Every year, in collaboration with the campus technical community, Information and Educational Technology (IET) develops and publishes a list of recommended Windows and Apple desktop and laptop configurations that work best in Davis’s computing environment.

Recommended computer configurations for 2008-09
These recommendations for PC and Macintosh systems and are designed as a guideline for purchasing new systems for 2008-09.

Students
To help students accomplish a broad range of educational activities and benefit from in-class and out-of-class opportunities to the fullest possible extent, UC Davis expects students to have their own personal computers. Recommendations for both PC and Apple laptops have been updated for the 2008-09 academic year.

Specifically, UC Davis recommends:

• Having a laptop rather than a desktop computer.With the campus’ expanding wireless capabilities and increasing use of computers for individual and group work at various campus locations (the library, some classrooms, study lounges, cafes, wireless hot spots, etc.), there are many advantages to having a laptop.
• If purchasing a PC, select a system with the Vista Home Premium edition or better. If you have already purchased a new computer with the Vista Home Basic edition, this may be sufficient. Please check with your school or college to find out if it has specific recommendations.

When purchasing a computer for personal or university use, UC Davis faculty and staff are encouraged to check with their departmental technology support staff to determine whether to buy a Mac or PC and, if purchasing a PC, whether to buy a system with Vista, and which version to select. Before upgrading an older PC to Vista or an older Mac to OS 10.5 (also known as Leopard), departments should take into consideration the system’s hardware configurations and any installed software, which may or may not be compatible with Leopard or Vista. The campus started supporting systems with Vista on July 1, 2007 and systems with Leopard in December, 2007.

For help deciding what system to purchase and when to upgrade to Leopard or Vista, please visit the UC Davis Microsoft Web site and UC Davis Macintosh Web site and contact the technology support staff in your department (see the Technology Support Coordinators directory). Please note: departments may purchase Dell computers for University use from UCDBuy via the UC system-wide Dell agreement, which includes deeper discounts ("sweet spots") for nine bundles. The bundles are the “Standard Configurations” found on UCDBuy and are updated quarterly, as specified by the UC system.

Obsolete Computer Systems
These computer systems may not be able to run current software products necessary for daily computing, access some files required for classes, and are commonly unsupported by vendors.

General assistance
For assistance with these recommendations, please contact the UC Davis IT Express Computing Services Help Desk at 530-754-HELP (4357) or ithelp@ucdavis.edu.

UC Davis Bookstore TechHUB
The UC Davis Bookstore offers several laptop and desktop computer systems that have been specially designed to meet or exceed the minimum campus performance standards. For more information, see the UC Davis Bookstore Computer Shop Web site.

Contact us if you have questions or need further information:
E-Mail Address: ITHelp@ucdavis.edu
IT-Express Phone Number: 530-754-HELP (4357)