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Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Saturday, Jan 13, 2007 - 14:41:   

A new version of the viewer component (v8.1.6) is now available for download to licensed owners of X-Ways Forensics with update maintenance. There were only few, small changes since the previous v8.1.5. For details please click here. Upgrading is optional.

An older version of the viewer component (v8.0.2) for use under Windows 9x/Me is now available as a separate download.

Before installing a different version of the viewer component by extracting/copying all files over a previous version, please exit X-Ways Forensics. If you point X-Ways Forensics to a different directory with a different version of the viewer component, please make sure that no file is currently being previewed/viewed and restart X-Ways Forensics after changing the directory.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Thursday, Jan 18, 2007 - 0:37:   

A small preview package now allows to view MS Office 2007 documents. Available as a separate download to licensed users of X-Ways Forensics. If you are interested in testing this functionality, please simply add all files from that preview .zip archive to the viewer directory, just like you would add all files from the WinHex add-on .zip archive to the X-Ways Forensics directory if you wanted to run winhex.exe.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Thursday, Feb 22, 2007 - 22:35:   

A new version of the viewer component (v8.1.9) is now available for download to licensed owners of X-Ways Forensics with update maintenance.

What's new?

* Support for Microsoft Office 2007 (Word, Excel and PowerPoint) has been officially added.

* This release has been qualified on Windows Vista Ultimate.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Wednesday, Jul 11, 2007 - 0:01:   

The viewer component has been updated. Only 1 file has actually changed. This patch fixes an error that could occur with certain Visio (.vsd) documents. It is recommended to re-download and re-install the viewer component (only) if you would like to view Visio documents during your work or decode their text for the logical search or indexing.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Wednesday, Oct 10, 2007 - 19:32:   

Fixes to be expected in a few weeks with v8.2 of the viewer component for the following issues, among others:

* When printing a file and printing the path in the header line (%P), umlauts (öüä) and probably other codepage-dependent characters from other languages in the filename are not displayed correctly. (SRN 17813926.6)

* Certain corrupt HTML files cause problems. The viewer component can display the top of the document, but then it freezes, and also freezes X-Ways Forensics. Problems analogously occur when decoding certain corrupt HTML files for logical searches or indexing. (SRN 17814064.6)

* In certain .msg e-mail message files, the message body is not readable in the viewer component. There is a clickable link that opens a new window where the message text is displayed in black on a very dark blue background, hardly noticeable. The same files can be viewed normally in MS Outlook. (SRN 17811738.6)

* The viewer component completely freezes when it tries to view certain (truncated or corrupt) OpenOffice documents. (SRN 17814182.6)

* It is not possible to use the search functionality in the viewer component to find text with German umlauts (öüä) or other characters outside of 7-bit ASCII. This affects plain text files for whose display options the Windows (ANSI 1252) character set has been selected and special file types like MS Word documents. (SRN 17812838.6)
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Wednesday, Nov 14, 2007 - 16:40:   

The new version of the viewer component (v8.2) is now available for download to licensed owners of X-Ways Forensics with update maintenance. The above-mentioned fixes were implemented, and there were feature additions as described here. Plus the display of pictures is now noticeably faster. Because of the fixes and improvements, installing this update is highly recommended. You simply extract the files to a directory of your choice and point X-Ways Forensics to that directory under Options | Viewer Programs.

Another important change if you use X-Ways Forensics and the viewer component on live machines is that the viewer component now stores its configuration/settings in the Windows profile (\Application Data\.oit) of the logged-on user instead of in the Windows system registry.

Another notable fix not mentioned before concerns certain .eml e-mail message files based on certain code pages (like Japanese iso-2022-jp), that previously could not be viewed correctly.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Monday, Nov 26, 2007 - 18:41:   

Caveats regarding v8.2 of the viewer component:

* This version requires msvcr80.dll from the Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 SP1 Redistributable Package. This package can be downloaded from here (2.6 MB). On many Windows computers it seems to be installed already, under C:\WINDOWS\WinSxS\x86_Microsoft.VC80.CRT_*. On other Windows computers you need to install it before you are able to use v8.2 of the viewer component.

* It turned out that some rare files that could be viewed normally in v8.1.9 now cannot be viewed any more in v8.2 and may provoke an exception error in X-Ways Forensics (type 207). I was unable to figure out myself what is wrong, have informed Oracle, will post here again when there is something new to report.

