Wireless woes
By Ben Baynton, staff writer
Posted on February 22, 2007

Students looking to upgrade their computers this year may be surprised to learn that JMU will not support Windows Vista or Microsoft Office 2007 until this school year is completed.

Until July 1, students who have Vista will not be able to use wireless Internet or receive support from the JMU HelpDesk. Currently, there is no plan for JMU to support the home edition of Vista.

“It is not atypical for educational institutions and corporations to wait for a service pack to be released that addresses some of the early issues prior to considering migrating to a new operating system,” Assistant Vice President for Information Technology Dale B. Hulvey said.

 JMU’s current wireless connection software does not support Vista, but an upgrade is planned as soon as the software becomes available.

The problems with Office come from Outlook 2007, and its compatibility with calendar software. Office is currently being evaluated running on Windows XP and how it operates with other JMU and XP software.

The Information Technology Department suggests that no one install Vista or Office 2007 unless they absolutely have to, since Vista has steep hardware requirements. This can be a problem, though, since many new computers come packaged with Vista software already installed. 

“We are working on getting our staff training on Vista so they are prepared to support the campus community,” Hulvey said. “Training options are just now becoming available.”

Some students feel that JMU is doing a good job with Vista and that very few people would actually be interested in getting Vista at this point.

“Whenever something new comes out, it takes a while for it to be accepted,” freshman Isha Arora said.

But some feared that rushing compatibility could result in adopting an operating system that has not been tested in the open market by average consumers.

“It is fine we’re not integrated yet,” senior Steven Obal said. “If it’s a real buggy system we shouldn’t use it.”

The IT department said it hopes to become Vista and Office 2007-compatible by July 1.