 Important information regarding these new products from Microsoft.
Vista Microsoft Corporation recently released Vista, their new version of the Windows operating system. Campus computer users have been asking about its availability under the Microsoft Campus Agreement, and how Campus Information Technology Services will be supporting it. We have been testing it for some time now, and although we feel that the product is a good one, we have identified four broad issues that will affect the pace of its adoption: Your computer may not be able to run it. This largely depends on whether your machine has sufficient memory and if its video and sound cards are compatible with Vista.
Some of your peripheral devices may not work with Vista. Manufacturers of printers, PDAs, scanners, cameras and the like are gradually releasing drivers for Vista, but it may take some time before all these devices function properly with the new operating system.
Some of your applications may not run under Vista. Publishers of software packages may need to release revisions specifically updated to run in Vista, so you should check their websites to see what they have to say about it.
User familiarity. There have been enough changes to the look and feel of Windows that many users may need to get some training to become comfortable with Vista. It will also take some time before support staff are fully ready to help users with problems they experience.
The result of all this is that IT Services will not begin distributing Vista to computer labs or supported user machines any time in the near future. Computer labs will continue to run Windows XP for the 2007-2008 academic year. Microsoft itself will be supporting Windows XP (the version most commonly used on campus) until at least April of 2009, and so we expect to also continue our support through that date. Office 2007 Microsoft has also released the newest version of Office, containing Word, Excel, Access, Powerpoint, Outlook and Publisher. It also offers new products, including One Note, Groove and InfoPath (See http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/getstarted/FX101055081033.aspx) for overviews of all Office products. Users transitioning to Office 2007 will see some significant differences in the look and feel of the applications. The most obvious change is in how menu items are grouped together and presented to the user. There are also many cosmetic changes to the applications that will be somewhat unfamiliar to even the experienced user. It is expected that some retraining will be necessary to make users comfortable with the new version of Office. The Teaching, Learning and Technology Center will be scheduling Office 2007 training for Faculty and Staff this summer. IT Services plans to distribute Office 2007 to computer labs in time for the fall 2007 semester. Faculty and staff that wish to begin using Office 2007 should call the Help Desk for more information on how and when it will be made available to them. Internet Explorer 7 Finally, a new version of Microsoft's Internet browser has been out for some time, and is an integral part of Vista but is optional for users of Windows XP. IE7 is not yet certified for use with BANNER, and there may be other services that have problems with this new browser. We will not distribute IE7 as part of our Secure Desktop or ASCI programs for the time being. |
