Dreamspark HelpGuide This guide is to help students register for, and download software from, the Microsoft Dreamspark. For any additional assistance please see the Fanshawe Technical Support Services office in E2030. Registration 1. Log in to www.fanshaweonline.ca and check your email. There should be an email with the subject FW: An account has been created This registration email is created when the class list for your program is provided to us. Any student who has registered late will need to contact the Fanshawe Technical Support Services desk. 2. Click on the link under Complete Your Registration to go to the Microsoft account registration page and fill in all the required fields.
Your email address has to be your fanshaweonline.ca address. Please remember what you fill in for all these fields as they will be necessary later whenever you wish to download software. 3. Once registered you will get another email in your fanshaweonline.ca inbox with the subject line FW: Your account has been registered. This email has your username and a link to Dreamspark so it is a good idea to keep it for future use. 4. When going to the Dreamspark website there is an account login option at the top right corner of the screen. Once logged in your email address will appear at the top and you can start shopping for the software you need. Finding Software 1. The site acts as an online shopping site for most purposes. Finding software is easy and you can view all the titles by clicking on the software list. In the example below, this student is looking at the different versions of Windows 7 Professional available for download. Once finding what you need you click on Add to Cart and then go to your Shopping Cart at the link in the top right.
2. Once in your shopping cart you can see the product you just chose. Click where it says Check Out if you are done, or click Continue Shopping to select more items you need. 3. The next two screenshots show the user agreement. Make sure you read it as you are bound by this user agreement for the duration of the time you use the software.
4. After accepting the user agreement you must confirm your first name, last name and email address that you had provided during your account registration and then click on Proceed with Order. 5. The next page has some very important information on it. The first thing is the product key. It is very important to save this information somewhere safe. The website will only store your product keys for 24 months and will charge you if you need to retrieve it after that time frame. The second item is the download link which is highlighted in red in the top right corner. This will be needed for the next section.
Downloading Software Installing the SDM (Secure Download Manager) 1. Once you have clicked on the Start Download link from step 5 of Finding Software you will get a screen that looks like the following: Almost all software on the Dreamspark site uses the Secure Download Manager, or SDM. You need to install this software available at the link in step 1 of this screenshot once but after that you should be able to skip this step. This guide will continue going through the install of the SDM. You will need to come back here so please do not close this web page. 2. Clicking on the Download SDM link will prompt you to run or save the program. Clicking run is fine but if you wish to have a copy of the installer in case you need to reinstall later then click save.
3. Once you click on run, or double click the file you saved to your computer, you will get a welcome page for the SDM installer. Please click next. 4. The next page is a user agreement for the SDM software. Before it will let you continue you should look through the agreement. Once finished click on I agree as shown in the outlined box and then click next.
5. Now it will ask you where you would like the SDM installed to. In most cases the default location it chooses will be perfectly fine and you can just click next. Once the SDM has finished installing you will be asked to click finish. You now have the Secure Download Manager installed on your computer and will not have to do these steps again. If you go back to your web browser you can now download the.sdx file for your software.
Downloading Software Starting the.sdx 1. After installing the Secure Download Manager go back to your web browser and click on the Download.SDX link. Again your computer will ask to open or save and again you can choose either option. 2. Once launched the.sdx will run in the SDM as shown below. Two important pieces of information here is the Download Location and the Start Download link. The outlined box at the top shows the Download Location, and will default to your Downloads folder. If you wish to store the file somewhere else you can click on Change Location. Check this location once the download is done to find your downloaded software and run it. The outlined box at the bottom shows the Start Download link. Once this is clicked the SDM will start downloading the listed software. You can have more than one download going at a time by simply clicking on another.sdx file. It will be added to this list with its own Start Download link. You can pause or cancel the download once it has started.
Additional Information.ISO some of the software downloaded from this website will be standard executable (.exe) meaning you can just double click the file once it s downloaded to run it. Some other files, including most of the Operating Systems like Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 will be.iso instead..iso is a disk image and as such must be mounted in an optical drive (cd/dvd) to be used. To use it you need to burn the.iso file to a disk. A DVD is recommended as it will take multiple CDs in order to burn most of the software on the website. This can be helpful in two ways. Burning to a disk allows the.iso file to be used as it is intended without using any additional software. This also makes a backup of your downloaded software so that you can reinstall it easier if something happens to your computer. Support all support for this website is done through the Fanshawe Technical Support Services desk. Even issues submitted by email to the website get redirected to us instead. For any support please come to our offices in E2030 or contact us by email or phone as follows: Technical Support Services E2030 (519) 452 4430 x4357 helpdesk@fanshawec.ca