Computer Support & Information

Software Downloads

To optimally access online course materials, you may need some or all of the free software applications and plug-ins below.

Web Browsers

To determine which version of Microsoft Internet Explorer you are using, select About Internet Explorer from the Help menu.

You can get the latest version from Netscape's download site.

As an alternative, you may try Mozilla Firefox. Firefox is a stand-alone web browser from The Mozilla Foundation, the same developers who built the Mozilla software suite (used by Netscape). Firefox features faster page loading, tabbed browsing, and an integrated download manager.

Plug-ins

Microsoft Office document viewers: You can download free Microsoft Office viewer applications from the Microsoft Office Downloads Home Page, which offers viewers for files created in Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Word, and Microsoft Excel.

The Java Runtime Environment is required to use some of the features in Vista.

Instructors often produce documents as Portable Document Format (PDF) files. You will need Adobe Reader to view such PDF documents.

Macromedia Flash Player and Macromedia Shockwave Player are two popular plug-ins sometimes used by instructors to deliver multimedia rich content via the World Wide Web.

Audio/Video players

These players are required to view different audio and video file formats.

Only the free Basic Player is required for accessing Real Media content.

Windows Media Player 10 requires the Windows XP Operating System. If you are not using Windows XP, follow the link "See all Windows Media Player downloads" on the Microsoft Windows Media Player Download site.