Qualys Cloud Agent Client 1.2 for Windows Now Available

Tim White

Last updated on: September 6, 2020

I’m pleased to announce the general availability of the Qualys Cloud Agent Client version 1.2 for Windows.

The release includes significant improvements for configuring and using proxies on your network, as well as uninstall, scanning, and performance enhancements.

The client binaries have been deployed to the shared platforms and will automatically deploy in your environment. If you have applied customized settings in your Configuration Profiles, those settings may affect the timing of your deployment.

Proxy Support Improvements

A proxy configuration tool is now available to configure Qualys Agent Only proxy settings instead of leveraging the OS-level configuration.  This tool includes support for:

  • Automatic proxy configuration via PAC Files (proxy auto-configuration file)
  • Authenticated proxy support for Fixed or PAC-based proxies
  • Fixed Proxy URL support

IMPORTANT:  This improvement replaces the current approach, using “netsh winhttp”, and this approach will no longer work after upgrading.  This only applies to existing installations running version 1.1 or older that are using a proxy to connect to the Qualys Cloud Platform.  These systems will need to have proxy configuration set again using the new QualysProxy tool. This is to ensure that the Agent does not inadvertently inherit proxy settings previously intended for other purposes.

The agent proxy configuration tool is installed via the Automatic Update and is also bundled in the Agent Installation binary.

You can find the tool in the following path once the installation is complete:

C:\Program Files (x86)\QualysAgent\Qualys\QualysProxy.exe

On Windows XP, you’ll find the proxy tool here:

C:\Program Files\QualysAgent\Qualys\QualysProxy.exe

Get more information on How To Configure Windows Proxy Agent (PDF).

New Force Uninstall Option

Uninstall now includes Force=[TRUE|FALSE] flag to optionally delete ALL Agent registry data.

This is intended for advanced use only, or when the system the agent is installed on is to be repurposed.  Leveraging this option will result in a new asset being created in the Qualys platform, should the agent be reinstalled after using this option.  If you intend to reinstall the agent and wish to reconnect it to its current asset record in the Qualys platform, just run the uninstall without this option or remove via the Add/Remove programs feature in Windows.

Please Note: In order to run the Uninstall from the command line, you must be running an escalated command and add the Uninstall=True option.  Double clicking the uninstall EXE OR running without the Uninstall=True option will result in the process aborting the uninstall.

Windows Certificate Scanning

Agent now includes all certificate information from the System CA store in its cloud snapshots.  In other words, Agent certificate support uploads the list of all CAs on the client to the cloud and includes it in the client’s snapshot (or echo).

Snapshot Performance Improvements

Delta updates and Snapshot Updates to the Cloud now appear in the UI up to 30 times faster than before.  This drastically improves the time that scan results are available after an Agent has scanned the system.

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