Microsoft Vista Support Policy

In agreement with other IT groups at Columbia, Academic Technologies is not yet supporting Vista for use on campus.   We will continue to  purchase College computers with Windows XP.  Our Microsoft Campus Agreement allows us to upgrade the operating system when we are ready.

The academic community is testing Vista to see if it is compatible with the special applications used by students, faculty and administrators.   Some products (EndNote, Adobe Reader) have been found to work well with Vista.  Other Software (Mathematica, SPSS, Novell client for Artemis) present some problems.  There are also reports of issues with wireless networks.

We may upgrade the College computers to Vista after we have confirmed compatibility with Barnard's computing environment. 

We may instead await Windows 7.

Microsoft Office 2007

AT staff has tested this new suite of applications.  We expect many students will create documents in Word 2007 and send these to professors who are using Word 2003.   You may need the Microsoft compatibility pack to allow you to read the newer format.  Please call the Help Desk for assistance with this.

In Office 2007, Microsoft has replaced FrontPage with a new product "Share Point". 

The student computer labs were upgraded to Office 2007.   

Administrative and faculty offices will be upgraded later, department by department.

last update 01/12/09