[gui-talk] JAWS and Windows 7 Enterprise

[Susan Kelly]

The network used by the county IT department which provides the IT services for virtually all of the agencies in our county is Windows 7 Enterprise.  The virus program on the network is Sophos.  We are on Outlook / Word 2010.  Supposedly, we will be upgraded to Windows 8 and Outlook / Word 2013 by early next year, although there are usually 2 0r 3 delays before any upgrade of that type actually occurs.  I currently use JAWS 14, as well as MAGic for the for those items that require me to at least get a vague concept visually, such as photos disclosed to me as part of my caseload, which are further described to me by my assistant.

There has been a never-ending stream of errors and incompatibilities caused by the network which I do not experience on my personal laptop when working at home, which confirms my suspicion that the errors are entirely due to the network factor.  IT has been unable to cure these problems, in part because they are unwilling to exempt my account from certain network policies that are not compatible with adaptive software, and in part because no one in the department knows (or cares to know) how to use JAWS or MAGic.

Has anyone else run into a similar situation?  I am looking to see if there are some concrete suggestions that my assistant and I could offer to IT.  We have tried going through Freedom Scientific, but because no one in our IT understands or uses the program, and we are at a fairly low priority on getting their time to match up with an appointment with an FS engineer, nothing has helped.  Any suggestions, even work-arounds or temporary changes that my assistant or I could invoke on a daily basis to avoid the network issues would be much appreciated.