Frequently Asked Questions

Unfortunately, the IT Service is unable to provide advice on unsupported software. Although a number of unsupported applications are available on NPCS, no information or advice is given on this software. There are more details available on supported/unsupported software at http://www.dur.ac.uk/its/software/pages/.

Tab-delimited files can be opened in SPSS:

1. Select File | Open | Data.
2. Choose Data (*.dat) as the File Type.
3. Select your file and click Open.
4. Follow the wizard steps to define your data format.

No not directly, students can buy educational priced software under the Microsoft Student Select Agreement at www.pugh.co.uk, for more details please see http://www.dur.ac.uk/its/software/microsoft/student/

A manual is also available from the Helpdesk for short-term loan.

There are two versions available, ArcView and ArcInfo. Both products contain the same core software components ArcMap, ArcCatalog and ArcToolbox. The majority of users will find ArcView suitable for their needs, ArcInfo is a more advanced version of the application which has additional cartographic tools within the ArcToolbox component.

Students can purchase EndNote from http://www.adeptscience.co.uk Alternatively students can purchase EndNote (Windows or Mac) from the IT Service Desk for approximately £85.

Departments can purchase the latest version of Endnote from the IT Service priced at £85 p.a. per licence. Annual licences covering the whole department can also be purchased at £1500 p.a. Please send your Internal Trading form to the IT Service Desk.

Details of how to buy Minitab can be found at http://www.dur.ac.uk/its/software/minitab/.

Details of how to buy SPSS can be found at http://www.dur.ac.uk/its/software/spss/licence.

The new licence file for ArcView can be downloaded from the following location. Once you have saved the file to your computer, double click on the icon and follow the on screen prompts. 

Right click on the link below and save the file as UNK127054649_v93.esu9

• ArcView 9.x licence file

The NPCS runs a utility called 'Power Archiver' which enables users to zip and unzip files. It is located in the Utilities menu from the Start button. For further information please see Infosheet 139 available from the Helpdesk or online at: http://www.dur.ac.uk/resources/its/info/infosheets/139PowerArchiver.pdf

To configure Internet Explorer to open Office files in the appropriate Office program by using the Folder Options tool:

1. Open My Computer.
2. On the Tools menu (or the View menu), click Folder Options (or click Options).
3. Click the File Types tab.
4. In the Registered file types list, click the specific Office document type (for example, Microsoft Excel Worksheet), and then click Advanced (or click Edit).
5. In the Edit File Type dialog box, click to clear the Browse in same window check box (or click to clear the Open Web documents in place check box).
6. Click OK.

The basic procedure is the same whether you are copying data from the data window or text, tables or a chart from the viewer. It involves copying the text, table or chart from SPSS to the Windows Clipboard, then pasting from the Clipboard into a Word document.

• In SPSS, run the appropriate procedures to generate the output you require.
• Select (i.e. highlight) the item (text, table or chart) you want to copy.
• From the Edit menu select Copy. This will copy the selection to the Windows Clipboard. To copy multiple items, use Copy Objects from the Edit menu.
• In Word, open the document into which you want to paste the selected item.
• Position the text insertion point where you want to insert the item.
• From the Edit menu select Paste Special and choose Picture.

This will insert the material from the Windows Clipboard into your document.

1. Insert a section break before where you want to start page numbering.
2. Click in the section in which the numbering is to start.
3. Choose insert /Page numbers
4. Unclick the option - Show Number on First page and choose the footnote position.
5. Click format button.
6. Under the Page numbering heading, click Start at and enter a number ( e.g. 1)

A tar file has several files compressed into the same file. The tar command will expand these files into (usually) the current directory.

To check which directory and for a list of commands use:

tar tf file.tar

To expand the file, use the command:

tar xvf file.tar

Use the interactive guide that is available by clicking the link below.

• Guide available here

Use the interactive guide that is available by clicking the link below:

• Link available here

Use the interactive guide that is available by clicking the link below.

• Guide available here

Use the interactive guide that is available by clicking the link below.

• Guide available here

In order to install SPSS 15 on a machine running Windows Vista you need to apply the SPSS 15 Vista HOTFIX patch during the installation process. Please follow the instructions below:

• Insert the SPSS 15 disk and select Install SPSS
• Select Single User licence and click the confirmation boxes until the Software begins to install
• Once the installation is complete click the Get a license now button and then click OK
• At this point you need to stop the process, click Quit and confirm you want to Quit the licence procedure
• Download and run the SPSS 15 Vista HOTFIX from the following location - http://support.spss.com/Student/Patches/SPSS/Windows/15/SPSS15VistaHotfix.exe

If your operating systems is Microsoft Vista and you have SPSS 15 installed and you encounter this problem there are a number of solutions. SPSS released a hotfix to solve a number of issues between SPSS 15 and the Vista operating system, see FAQ 1126 (http://www.dur.ac.uk/its/info/faqs/?faqno=1126)

If you have installed the hotfix then try running SPSS as an administrator. To do this click Start > Programs > SPSS for Windows > and then right click on the SPSS program icon and select Properties. From the Compatibility tab put a tick in the box Run this program as an administrator.

If you are still having problems please contact the IT Service Desk with the error message that SPSS is reporting, including the error number, description and symptom number. Ie Error #7003 - “Current license does not permit job to continue” - Specific symptom number: 37

The IT Service Desk stocks a number of Microsoft Applications under the Microsoft Campus Agreement & Select 6 licence. More information on this service is available here.