Knowledge Base .: What is the 'base specification' for your products?

When we produce our educational products we would like to create the best possible experience for our users. We are very aware that some of our customers do not have cutting-edge workstations and so we ensure that we support older technologies as much as we can.

Whilst we suggest a 'recommended specification'*, we endeavour to test on computers that are up to seven years old, but we have to draw the line at supporting some older technologies due to incompatibilities with software and operating systems, and in some cases the hardware itself.

Exceptions: We do not test on, or support virtualised machines, or thin-client networks.

In addition to our guidelines* the following criteria should illustrate the minimum specifications for our products:

Processor:
PC
- Pentium 4 at 1GHz or faster (2GHz - Windows Vista)

Macintosh
- PowerPC G4 at 1GHz or faster
OS:
PC
- Windows XP (Service Pack 2)
- Windows Vista

Macintosh
Mac OS X (10.4.11 or later.)
RAM:
PC
- 512MB (Windows XP)
- 1GB (Windows Vista)

Macintosh
- 1GB
Hard drive: At least 1GB or 10% of the drive space should be free - whichever is the greater (note that some products will require. This allows for space to install software and space for temporary Windows 'swap' files.
DVD-ROM: 1x sped (CD - 8x speed if needed for CD media access).
Keyboard & Mouse: Other pointing devices may be used where they are fully integrated - e.g. interactive whiteboards.
Video: Integrated video capable of 1024x768 pixels at 32bpp (XGA)
Audio: Integrated audio capable of 16bit 96KHz playback (AC'97)
Headphones or speakers: Depending upon your environment, headphones may be preferable.
Microphone: Where required an external high-quality microphone with noise cancelling is recommended.
Web Browser:
PC
- Internet Explorer 7 or Firefox 3

Macintosh
- Safari 3 or Firefox 3
Plug-ins: Where required, the following minimum versions of browser plug-ins are:
Adobe Reader - 8
Macromedia Flash Player - 9
Real Player - 8 Basic
Java JRE - 6.16
Security: Pop-up blockers and other security settings should be configured to permit the product to open pop-ups, store session information (e.g. cookies) allow execution of ActiveX controls and temporary code where required. Proxy should be bypassed where possible for online services.
Office software: Where required, Microsoft Office 2003 or 100% compatible alternatives should be used - unless stated otherwise, the free viewers available from Microsoft may be used.
Networking: Many of our site-licenced products (but not all) will execute from a network location. Generally, this means that the installed folder (or a parent of the installed folder) should be shared as a mounted network drive. Due to security restrictions on some rich media content, UNC shared directories are unsupported.

If you have a site-licenced product, this means that you may install the product on as many computers in your establishment as you like - and unless explicitly prohibited under licence-terms, you may also allow off-site access to authenticated users. Note that we do not offer help/support for off-site access.
VLE: Some of our titles will be badged with 'VLE - accessible via your VLE'
This indicates that the product (or components of the product) may be placed onto your VLE. As these systems are *not* designed for large rich-media streams, certain files (for example video) may not be viable for this delivery mechanism, in addition where a product has teacher/student differentiation, the *student* version is provided for inclusion on your VLE. Upload to hosted VLE providers may not be possible from the school, and you should seek advice from your VLE provider.

*(computers under three years old are usually ideal, computers should be well maintained at up to five years old, computers must be maintained extensively at up to seven years old.)

An example of a recommended specification:

Windows XP sp2, 2GHz Pentium 4, 1GB RAM, 1000Base-T NIC, 120GB HDD
Mac OS X 10.5.6, 2GHz G5, 2GB RAM