For the time being, because of the above, I do not highly recommended this update any more.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Wednesday, Jan 16, 2008 - 18:24:   

Just for everyone's information, Oracle apparently has made some progress on this issue. I'm hopeful that we will receive a patch some time, whose availability would render v8.2 a highly recommended update again.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Tuesday, Feb 12, 2008 - 1:41:   

The downloadable viewer component has been updated and now includes a patch that fixes some issues that could lead to exception errors, instabilities, and crashes. There are still some other known issues, but v8.2 is now recommended over v8.1.9.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Tuesday, Feb 26, 2008 - 17:33:   

The viewer component has been updated. Two errors were fixed that caused the viewer component to freeze with certain corrupt GZ archives and certain SWF files.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Thursday, Mar 6, 2008 - 20:39:   

I have stumbled across a MS Word document that appears as blank when viewed with v8.2 of the viewer component in its Normal or Draft mode, but can be viewed successfully with v8.1.9 (any mode) or in Preview mode of v8.2. Not sure how likely this error occurs, but until this is fixed by Oracle, if you encounter a seemingly blank MS Word document with v8.2, I recommend you temporarily switch to Preview mode just to be sure (i.e. right-click the viewer component window and select View | Preview in the context menu), to avoid overlooking relevant content. The issue seems to be limited to MS Word documents where all contents are located in a single table.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Friday, Mar 14, 2008 - 16:13:   

The viewer component has been updated. The aforementioned issue with MS Word documents has been fixed.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Thursday, Mar 20, 2008 - 3:33:   

The viewer component has been updated. v8.2 no longer freezes when viewing/processing certain HTML files that v8.1.9 had no problems with.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Monday, May 12, 2008 - 14:50:   

The viewer component has been updated. Text files of a very specific kind can now be viewed that previously caused an error message ("bad file"). It is usually not necessary to download the new viewer component version just because of this change.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Saturday, May 31, 2008 - 13:25:   

A new version of the viewer component (v8.2.2) is now available for download to licensed owners of X-Ways Forensics with update maintenance. The changes are:
* support for JPEG 2000
* support for Windows 2008 Server
* various patches and bug fixes

Installing this update is recommended.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Saturday, Jun 14, 2008 - 16:37:   

The viewer component has been updated. An error was fixed that previously caused the entire program (X-Ways Forensics) to become unstable when or after trying to decode the text in a certain PDF document for a keyword search. Installing this update is recommended if you use this functionality.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Thursday, Sep 4, 2008 - 12:17:   

The viewer component has been updated. An error was fixed that previously caused the entire program (X-Ways Forensics) to crash when trying view or decode the text in a certain binary file. Installing this update is not urgent because this error was probably very rare to occur.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Saturday, May 9, 2009 - 0:52:   

A new version of the viewer component (v8.3) is now available for download to licensed owners of X-Ways Forensics with update maintenance. The changes are:
* Open Office 2.x / Star Office 8.0 Calc enhancements
* MS Office 2007 chart support (most chart types)
* Support for AutoCAD 2007
* Enhancement of AutoCAD 2005 & 2006 beyond text only
* JPEG2000 support extended
* Other improvements and presumably error corrections.

Installing this update is recommended.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Monday, Oct 5, 2009 - 19:03:   

A new version of the viewer component (v8.3.2) is now available for download to licensed owners of X-Ways Forensics and X-Ways Investigator with update maintenance. The changes are:
* IBM Lotus Symphony 1.2 (Documents, Presentations, Spreadsheets) support
* Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac (Word, PowerPoint, Excel) support
* PDF 1.7 support (except PDF Packages and PDF Portfolios)
* IBM Lotus Notes DXL support
* Microsoft PowerPoint 97-2003 "read-only" files supported
* SmartArt supported as created by Microsoft Office 2007 SP2

Installing this update is recommended.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Wednesday, Sep 15, 2010 - 17:35:   

A new version of the viewer component (v8.3.5) is now available for download to licensed owners of X-Ways Forensics and X-Ways Investigator with update maintenance. The relevant changes are:

* Windows 7 is now an officially supported platform.
* Improved rendering engine for vector drawings, presentations, and charts.
* Some minor improvements.

Installing this update is recommended, but not urgent.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Wednesday, Sep 22, 2010 - 13:29:   

Please do not extract the new version of the viewer component over an old one. You may do that with WinHex or X-Ways Forensics, but not with the viewer component. Instead, extract it into a new, fresh, empty directory.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Sunday, Nov 28, 2010 - 11:38:   

The new version of the viewer component seems to be unable to find and highlight search hits in PDF documents. For that reason I have included a link to the previous version of the viewer component in download instructions again.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Sunday, Jul 31, 2011 - 12:00:   

A new version of the viewer component (v8.3.7) is now available for download to licensed owners of X-Ways Forensics and X-Ways Investigator with update maintenance. The relevant changes are:

* Improved rendering of PDF images with JBIG2, JPEG2000 compressions and with explicit masks.
* Support for attachments in PDF files.
* Other improvements for PDF.
* Support for the file formats AutoCAD 2010, Microsoft Project 2010, and Ichitaro 2010.
* Support for CMYK color spaces in JPEG files.
* Numerous improvements for Microsoft Office, Microsoft Outlook, and more file formats.
* Support for charts in Microsoft Office 2007 binary Excel files.

This version can highlight search hits in PDF documents again. Installing this update is recommended! Please remember that you must not mix files from different versions of the viewer component in the same directory.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Thursday, Aug 4, 2011 - 23:18:   

As it turns out, the new version of the viewer component is not 100% compatible with previous versions of X-Ways Forensics. Opening e-mail attachments from within the e-mail view of the new version of the viewer component in a separate window (by clicking the links in the e-mail header) will only be supported in X-Ways Forensics 16.0 SR-12 and 16.1 SR-2 and later.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Thursday, Sep 8, 2011 - 18:25:   

As I was just made aware, the latest version of the viewer component has an error that occurs when it views files as hexadecimal (which is an option in the viewer component's context menu Options | Display | View unknown files as...) and the user scrolls in the viewer window.

