System Requirements

The vPortal knowledge portal provides a robust interface for end users to browse and search for the exact knowledge they need.

For Flash Media-based portals, it is recommended to use FlashPlayer 10 (or higher) with Windows, Macintosh OS X and Unix platforms. Flash can be found here: http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/

For Windows Media-based portals, it is recommended to use Windows XP, Internet Explorer 8 (or higher) and Windows Media Player 11 (or higher) to take full advantage of all features provided by vPortal and the vPresenter presentation interface. In addition, refer to the System Requirements table below for alternative combinations when using Windows, Macintosh or Unix/Linux operating systems.

For Real Media-based portals, it is recommended to use a combination of Linux, Firefox 3.x (or higher) and RealPlayer 10 (or higher) or a combination of Windows XP, Internet Explorer 8 (or higher) and RealPlayer 10 (or higher) to take full advantage of all features provided by vPortal and the vPresenter presentation interface.

vPresenter is a flexible presentation interface which when launched will play a presentation from beginning to end with any of the OS/Browser/Media Player combinations listed below. Please note that some advanced features of the vPresenter interface may not work with some combinations. The Configuration Dependent Features tables below show which features are available when using particular configurations.

If you experience one or more of the following configuration dependent problems, it most likely indicates that the minimum recommended requirements have not been met. If you choose not to use the Recommended Configuration above, please try one of the solutions listed in the table below.

Configuration Dependent Problems
Problem	Likely Cause	What to do
Slides do not change automatically	Using non-recommended OS	Click topics to advance slides
Transcripts do not scroll automatically	Using non-recommended OS	Use scrollbar to advance transcripts
Launching presentations always starts the presentation from the beginning, even when clicking on a topic/slide or a transcript sentence in the portal	Using non-recommended OS	After presentation launches, use position slider to move forward in presentation to desired location
I don't see the Variable Speed Player control in the Media Player	FlashPlayer does not support VSP	Not applicable

Windows Media-based Portals

System Requirements
	Operating System	Browser	Media Player
Recommended	Windows XP, Windows 7	Internet Explorer 8	Windows Media Player 11
Minimum Requirements	Windows XP	Internet Explorer 6+ Mozilla/Firefox 3.x+	Windows Media Player 9, 10, 11
	Macintosh OS X PowerPC	Safari 3.x+ Mozilla/Firefox 3.x+	Windows Media Player 9
	Unix/Linux	Mozilla/Firefox 3.+ Konqueror 3.2+	Windows Media Player 6.4

Configuration Dependent Features
OS/Browser/Media Player combination required
Feature	Windows; Internet Explorer 6+; Windows Media Player 9,10,11	Windows; Firefox 3.x+; Windows Media Player 9,10,11	Any other combination
Synchronized Slides	Yes	No	No
Scrolling Transcripts	Yes	No	No
Launch Presentation from Topic/Slide or transcript sentence	Yes	No	No
Variable Speed Playback in Media Player	Yes	Yes	No

Configuration Dependent Problems
Problem	Likely Cause	What to do
Slides do not change automatically	Using browser other than Internet Explorer 6+	Click topics to advance slides
Transcripts do not scroll automatically	Using browser other than Internet Explorer 6+	Use scrollbar to advance transcripts
Launching presentations always starts the presentation from the beginning, even when clicking on a topic/slide or a transcript sentence in the portal	Using browser other than Internet Explorer 6+	After presentation launches, use position slider to move forward in presentation to desired location
I don't see the Variable Speed Player control in the Media Player	Media Player is not Windows Media Player version 9 or 10	VSP control only available with Windows Media Player 9, 10 or 11

Real Media-based Portals

System Requirements
	Operating System	Browser	Media Player
Recommended	Linux	Firefox 3.x+	RealPlayer 10.x
Recommended	Windows XP, Windows 7	Internet Explorer 8	RealPlayer 10.x
Minimum Requirements	Windows XP, Windows 7	Internet Explorer 6+ Firefox 3.x+	RealPlayer 10.x
	Linux	Firefox 3.x+	RealPlayer 10.x
	Macintosh OS X 10.3.9+	Safari 3.x+ Firefox 3.x+	RealPlayer 10.1+

