Software for Saint Vincent CIS Students
MSDN Academic Alliance Software
The CIS Department has obtained a membership with the MSDN
Academic Alliance (MSNDAA) which provides the latest Microsoft software for
academic development use. Note that Microsoft Office is not included. The CIS
Department is permitted to allow its students to install this software on their
own PCs. Note that this privilege is being extended as a convenience to
students. The department expects that students will normally use the CIS
lab for coursework, with some use of available MSDN software on their
own PCs when convenient. This is especially helpful for commuters. However,
in the end, students' work must run on the CIS computers, so be sure to test
your projects on the CIS machines.
Obtaining MSDN Software
- All of the MSDNAA software is handled online at the
MSDN Academic Alliance Software Center web site
for the CIS department.
- You must be a CIS major or student in a CIS class at Saint Vincent in order to log into this web site.
The department pays an annual fee to allow CIS students legal access to this software.
Other students are not included. Do not try to give the software to a friend!
- Your username for this software web site is your Saint Vincent email address.
Use this email address to log in. New students in a CIS class should receive a welcoming email
message from the MSD Academic Alliance site at the beginning of the semester.
This would arrive in your Saint Vincent email. If you did not get one, check with
Br. David.
This email message should contain your username (same as your Saint Vincent
email address) and an initial password for logging in. (This password can be changed once you log into
the site by clicking on "My Profile" and following the directions there.)
- The software available includes popular items such as Windows 7, Windows XP Professional,
Visual Studio .NET 2008, etc.
- You can download much of the software listed at the site. You can order media (essentially paying
only for shipping) for some of the software. Both methods are available for certain software items.
- Follow the directions at the web site for downloading the software for free.
Essentially it first downloads a small program to your PC. It is suggested that youi
download this small program to
your desktop. (It will be named something like "Windows XP Professional w SP2.exe", for example.)
Then you run this program, which in turn downloads the desired software. You can only
install once due to the protections that this system provides. (If something goes wrong and
you need to install again send an email message to Br. David.
- After you download a product, you should get an email message giving a summary of the transaction.
Read it carefully as it may contain further installation instructions.
For example, it may direct you to return to the web site, click on "My Software", and then click
on the link for the product you selected in order to see a product
serial number which might be needed to complete the software installation.
- The web site will require you to agree to certain terms before downloading software.
Do read through this to see what you are agreeing to.
- If you want to download the software (instead of ordering the media), you may have to use Internet
Explorer instead of the Firefox browser, as some students have reported that they could not
get the download to work with Firefox.
- The download gave me a .iso file. What do I do with that? See the top of
the Visual Studio 2008 Usage Notes page for suggestions on how to
handle this.
- Remember that you cannot give this software to anyone else. For one thing, the activation
key only allows 1 install. This is also a legal requirement.
- Although the web site says that we provide technical assistance with the software, it is
very minimal due to the small size of our dept. We might be able to provide a quick email to suggest a
solution to a problem, but we must concentrate our main support efforts on the CIS lab itself.
Thus you install and use this software at your own risk.
- When you are finished with a session at the site, be sure to click on the Logout button.
- Links to the various legal agreements regarding this program can be found at the bottom of
this page.
- Let us know if something is not working with this software distribution system.
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