However, I still recommend the latest version of the viewer component. You can get a much better hexadecimal representation of a file from X-Ways Forensics itself, of course, either in File mode or if you open a file in a separate data window (and when I write "open" I mean the "Open" command literally, in the directory browser context menu), so as I see it there is no need to ever use this option.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Friday, Sep 9, 2011 - 19:56:   

As I have just found out accidentally, the latest version of the viewer component (v8.3.7) as well as the previous version (v8.3.5), but not versions before that, are unable to view files (e.g. text files) that contain only 1 byte. As this is not a very important ability and as such files can just as well be viewed in File mode, I still recommend the latest version of the viewer component.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Tuesday, Sep 27, 2011 - 12:08:   

A patch for the latest version of the viewer component (v8.3.7) was provided by Oracle. It does not fix the aforementioned errors, but some other ones:

* Potential parsing fault with certain corrupt Corel Draw files.

* WordPerfect file renders garbage characters.

* Certain images in PDF source files that were previously rendered are not rendered.

* Additional spaces introduced between characters in PDF source files upon export.

* Opening multi-page documents in two threads causes performance degradation and rendering errors.

v8.3.7 as downloadable from our web server now includes this patch.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Wednesday, Jul 18, 2012 - 16:40:   

Oracle has provided a security patch for the current version of the viewer component (v8.3.7).

Quoted from the Oracle web site:
"What this Update Fixes:
July 2012 Critical Patch Update for Outside In"


v8.3.7 of the viewer component including this latest patch is now downloadable.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Friday, Oct 5, 2012 - 21:11:   

A new version of the viewer component (v8.4) is now available for download to licensed owners of X-Ways Forensics and X-Ways Investigator with update maintenance. The relevant changes are:

* Improved support for PDF documents, in particular those created by Acrobat 10, compressed PDF files, and PDF files using 256-bit AES encryption.
* Support has been enhanced for processing hyperlinks in PDF files.
* Support has been added for AutoCAD 2011 and 2012 files.
* Support has been added for Hangul 2010 documents.
* Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) files are now identified as and processed like XML.
* Support for digitally signed MSG and EML files.
* Support has been added for Access 95, 97, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2007, and 2010 database files. You may want to remove *.mdb from the list of files types to view with the associated program.
* Support has been added for text extraction from Microsoft OneNote 2007 and 2010 files.
* Support has been added for Outlook 2010 PST and OST files, including support for High Encryption in all versions of Outlook PST and OST files.
* Support has been added for rendering Outlook MSG files: Note, Task, Appointment, Contact, and Journal.
* Support has been added for two types of Office 2003 files: WordProcessingML (Word 2003), text only; and SpreadSheetML (Excel 2003), text only. The XML version of the binary format will be processed, skipping embedded objects and tagging properties.
* Support has been added for IBM SmartSuite 9.8 files: Lotus WordPro, Lotus 1-2-3, and Lotus Freelance.
* Support has been added for Apple iWork 09 files for Mac OSX: Pages 09 PDF Preview & Text, Numbers 09 PDF Preview & Text, and Keynote 09 PDF Preview & Text.
* Support has been added for WordPerfect X5 files: Word Processor, Quattro Pro, and Presentations.
* Support has been added for Adobe Creative Suite 5 files: Photoshop CS5, Illustrator CS5, and InDesign CS5.
* When automatic font color is selected in Microsoft Office (the default setting), the application renders the text as white if the text is on a dark background. The viewer component now assumes the same behavior.
* Support has been added for Microsoft Project Note field rich text.

Installing this update is highly recommended. Please remember that you must not mix files from different versions of the viewer component in the same directory.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Tuesday, Nov 6, 2012 - 19:40:   

It turns out v8.3.7 was better at viewing HTML files, in particular internal HTML representations of index.dat and .evtx etc.

v8.4 has 2 problems:
1) text in table cells can exceed cell boundaries
2) full window width not utilized for full table width
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Thursday, May 2, 2013 - 17:48:   

A new version of the viewer component (v8.4.1) is now available for download to licensed users of X-Ways Forensics and X-Ways Investigator with active update maintenance. The relevant changes are:

* The following Microsoft Office formats are now supported: Microsoft Word 2011 for Mac, Microsoft Excel 2011 for Mac, Microsoft PowerPoint 2011 for Mac, Microsoft Word 2013, Microsoft Excel 2013, Microsoft PowerPoint 2013, Microsoft Outlook 2013.
* The following Corel WordPerfect formats are now supported: WordPerfect X6 Word Processor, WordPerfect X6 Quattro Pro, WordPerfect X6 Presentations.
* The following Adobe Creative Suite formats are now supported: Photoshop CS6, Illustrator CS6, InDesign CS6.
* Support has been added to identify DICOM (Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine) files.
* Support has been added for Windows 8 and Windows 2012 Server on the Windows x64 platform.

