The Information below is intended for UH Math staff and faculty. Although this information may be useful to others, requests for help from the Administrators is only supported for UH staff and faculty. Please do not email the Administrators unless you are working for the UH Math Department.
Windows 11 is currently the only fully supported Microsoft Operating Systems for the department. Windows 7, 8.1 and 10 have no support.
All desktops and laptops will have Windows 11 and Office 2021. If you have a laptop with an older version of Windows or Office, you can contact the to arrange an appointment for an upgrade.
All new laptops will have Windows 11. Older laptops with Windows 10 will be upgraded to Windows 11 or replaced with another laptop that can have Windows 11. New Department Desktop PCs have Windows 11 and older desktops will also be upgraded to Windows 11. The current version of university licensed Office is 2021. Office 2016 or Office 219 will be upgraded to Office 2021 when possible.
For Desktop and Laptop computers with Windows 11, the latest versions of the following software is installed and supported by default:
| File compression | 7-Zip |
| Web Browsers | Firefox, Google Chrome and Edge (Windows 10 or later). |
| Browser Plugins | uBlock Origin is a great ad-block plugin that now only works in Firefox. For Chrome and Edge, Ublock Origin Lite replaces Ublock Origin. A mandatory plugin to make your browser faster and more secure. |
| Anti-Virus | Crowdstrike is the new official university licensed anti-virus. Required for all UH owned computers! The university license for McAfee Endpoint Security expired and must be replaced with Crowdstrike. |
| Business Apps | Office 2021 for Windows 11/10 PCs, which includes Access, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Teams and Word. Skype for Business is no longer available. Users can use their cougarnet credentials to login to the Microsoft365 website to access all options available to all UH Faculty, Staff and Students. |
| Media Players | Windows Media Player, VideoLan-VLC is available upon request. |
| Remote Access | WinSCP is a Remote Secure Copy program. You can use this to copy files between your remote PC and our servers. However, most users should now be using MS OneDrive, Sharepoint or Teams to store their work files. |
| PuTTY is a Telnet and SSH client that allows you to run commands on remote Math Linux servers. | |
| Webpage Editor | MS Expression 4 |
| PDF Viewer | Acrobat Reader. Adobe Acrobat Pro will now only be available for limited approved requests. |
| Create PDFs | PDFArranger, which allows you to merge or split pdf documents and rotate, crop and rearrange
their pages using an interactive and graphical interface. Adobe Acrobat Pro, will now only be available for limited approved requests. Most functions can be replaced by using PDFArranger (see above) or Xournal++, (see below for details). |
| Other Software | |
| Xournal++ is a cross-platform (Windows, Mac, Linux) software which is good for note-taking and allows you to annotate and modify PDFs |
Laptops for teaching will include the following:
| Graphing | CaRMetal
GeoGebra, Graph (GraphCalc, MathGV and others by request.) |
Free |
| Postscript | GhostScript and GhostView | Free |
| TeX | MikTeX Free open-source TeX for Windows | Free |
| TeX Editors | TeXstudio Free open-source TeX editor | Free |
Desktops and Laptops with writing tablets will include:
| Pen Tablet Apps | Microsoft Office 2021 OneNote | Free |
Optional software that is supported and available upon request, and might require approval if not free:
| Web Browsers | Seamonkey | Free |
| Computational | Maple, Mathematica, Matlab | Special * |
| Scilab (free replacement for MatLab) | Free | |
| Statistical | R and Rstudio | Free |
| Math Equations | PCTeX | $49-99 |
| Screen Capture | Camtasia Advanced video capture and editing | ~$170+ |
| SnagIt for still and video capture | ~$40+ | |
| Camtasia/SnagIt bundle | ~$200+ | |
| Snipping Tool for still capture (included in Windows 11/10). | Free | |
| OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) Free open source software for video recording and live video streaming. | Free | |
| Video Editing | OpenShot Free and simple open-source video editor for Windows, Mac and Linux. | Free |
| Graphing | Geometer's Sketchpad | $70+ |
| Graph Calculator Software | TI Software Smartview | ~$130+ |
| Wabbitemu Emulator for TI Calculators. Works just like TI Smartview. Requires you to own a TI Calculator to copy the ROM | Free | |
| Pen Tablet Apps | PDF Annotator (allows you to write on/over PDFs.) This is being replaced with Xournal++ | $60 |
| Xournal++ a Note-Taking software that allows PDF annotations similar to PDF Annotator. Is available for Windows, Macs and Linux | Free |
Additional software also available from UH website
* The Mathematics Department has network licenses for Maple, Mathematica and Matlab which is free for use only on department computers on our wired network. The university has a site license for Matlab now and is available for use on or off campus for free. To use Mathematica outside the department, a renewable annual license is available for purchase from UH IT. Our Maple agreement has a limited number of licenses available for home use for free, otherwise it has to be purchased for around $995.
There are other applications available that are less used, but are also supported. Requests for new software must be evaluated before it will be supported or installed, which can take up to several weeks.
Staff and Faculty of the Mathematics Department that want to request any software and/or hardware must send requests to the administrators. See this page for instructions.