AOS 6.99 Firmware Update for EMA

We're excited to share the latest improvements in AOS 6.99 firmware for EMA. This is the last minor update before the upcoming major AOS 7.0 release.

We recommend installing this update, which has been thoroughly tested and approved for production deployment in EMA.

Installation

Administrators can manually install the update package in EMA through the "Information/Firmware" page starting today. Automatic rollout begins November 5, 2025.

Enhanced Password Policies for EMA Administrator Accounts

AOS 6.99 includes the usual bug fixes plus an important security enhancement for administrator accounts in EMA. Password policies now help you protect administrator accounts from brute-force attacks and meet compliance requirements.

The user interface adds a new "Password Rules" section. When activated, several security rules take effect:

• Password Complexity: Configure password length, character requirements, and security rules, including detection of weak password patterns.
• Password History: Prevent reuse of old passwords through encrypted storage of a configurable number of previous passwords.
• Password Age Rules: Enforce both maximum password age (automatic expiration) and minimum password age (protection against overly frequent changes).
• Account Lockout: After a configurable number of failed login attempts, the administrator account is automatically locked for 30 minutes by default.

The new password policies intentionally apply only to administrator accounts, since most of our customers handle user authentication through enterprise SSO providers that already enforce their own password policies.

If you need password policies for local EMA user accounts too, let us know. Your feedback helps us prioritize feature requests.

Do you have questions about the new firmware or need assistance with installation? We're here to help. Simply open a support ticket.

What to Know About AOS 7.0

We're now focused on finishing AOS 7.0, which is currently in active testing and will be finalized soon. This major release brings significant new features, an extensive GUI refresh, and tons of improvements.

Here's what you need to know:

AOS 7.0 is the last firmware update that will support EMA on-premise appliances delivered before 2010. Versions after AOS 7.0 won't support these older hardware generations.

We're making this change to unify the architecture for EMA Cloud and EMA On-Premise. This unified approach lets us deliver additional security features and boost performance. If you're running an affected appliance, we're happy to help you migrate to current hardware.

The legacy Microsoft Outlook integration program (the one that creates a folder in classic Outlook and activates web view) will be removed from the product with AOS 7.0. Microsoft disabled folder web view by default back in 2017 for security reasons. Since then, it's only been available through a manual registry edit.

Modern alternatives are available for EMA: a free COM add-in for classic Outlook, plus a free modern add-in that works with classic Outlook, new Outlook, and Outlook Web App.

If you've already downloaded the legacy Outlook integration program, it'll continue working for now. However, Microsoft is removing the old Internet Explorer engine (Trident/MSHTML) from classic Outlook in 2026. After that, the legacy folder web view won't be available at all.

AOS 7.0 introduces OAuth2 authentication for users. This enables modern single sign-on scenarios and integration with cloud identity providers. Because of this, AOS 7.0 will be the last version supporting the outdated single sign-on methods NTLM and EMA Ticket Server, which will be removed in a future version in favor of modern authentication methods.

In AOS 7.0, we're ending support for Internet Explorer 11 in the web interface. All current versions of Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari will continue to be fully supported. Microsoft ended support for Internet Explorer 11 back in 2022. We only maintained compatibility with IE11 in certain areas of the EMA web interface because of the legacy Outlook integration program.

Focusing on modern browsers lets us take advantage of current web standards and keep improving the user interface.

Planned Changes After AOS 7.0

To ensure we can continue maintaining and evolving EMA long-term, we're planning to focus on established standards after AOS 7.0.

If you're actively using any of the features listed below, please let us know by opening a support ticket. Your feedback helps us plan ahead.

In the EMA Voice module, we're planning to remove support for analog and ISDN telephone cards. We're also evaluating removal of the IAX and H.323 voice protocols, since SIP has become the industry standard and the vast majority of installations use only SIP.

In the EMA Print module, we're planning to transition from device-specific printer drivers to universal IPP (Internet Printing Protocol) drivers. IPP has become the standard in business environments and offers significantly better compatibility with Microsoft Universal Print and modern Windows and Mac clients.

For authenticators that connect user login in EMA to existing password databases, we're planning to remove the HTTP, POP3, SMTP, SSH, and IMAP interfaces. We plan to keep LDAP, RADIUS, and SMB (Windows file server) methods.

We're planning to remove archive storage connections via SSH (SFTP) from EMA, as this method has proven too slow for production use.

We'll keep you posted once AOS 7.0 is approved for production deployment. In the meantime, feel free to reach out with any questions.