Installing this update is not necessarily recommended because it has the same display problems with HTML tables as v8.4.

Please remember that different versions of the viewer component must reside in different directories. You must not copy the files of new version to an existing directory with a previous version because that does not necessarily overwrite all files and may cause error messages.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Wednesday, Jul 24, 2013 - 20:57:   

https://www.cert.org/blogs/certcc/2013/07/forensics_software_and_oracle.html

Will Dormann points out that it is important that computer forensics software that incorporates the common Oracle OutsideIn viewer component uses ASLR (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Address_space_layout_randomization). You can verify this using SysInternal's Process Explorer. However, his screenshots already show which products don't use it.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Thursday, Aug 8, 2013 - 23:02:   

Oracle has provided a critical patch for v8.3.7 and v8.4.1 of the viewer component. The updated versions are now downloadable. They are recommended for security reasons.

With this patch, HTML tables displayed by v8.4.1 now look much better, but they do not utilize the full available window width as they did in v8.3.7. Please note that for that reason links to file offsets (as in HTML representations of index.dat and .evtx files) are often broken into two lines and then do not allow you to jump to the correct offset.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Wednesday, Oct 16, 2013 - 19:06:   

Oracle has provided a critical patch for v8.4.1 of the viewer component. The updated version is now downloadable. It is probably recommendable for security considerations. The only file that has actually changed is "vsacs.dll". What functionality or perhaps specific file types this DLL is responsible for is not known to X-Ways. A list of bugs fixed is not available from Oracle.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Wednesday, Jan 15, 2014 - 11:54:   

Oracle has provided a critical patch for v8.4.1 of the viewer component. The updated version is now downloadable. It is perhaps recommendable for security considerations. The only file that has actually changed is "immet2.flt".

Oracle's description:
What this Update Fixes:
January 2014 Critical Patch Update for Outside In


Found elsewhere: http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/959313
OS/2 metafiles are a graphics format used in the 1990s in OS/2 and DOS.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Sunday, Jul 27, 2014 - 9:44:   

A new version of the viewer component (v8.5) is now available for download to licensed users of X-Ways Forensics and X-Ways Investigator with active update maintenance. The relevant changes are:

* Support has been added for AutoCAD 2013.

* The LibreOffice 4.0 suite (Impress, Draw, Calc, and Writer) is now supported.

* 64-bit zip compression is now supported in the zip input filter.

* Input filter support for HTML5 and CSS2.1 tags and attributes related to email messages has been added.

* Microsoft Visio 2010 is now supported.

* From Microsoft Office 2013, Access, OneNote, and Visio are now supported.

* From the Apple iWork suite, Pages (iPad) PDF Preview & Text, Numbers (iPad) PDF Preview & Text, and Keynote (iPad) PDF Preview & Text are supported.

* From the WordPerfect X6 suite, Word Processor, Quattro Pro, and Presentations are supported.

* Windows 8.1 is now an officially supported platform.

Installing this update is recommended.

HTML tables, which were usually too narrow in recent versions, are now sometimes rather wide, and they always seem to trigger the display of a horizontal scrollbar, even when no scrolling capability is needed because the window is wide enough. Also, some inconsistent spacing and line breaks inside HTML table cells can be seen.

As always, please remember that different versions of the viewer component must reside in different directories. You must not copy the files of new version to an existing directory with a previous version because that does not necessarily overwrite all files and may cause error messages.

The compressed size of the viewer component has grown by 34%, owing largely to a new file named oit_font_metrics.db, an SQLite font database whose exact purpose is yet to be determined and that at first sight seems to be optional.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Tuesday, Sep 2, 2014 - 20:20:   

As a user in Switzerland found out, v8.5 of the viewer component is unable to decode the text in PDF files created by Abbyy Fine Reader 11. Ordinary PDF files are processed normally.

If you use other OCR software, please check whether its PDF output files are also affected. For example, you could select such a PDF file in Preview mode and hold the Shift key when switching to Raw mode to see the result of the text decoding, while v8.5 of the viewer component is active in X-Ways Forensics. If you see only gibberish, you know that the viewer component cannot decode the text. This test is reliable only if you did not make X-Ways Forensics decode the text in the same file in the same volume snapshot before or if the "Buffer decoded text for context preview" box was unchecked. When in doubt, make sure to try with a fresh volume snapshot (e.g. take a new one). You cannot rely on the "No detectable textual contents" warning that you may know from X-Ways Forensics, because unlike for purely graphical PDF, the viewer component does extract something, but the text found is just a series of garbage characters.

At least users who employ Abbyy Fine Reader for OCR and wish to search in or index the resulting PDF files in X-Ways Forensics are strongly advised to revert to v8.3.7 or v8.4.1 of the viewer component.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Wednesday, Nov 26, 2014 - 17:57:   

A new version of the viewer component (v8.5.1) is now available for download to licensed users of X-Ways Forensics and X-Ways Investigator with active update maintenance. The relevant changes according to Oracle are:

1) MHT files are no longer displayed with an e-mail header.
2) Support for Ichicatro 2014.

