GS105E V2 Firmware "issue"

The ProSAFE Plus Utility is a relict of the past. To many operational issues, outdated Adobe runtime inheriting major risks, thus removed from the availability . The installation of the PP is a pain, the need for the block level network driver adding even more risks on the security side. For a reason, this utility was removed years ago from these switches the user documentation. Subsequently, it was declared EoL many years ago.

As a part of the continued lifecycle support of the Easy Smart Managed switch series - a product line adding configuration features on top of what is for most product versions, built on an unmanaged core, making these small switches very capable and inexpensive - the Netgear Switch Discovery Protocol (also admin protocol for decades) does no longer exist on newly released Easy Smart Managed Network Switches, so it was disabled (for config control) by default for many years. In favour of more modern and for most more user friendly Simple Service Discovery Protocol (SSDP), built on the Internet protocol suite, that enables the discovery and advertisement of network services, primarily within Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) environments. With the progress and acceptance of recent operating systems and  modern Web browsers, it had to be removed from this switch model line.

Sure, the PP utility had some nice sides due to its implementation of a pure L2 protocol, able to discover (and config where still enabled) the switches independent of a working L3 (correct TCP/IP) network.

Regards,

-Kurt.

Just yet another active Netgear Community member, not working on behalf of Netgear.