As it stands now the "Reset" command doesn't really live up to its name.

 

The documentation says,

"Reset: Return Webroot SecureAnywhere settings to their defaults."

The console says,

"Reset SecureAnywhere to its original settings on this endpoint."

 

However, when the application is 100% controlled by the web console, this description of resetting settings doesn't make sense. If I control the settings why would I reset them to defaults, they should already be at defaults. Unmentioned in this description is that it also resets the collected data about the identity shield and active process monitoring. But using your own console and agent GUI as a guide, those are not considered settings. What is being talked about is the state of the application since they are not something directly set by me as a central administrator. They are dynamically populated and at this time not able to be properly managed. This terminology is ambiguous to an administrator.



 

To me, "reset" implies a full top to bottom clean out of every possible facet of the application awhile still allowing it to start again and reinitialize settings. It should be akin to performing a reinstallation of the endpoint. All data from WRData should be cleared, all registry keys other than what is needed to start the application should be cleared, etc. Otherwise you should use the "restore defaults" terminology.

 

WSA is extremely resilient - it only needs a file or two enabled to startup to bootstrap itself into full functionality. With this kind of architecture I don't see why support should ever tell me to uninstall/reinstall it. There's like 4 files to install, and unless they're corrupt why can't the application state just be reset remotely? The entire concept of reinstalling an application like WSA doesn't make sense to me. 

 

As someone with very little insight into the workings of the application and the support challenges you face, I would nonetheless like to see this split into two commands:

 

Reset Settings and Process Data

Reset Entire Local State

 

Feel free to pick apart this post and tell me I'm wrong, line by line. :D

 

Regards,

explanoit