Notes:

1) Decoding text in the PDF files created by Abbyy Fine Reader 11 now seems to work again.
2) It is unknown what "Ichicatro 2014" is. The Google search engine cannot find anything about it, except in the Oracle announcement itself.

Installing this update is recommended to those who use Abbyy Fine Reader for OCR purposes and for others who have a minute to spare.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Friday, Apr 24, 2015 - 8:50:   

Oracle has provided a "critical patch update" for v8.5.1 of the viewer component. The updated version is now downloadable. It is probably recommendable for security reasons. The only two files that have changed are "ibpsd2.dll" and "vsw12.dll". The first file is responsible for PSD graphic files. The second one seems to be of more general use within the viewer component.

Oracle's description:
What this Update Fixes:
April 2015 Critical Patch Update for Outside In
This is the initial Outside In Critical Patch Update for 8.5.1


Patches were also made available for v8.4 and v8.5.0 of the viewer component. If anyone still uses those versions, they could contact us.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Thursday, Jun 18, 2015 - 14:12:   

A new version of the viewer component (v8.5.2) is now available for download to licensed users of X-Ways Forensics and X-Ways Investigator with active update maintenance. The relevant changes according to Oracle are:

1) PPT, PPTX: Rotate text 90 and rotate text 270 is now supported in tables. Potentially improved text decoding of hidden slide content.

2) HTML Inline Graphics: Base64-encoded graphics enclosed in an <img> tag in the HTML body (not in a style) will be displayed or can be handled as any other embedded object.*

3) Open Office Write table cell alignment: Middle and bottom alignment are now supported.


*This cannot be confirmed by us. For example, HTML case reports created by X-Ways Forensics with embedded graphics in inline Base64 code are apparently not supported.

On the plus side, the viewer component in its decompressed state is now 14 MB smaller because the SQLite database oit_font_metrics.db has magically shrunk a lot.

Installing this update is optional.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Sunday, Oct 25, 2015 - 15:47:   

Oracle has provided a "critical patch update" for v8.5.2, v8.5.1, and v8.5.0 of the viewer component. The updated versions are now downloadable. They are probably recommendable for security reasons. This time it is quite hard to make educated guesses about what was actually fixed because several general utility DLLs are affected. Other DLLs that were patched provide support for PDF, TGA, PDX and WK4 files.

Oracle's description of the patch update for v8.5.2 as always starts with a very promising first line, but is not super enlightening otherwise:
What this Update Fixes:
October 2015 Critical Patch Update for Outside In
This patch is the initial Outside In 8.5.2 Critical Patch Update
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Wednesday, Jan 20, 2016 - 17:27:   

Oracle has provided a "critical patch update" for v8.5.2 of the viewer component. The updated version is now downloadable. It is probably recommendable for security reasons.

Oracle's description of the patch update as always claims to have information about what was fixed, but doesn't:
What this Update Fixes:
January 2016 Critical Patch Update for Outside In
This patch is cumulative with all previous Outside In 8.5.2 Critical Patch Updates
A 3rd party web page describes the fixed security issue as follows: "A local user can exploit a flaw in the Oracle Outside In Technology Outside In Filters component to cause partial denial of service conditions." The only file that has actually changed is sccfnt.dll. That file is responsible for fonts.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Thursday, May 5, 2016 - 21:17:   

A new version of the viewer component (v8.5.3) is now available for download to licensed users of X-Ways Forensics and X-Ways Investigator with active update maintenance.

The major goals of this release according to Oracle are
* improved rendering fidelity in several key target formats,
* improved general font selection for all rendering products, and
* increased format coverage.

Other undisclosed customer requested enhancements and bug fixes are also included in the release, according to Oracle.

Installing this update is probably recommendable.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Monday, May 9, 2016 - 21:27:   

As it turns out, v8.5.3 of the viewer component now requires the Microsoft
Visual C++ 2013 Redistributable Package (from www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=40784) instead of the Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 SP1 Redistributable Package (msvcr120.dll instead of msvcr80.dll). That is good news because 2013 is the same version required by the Dokan driver.
W. Spiegl
Username: ws

Registered: N/A
Posted on Tuesday, May 10, 2016 - 8:13:   

Frage: Was bedeutet das jetzt für eine portable Version von XWF? Läuft der Viewer (unabhängig davon, ob auf c:\... temporäre Dateien erstellt werden) als portable Version auf XP ff. oder muß Visual C++ installiert werden?
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Tuesday, May 10, 2016 - 14:34:   

> Läuft der Viewer (unabhängig davon, ob auf c:\... temporäre Dateien erstellt werden)
> als portable Version auf XP ff.

The viewer component never ran on a plain Windows XP installation.

> oder muß Visual C++ installiert werden?

