers@parallels.com
For press contact information, send e-mail to press@parallels.com
For information about becoming a partner, send e-mail to
partners@parallels.com
For information on translating Parallels Panel into your language, send e-mail to
i18n@parallels.com
For general product information, send e-mail to info@parallels.com
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This product is protected by United States and international copyright laws. The product's underlying technology, patents, and trademarks are listed at http://www.parallels.com/trademarks.
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