Software

Students at the Information School have access to a wide variety of software for home, in the Information School labs, and in UW's CRC labs.

Software for Home and Instructional Use

Microsoft Office

The University of Washington has an agreement in place with Microsoft that allows you to purchase copies of Office (for Windows and Macintosh) at a very reduced price. This software will be mailed to you after purchase with a credit card, as it is not available for download. This program allows you to install the software on both a home desktop and your laptop. You can use your UW NetID and password to login and order here.

Microsoft Development Tools

The Information School is a member of the Microsoft Developer's Network Academic Alliance Program (MSDNAA). Through this program you can download for free copies of Windows, Access, Visio, Visual Studio .NET and most Microsoft servers (such as SQL Server, Exchange). Some products can be installed directly, others require that you burn the ISO image to a CD first and then install from the CD. To obtain this software, go to the MSDN Academic Alliance Software Center site and login with your userid (your complete UW email address) and password. If this is your first time logging into the site, click the "forgot password" link to have it emailed to you.

Software in the iSchool Labs

We have installed an extensive collection of software, from a wide variety of companies, on the computers in our iSchool labs and on our research workstations. Most applications are market leaders in their particular segment. Generally, we stay current with all major releases of software. Most applications are available on every computer in the iSchool.

We do not directly support the Macintosh platform in the iSchool but we are now offering both OS X and Windows on all of the computers in our labs. Students may set up machines in the TE Lab with alternative operating systems, such as Linux or using Virtual PC. Virtual PC is also installed on every lab machine allowing students to experiment with any operating system they choose.

View software available in the iSchool Labs

UW Software

Students also have access to UW's CRC computing labs, including the CRC lab in Mary Gates Hall (MGH 134) and their software. Software for both Macintosh and PC computers is available. View software available in CRC labs. To reach your iSchool H: drive from the CRC labs, use SFTP like you would at home.