Only the redistributable package, if it has never been installed. I think fresh installations of more recent Windows versions have the 2005 package already included, but not necessarily the 2013 version. For example Windows 8.1 doesn't have 2013. So to be on the safe side, for use on an unknown live system, it's better to bring v8.5.2 of the viewer component, true.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Thursday, Oct 27, 2016 - 12:44:   

Oracle has provided a security patch update for v8.5.3 of the viewer component. The updated version is now downloadable. It is probably recommendable for security reasons. A list of bugs fixed was not made available. 11 DLLs were updated, including those that deal with PDF and XML files. If anyone with active update maintenance needs a patch update for v8.5.2 or v8.5.1 of the viewer component, they can contact us.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Thursday, Nov 3, 2016 - 11:27:   

The downloadable v8.5.2 now also has the latest security patches. But apparently that does not render that version as stable as v8.5.3, for example for PDF documents.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Saturday, Nov 5, 2016 - 17:18:   

A new download of v8.5.3 of the viewer component is now available that tentatively already includes the main DLLs of the Visual C++ 2013 Redistributable Package, so that even on live systems that lack that package you can use the latest version of the viewer component without installing any software.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Wednesday, Jan 18, 2017 - 5:53:   

Yesterday Oracle released a security patch update from Dec 12, 2016 for v8.5.3 of the viewer component. The updated version is now downloadable. It is probably recommendable for security reasons. A list of bugs fixed was not made available. Two DLLs were updated: dewp.dll, vspdf.dll. They are probably responsible for word processing documents and PDF files.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Wednesday, Apr 19, 2017 - 12:51:   

A new download of v8.5.3 of the viewer component is now available. It includes several patches that are not security-related and that were previously made available by Oracle individually to some other customers of their OutsideIn viewer technology. Which bugs were fixed or which details were improved, if any, remains undisclosed. The update is probably recommendable.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Sunday, May 7, 2017 - 11:48:   

I have accidentally found an official Oracle document that seems to list all the bugs in the viewer component that were fixed in the various patches for v8.5.3 by January 2017. It's a list of 233 bugs. That file is named Jan2017RollupPatchBugs_Final.pdf and can now be found in the viewer download directory in case anyone is interested.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Thursday, May 18, 2017 - 20:49:   

The not security-related patches from January 2017 that were made available on April 19, 2017 are apparently faulty. The "Decode text in files" functionality (used internally for logical searches, indexing, and FuzZyDoc text recognition) does not work correctly with them. The previous version of the viewer component is now offered for download again, i.e. v8.5.3 from May 2016 with security patches from October 2016 + January 2017 included. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Monday, Jul 24, 2017 - 4:40:   

An X-Tension by Ruslan Yushaev, available from http://www.x-ways.net/forensics/x-tensions/, serves as a work-around for a print bug in the Oracle OutsideIn viewer component (missing text when printing certain PDF documents). The bug was found by the author of the X-Tension and reported to Oracle by X-Ways in May.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Wednesday, Oct 18, 2017 - 4:35:   

A new download of v8.5.3 of the viewer component is now available. It includes one security fix, apparently to protect the software against malformed TIFF files (just a guess, did not find an official description). The update is probably recommendable.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Tuesday, Jan 2, 2018 - 18:50:   

A new download of v8.5.3 of the viewer component is now available. It probably includes many small fixes for many file types and thus is probably recommendable, but the only fix that we actually know of does not work. (When printing PDF documents that were created by MS Office 2013, certain text was not printed at all previously. Now the letters are printed as black boxes, so at least it is obvious that the printout is not OK, which is an improvement.)
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Thursday, Jan 11, 2018 - 5:50:   

Correction: Printing PDF documents that were created by MS Office 2013 probably works fine now with most printers.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Thursday, Apr 19, 2018 - 7:09:   

A new download of v8.5.3 of the viewer component is now available. It contains some fixes, in particular for viewing PDF files and for some security issues (no details available).
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Thursday, Apr 19, 2018 - 21:34:   

In case anyone experiences instability issues with this new release of the viewer component: The previous release remains downloadable from the same directory.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Wednesday, Jul 18, 2018 - 19:13:   

A new download of v8.5.3 of the viewer component is now available. It contains some fixes, in particular for PDF files again, and addresses some security issues (no details available).
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Sunday, Oct 21, 2018 - 14:14:   

A new download of v8.5.3 of the viewer component is now available. The following changes have been applied according to Oracle:

* Fixed: Highlighting a word doesn't show range indicator and border
* Fixed: Huge memory leak in oilink for PDF and MS Note One files
* Fixed: Content is mirrored from the original PDF file
* Security issues addressed: September and October 2018 security patches
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Sunday, Oct 21, 2018 - 14:34:   

A new version of the viewer component (v8.5.4) is now available for download to licensed users of X-Ways Forensics and X-Ways Investigator with active access to updates.

