Student clusters and lecture theatres to move to Windows 7
From the start of the next academic session (2011/12) all clusters and lecture theatres will run Windows 7 with Internet Explorer 8.
The migration of student clusters is the first phase of a programme to move all eligible University machines to Windows 7 in advance of April 2014, when Microsoft withdraws support for the Windows XP operating system.
Faculties and services have committed to upgrading cluster hardware over the coming months in readiness for the migration. Cluster software testing will continue to be co-ordinated by the Annual Teaching Software Update (ATSU) project and participation in the testing process is actively encouraged to ensure compatibility of applications with Windows 7 and IE8.
Office 2010 will be made available alongside Office 2007, but will not have plug-ins to other applications, e.g. EndNote or PDF Converter (these will continue in the Office 2007 version). We expect the decision regarding the version of Office to be used for teaching and for student document submission to be made at a local level. Windows 7 and Office 2010 training and education is being developed to accompany the cluster implementation and will be available from the IT Training Unit.
Work is ongoing to prepare the University for staff migration to Windows 7. This is a significant project and further communication will follow as decisions on the rollout approach are made.
For further information, please visit the project website.