Configuration Dependent Features
OS/Browser/Media Player combination required
Feature	Windows XP; Internet Explorer 6+ or Firefox 3.x; RealPlayer 10.x	Linux; Firefox 3.x; RealPlayer 10.x	Any other combination
Synchronized Slides	Yes	Yes	No
Scrolling Transcripts	Yes	Yes	No
Launch Presentation from Topic/Slide or transcript sentence	Yes	Yes	No
Variable Speed Playback in Media Player	No	No	No

Configuration Dependent Problems
Problem	Likely Cause	What to do
Slides do not change automatically	Using non-recommended OS	Click topics to advance slides
Transcripts do not scroll automatically	Using non-recommended OS	Use scrollbar to advance transcripts
Launching presentations always starts the presentation from the beginning, even when clicking on a topic/slide or a transcript sentence in the portal	Using non-recommended OS	After presentation launches, use position slider to move forward in presentation to desired location
I don't see the Variable Speed Player control in the Media Player	RealPlayer does not support VSP	Not applicable

Firefox Plug-ins

Windows/Firefox/Windows Media Player Information
Feature	w/o WMP plug-in	w/ WMP plug-in
Synchronized slides	Not available	Yes
Scrolling transcripts	Not available	Yes
Launch presentation from topic/slide or transcript	Not available	Yes
Advance presentation by clicking new topic/ slide/ transcript	Not available	Yes
Variable speed playback in Media Player	Not available	If streaming server has capability, Yes
Problem	w/o WMP plug-in	w/ WMP plug-in
Video flashes when mousing over star ratings	Yes, expected degraded performance	No
Video disappears when mousing over star ratings	Change WMP options for video acceleration to “half”	No

New Firefox Plug-in for Windows Vista and Windows XP (SP2)

There is a new WMP plug-in for Firefox that works on Windows XP (SP2) and Windows Vista systems. This plug-in allows vPortal to take better advantage of the scripting Altus employs to synchronize slides and transcripts with the speaker in a presentation. We have tested this with our product and are pleased with the additional performance values it allows. If you wish to download it, it can be found at the following link location:

http://port25.technet.com/pages/windows-media-player-firefox-plug-in-download.aspx

After you have installed the plug-in, be sure to re-boot your system to have it take full effect as we’ve found that most installations don’t seem to recognize the new plug-in until a re-boot occurs.

If you are still having problems after a re-boot, you could try the following:

How To Get Firefox To Use The New WMP Plug-in

Since you probably had Windows Media Player installed before you installed the new Windows Media Player Firefox Plug-in, you may find that the new plug-in (np-mswmp.dll) does not get used. That's because Firefox is using the "old" plug-ins that are part of the Windows Media Player installation (npdsplay.dll, npdrmv2.dll, npwmsdrm.dll). In order to get Firefox to use the new Windows Media Player Firefox plug-in follow these steps.

•	Launch the Firefox 3.0+ browser.

•	In the address bar, type about:config and press enter.

•	On this page find the entry plug-in.scan.WindowsMediaPlayer and set its value to 998. This ensures that Firefox will use the new plug-in (np-mswmp.dll) and not try to load a version of Windows Media Player with a smaller version number.

•	Close and re-launch the Firefox browser.

•	To verify that the new plug-in is registered, type about:plug-ins in the address bar and press enter. On this page you should see the listing for the Microsoft Windows Media Player Firefox Plug-in, typically located at C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\plug-ins\np-mswmp.dll.

•	Close and re-launch the Firefox browser and try playing the Windows Media again.

Problems With Some Applications

There are some applications that do not work well with the WMP plug-in installed. These particular applications use “URL flipping” to move slides/images into a frame within their player. Because the WMP plug-in as written by Microsoft did not take this particular function into consideration, you may find these other applications will open a slide/image in a window in your default browser rather than the expected player frame. If this is a problem for you, you may wish to disable the plug-in on your system and continue using vPortal in a degraded state.

The easiest way to disable the plug-in is to do a search for np-mswmp.dll on your system, re-name the file (eg, np-mswmp.dll.sav), close all Firefox browser instances that are running and re-launch Firefox. That will re-set Firefox back to the default WMP player plug-in.