According to Oracle, improvements include:
* Support for files of Microsoft Access 2016 for Windows (text only)
* Support for MSG, EML, OFT, PST and OST files of Microsoft Outlook 2016 for Windows
* Support for RAR5 archives (at least according to https://docs.oracle.com/outsidein/854/oit/supportdocs/ds_oitfiles_8_5_4.pdf, but could not be confirmed by X-Ways)
* Improved rendering of PDF files in some respects

Installing this update is probably recommendable. The download already includes patches from October 2018.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Sunday, Jul 14, 2019 - 20:39:   

A new download of v8.5.4 of the viewer component is now available. The following changes have been applied according to Oracle:

* Security issues addressed

* Bugs fixed:
Bug 25838463 - Text extraction fails on PDF signed using Adobe Sign
Bug 25891262 - EXTRACTING DATA FROM PDF FILE RESULTS IN GARBAGE TEXT
Bug 28788473 - Regression: Fulltext from PDF extracted without German umlauts
Bug 29257068 - 'OIT.document.rectRange: Invalid argument' error when redacting range of cells
Bug 29290955 - Regression: Excel sheet getting blank when search findings move to next sheet
Bug 29315289 - Segmentation Fault when processing certain PDF file - IX
Bug 29387814 - WCC: OIT inverts the Black and White image on pdfexport
Bug 29523381 - Regression: bullets are not converted and stars () are shown instead
Bug 29617863 - CEC: Adobe Signed PDF's Will Not Convert
Bug 29920633 - Spreadsheets do not display more than 100 rows
Bug 29511826 - PPT file generating error at page number 20 in viewer sdk
Bug 28401884 - Regression: Unknown error when attempting to render a certain file
Bug 26980271 - Access violation error occurs when processing cab file with content access
Bug 25674573 - M69945: SPORADIC ERRORS WHEN RENDERING DOCUMENTS (THREADING PROBLEM)
Bug 25070317 - EXTRA HOLLOW RECTANGULAR OBJECT NOTICED IN PDF AND TIF
Bug 25759091 - PDF Package extraction throws fail with an ArgumentOutOfRangeException
Bug 27613669 - Legend in Excel file with non-ASCII characters are showing as asterisks
Bug 28748786 - Header and footer is disappearing from some pages of the document
Bug 29202812 - Regression: legitimate TIFF file is being shown as corrupt file
Bug 29262872 - Error opening document in viewer
Bug 26612961 - VSD file is rendered with extra shapes and text does not properly stay in box
Bug 28309145 - Content is mirrored from the original PDF file
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Monday, Jul 15, 2019 - 13:45:   

I have changed the download back to the previous version until further notice because of technical problems.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Monday, Jul 15, 2019 - 15:42:   

The patched version is now available again for download.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Sunday, Oct 27, 2019 - 21:29:   

A new download of v8.5.4 of the viewer component is now available. Oracle security fixes from early October have been applied.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Saturday, Jan 25, 2020 - 22:27:   

A new download of v8.5.4 of the viewer component is now available. Oracle security fixes from December (released in January) have been applied. Known fixes:

* Fixed exception errors that could occur when converting certain XLS files to PDF.
* Fixed omission of attachments of certain message/rfc822 files with winmail.dat.
* Fixed: Excel document attachments were not extracted if part of winmail.dat
* Fixed: Spaces between letters with XML output.
* Fixed: Numbered headers in DOCX files getting renumbered incorrectly when converted to PDF.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Saturday, Apr 18, 2020 - 13:27:   

A new download of v8.5.4 of the viewer component is now available. Oracle security fixes from April have been applied. Known addressed bugs/issues:

Web-view export crashes when exporting PDF file
Installation of 8.5.4 breaks conversion in .NET application
Fidelity Issues with HTML5 Conversion of PDF
Attachments of message eml files with winmail.dat not extracted
Infinite loop with certain pdf files
Certain MSG files generate out of memory error
PDF file with ZAPFDINGBATS does not display properly
MSG converted to PDF has striked out lines
EMF OUTPUT QUALITY OF PDF FILE WITH EMBEDDED FONTS IS NOT GOOD
PDF to Image produces improper outputs on WCC11G Patches
A separate embedded email does not get extracted
Certain PDF file does not render
Spacing issue after PDF export
Viewing of PDF with embedded Fonts results in garbled text
PDF File rendered with garbage characters
Not all the characters are being displayed
Issue with the attachments and Message Body in the eml samples
PDF text shows as garbled in viewer
No attachments get extracted for 201401_00943057_winmail.dat
Text and Spacing issues
PDF garbled
PDF conversion issue
Extra spaces and new lines are found in content of some pdf file
External Compute Instance Can Not Preview PDF (BIDI)
Rendering issues in 8.5.4 but not in 8.5.3
Multiple degradation after upgrade to 854 from 853
Lines are struck out when viewing certain msg file
Viewer hangs on attached PDF file
Conversion to PDF: Header text is shown on the wrong side
PDF export fails to process certain pptx files
Attachments not extracted from tnef encoded eml files.
Overprint issue with some .DOCX files
SOME CHARACTERS ARE OUT OF THE VIEWING AREA AND SOME ARE OVERWRITTEN
Special characters (ö,ä,ü,ß) are not displayed correctly and missing
OIT should support LATEST HWP Version 5.0.4.x and 5.0.5.x
Unknown error when opening doc in viewer
"Unknown chunker failure" error when viewing the attached docx file
Support additional properties from winmail.dat
Extraction of an attachment does not work in a certain eml file
Redactions shifted in Excel documents
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Saturday, May 23, 2020 - 22:52:   

A new download of v8.5.4 of the viewer component is available. The previous patch "was having some issue. While it was not a major problem and will not impact all the customers but our development team has rectified [...] the patch [sic]."
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Thursday, Jul 16, 2020 - 20:42:   

Another revision of v8.5.4 of the viewer component is now downloadable. Oracle fixes from July have been applied. The below issues were addressed. Some of these bullet points are quoted verbatim, others have been rephrased for better general understanding where possible.

