IIT School of Applied Technology Microsoft DreamSpark Premium

The School of Applied Technology will activate student and faculty subscriptions to Microsoft DreamSpark Premium after the drop/add date for each term, and upon request for CCT and for some specific ITM courses. (In previous semesters this subscription was known as the Microsoft Developer’s Network Academic Alliance.) This subscription allows students enrolled in ITM, IT or CCT courses and ITM/IT faculty to download all Microsoft operating systems and developer’s tools; about the only items NOT included are some Office applications (Word, Powerpoint and Excel). The most commonly required items can be downloaded from our the DreamSpark Premium Web Store via http://www.itm.iit.edu/dreamspark/.

Shortly after we have asked you to read this page, you should have receive an email from the DreamSpark Web Store with your username and password; this email will only be sent to your IIT Hawk student email address. You may hear the DreamSpark Web Store referred to as “ELMS” as the site for delivery of the software is a platform known as Elms for DreamSpark and is administered by e-academy, inc. This subscription will expire at midnight, the day before the next term begins; new subscriptions for the next term will be entered at the end of the add/drop period for that term.

Using the DreamSpark Web Store
At the time you place an order for your downloadable software, the receipt page will assign you your software key; you should save or print this Web page and retain it safely so you have the installation key. (This key can be retrieved later logging back into the DreamSpark Web Store, selecting “Your Account” from the menu on the at the very top of the page, and clicking “View Details” in your Order History for the product you need the key for.) You will need to install the DreamSpark Secure Download Manager (SDM) for your first software download; subsequent downloads will use the SDM already installed. When you run the SDM, software downloaded from the Web is placed in a directory you can specify during the process (the default is your Windows download directory) and you can elect to not immediately install the software, or to continue with the installation process as guided by the downloader. The application may be downloaded as a directory, as a self-extracting zip file (.exe file), or as a CD or DVD image file commonly known as a an ISO file.

If you are downloading the software on campus or at work and you need to install it at home, if it is a directory you can normally burn the entire contents of the directory to a CD which will give you a self-installing CD; if it is a self-extracting zip file you can extract the contents to the hard drive, go to the directory it extracts to and do the same thing. Alternatively you can just burn the whole directory or .exe file to a cd, or copy it to a flash drive, and haul it home that way. This may be a better alternative as sometimes you may be able to get several applications or CD’s on one CD, DVD, or flash drive.

If the software downloads as an ISO image—CD or DVD image—you will need to create a disc from the ISO image; instructions for this process should be in the help file for your installed CD burning software. Operating system CDs or DVDs are normally in ISO form.

Alternatives
For students who need the other Microsoft Office applications, Office Professional Academic 2010 is available for student direct purchase from Microsoft for $99.95 at http://www.microsoft.com/student/office/en-us/default.aspx
Alternatively, we suggest that you download LibreOffice for free at http://www.libreoffice.org/download/. Other quality free software recommended by the ITM program that runs under Microsoft Windows can be found at http://www.itm.iit.edu/iitapps/.