MSDNAA HelpGuide
This guide is to help students register for, and download software from, the Microsoft
Developer Network Academic Alliance website, also known as 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.
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 MSDNAA so it is a good idea to keep it for future use.
4. When going to the MSDNAA 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
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
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”.
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 MSDNAA 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.
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.
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.
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.
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