E-mail with background color set to White color will make the white body text disappear
Email header is in a dark background
Issue with text extraction from One Note with non-ASCII characters
Issue with text extraction from PDF with broken words with spaces
Issue with text extraction from PDF incorrect Hebrew texts from PDF file
Conversion from MS Word DOC to PDF could produce garbage character
Viewer hangs while rendering a certain PDF file with formulas
Conversion from MS Word DOC to PDF could print certain paragraph numbers twice
Enhancement for support of HWP files 5.0.4 and above
Outlook Appointment files show as corrupted when viewing/exporting.
Candidate Word file attachments received corrupted from Outside-In service
Selecting from both body and header of MSG document creates redaction more than
Viewer failed to display content of a particular MS Excel document properly
msg file converted with extra question mark like character
OutsideIn garbles Japanese and other multi-byte characters
Drawpage produces half size view for the tiff file
Exporting PDF file results in inverted text
Conversion to PDF skips some text and graphics elements
Crashes when viewing a particular MS Excel document
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Thursday, Jun 3, 2021 - 11:17:   

Another revision of v8.5.4 of the viewer component is now downloadable. Oracle fixes from Oct and Dec 2020 have been applied. The below issues were addressed that potentially affected X-Ways Forensics, quoted verbatim.

Some extra spaces are rendered after PDF file conversion-IX
Search Export generates XRunExport() failed: file is corrupt (0x0009)
PDF conversion doesn't provide correct conversion result
PDFs w/blanks sections are exporting bad format w/Search & Image Export
E-mail with background color performs differently from 8.5.3
Info->PageCount on attached excel files hang the drawpage.exe app(32 bit)
XLS file crashes drawpage.exe on 32-bit and 64-bit
Viewer hangs the system when the attached xlsx file is opened
PDF results in a core dump when running through exsimple via PX
Observed Text Overlapping and Data loss on PX Export for Given PDF file
Highlighting issue in Word documents with footnotes
UNADDRESSABLE ACCESS beyond heap bounds while exporting in tiff format
Email Header Redaction
Small msg file is rendered to a PDF file with over 65,000 pages
Customer searches for a name not found due to added space by SX
Watermark is obscuring document in OIT
Compressed Searchable PDF Files Generated by CVISION are not Previewable in OCE
Some extra spaces are rendered after PDF file conversion.
Document in RTF not correct shown or printed in OIT, 8.5.1 to 8.5.4
HTML charset not respected when enclosed in single quotes
OIT Viewer crash when opening XLSX document
Part of Text not showing in viewer: VW 8.5.4
Incorrect UTF8 output encoding for email content with iso-2022-kr character set
OIT 8.5.4 Viewer Crashes on attached xlsx file
word doc in WVX is missing a lot of data and only has two pages.
SCCOPT_TIMEZONE NOT WORKING FOR .EML FILES - IMAGE EXPORT
PFDA conversion of PDF is missing text.
Microsoft Outlook OST File count mismatch - 8.5.3 CA
OVERLAPPING TEXT IN .DOCX FILES

Attached DOCX file errors out while viewing on OIVT
Numbering in word documents are rendered incorrectly by PX and IX
Spacing Issue Observed on Given PDF file across SDKs
CA 8.5.5 producing blank output on some html files, customer crash
Text selection with Body and Footnote for redaction, it add extra lines and texts
French Character not extracted correctly
EXRunExport() failed: unknown chunker failure (0x0241) on Loading Input Doc File
eml files being reported as 7-bit files rather than emails in 8.5.4 and 8.5.5
Image covering header after conversion in latest 8.5.4/5
Some images in the PX and IX of DOC files are out of place
XLSX is not shown with drawpage.exe in OIVT8.5.4.20(BP10) but works in BP8
CEC: Fidelity Issues with PX Conversion of PDF - HME_DR_SimGrid_SNUBH_2016_FT
MS Excel file converted to PDF had Partial text hidden
CEC: Fidelity Issues with HTML5 Conversion of PDF - HME_DR_SimGrid_SNUBH_2016_FT
Exported pdf displays unmappable characters
Docx - Inline Image in the table in Header is not positioned or aligned properly
Oracle Outside-In adds redundant space in the word
Font rendering issues in 8.5.4, not present in 8.5.3
Extracted text of PDF document contains spaces between letter of a single word
WCC: certain excel hangs when exporting to pdf
with OIT 8.5.4 BP5, Redaction on last page of document is appearing on front
The umlauts in eml files are not rendered correctly
image export of eml file chops off portion of document
web view of Specific .xlsm file shows file corrupt message.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Monday, Aug 8, 2022 - 19:58:   

A patch was applied to the viewer component download that improves rendering for certain PDF documents.
Stefan Fleischmann
Username: admin

Registered: 1-2001
Posted on Tuesday, Aug 16, 2022 - 18:06:   

A display problem with certain PDF documents in the version from Aug 8 was fixed.
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