Technical requirements for learndirect courses

This section contains information on the hardware and software you will need to use courses from learndirect:

Browsers and Computer Specifications

Your learndirect course can be used from home on most modern computers. Unless otherwise stated you will need a computer with a minimum of a 56k modem or an ISDN line for connection to the Internet. You'll also need plenty of memory, at least 128MB.

A few of the older courses may not be supported against the specification below. This mainly applies to compatibility with Windows XP and Internet Explorer Version 6.

Some of the courses use sound. For those your computer will need a soundcard and of course a pair of speakers or headphones as well!

The full specifications currently needed to run learndirect courses are:

CPU: Pentium 500MHz
RAM: 128 Mbytes (256MB recommended)
Hard Drive with 650 Mbytes of free space
CD drive: 24x speed
Sound card (16 bit) Speakers or Headphones
SVGA Graphics card
16 bit colour
Keyboard
Mouse (Microsoft compatible)
Operating system: Windows 98, 2000, XP
Web-enabled using either Internet Explorer (IE6) or Netscape Navigator (v6.2)
Web connectivity via a 56 kbps modem or a network

Players

Some of the learndirect courses that you use will need some extra software on your PC or Mac; these are called 'players'. You can also use these players to enjoy looking at other websites on the Internet - particularly those with audio or video content.

In most cases, you can download the players for free from their websites (please note that these are not available from the learndirect website). These links will take you to the website from where you can download each player. Most of these websites will also have a page where you can test the players to see if they have installed correctly. There will also be different links to Mac and PC versions of the players.

Flash - allows you to view content created with Macromedia Flash, used for developing rich Internet content and applications.
Real Player (RealPlayer 8 Basic) - allows you to play streaming media on your computer, such as movies and animations.
Macromedia Shockwave - lets you view interactive Web content.
Authorware Web Player - some courses use Authorware to deliver rich interactive content.
Acrobat Reader - allows you to view and print Portable Document Format [PDF] files. These files look the same on screen and in print, regardless of what kind of computer someone is using or the software that was used to create it.
Quicktime - allows you to view video, sound and virtual reality.