Windows 10

Windows 10 has now been released to the public, and for those of you who may be interested in upgrading, you can be assured that JCS is supported in a Windows 10 environment.

Business users are likely to be pleased with the new layout which removed the metro interface from Windows 8.

Since Windows 8, JCS is now classified as a “legacy application”, which basically means any traditional desktop based software, as opposed to the tile based Windows 8/10 apps. It is an unfortunate name, but it should be pointed out that even Office 2013, is now classified as a “legacy application”, as will almost all enterprise class software.

Windows Tablets

JCS will run on a Windows 8 or 10 tablet.

However, before you all rush out to purchase a brand new tablet, you should be aware that products that run Windows 8 RT and Windows 8.1RT, such as the Microsoft Surface tablet, do not support “legacy applications”, only Metro style apps. That means no JCS, no Office, no Outlook, no PDF reader etc.

JCS will only work on Windows tablets that run the full version of Windows. Note that Microsoft currently have no plans for a Windows 10 RT version for these types of tablets.

Windows Server 2012

JCS is fully supported in a Windows Server 2012 environment. As always, please use the latest version to make sure there are no issues with the install.

When installed on a server with Remote Desktop Services, the JCS installer will automatically handle the process of placing the server into Remote Desktop Install Mode, and Execute mode during the installation, and the relevant files will be copied to all users, ready for using JCS as a remote service.

Please note that starting with Windows Server 2012, Remote Desktop services can only be installed on a server that is a member of an Active Directory Domain, and Remote Desktop Services cannot be installed on the same server as the Active Directory Domain Controller.

Office 2016

Office 2016 has now been released to the public and we have been testing for the last few months with pre release versions and can assure you that JCS does work correctly with Office 2016. As with Office 2010 and Office 2013, our advice mimics Microsoft, in that you should be looking to install the 32 bit version of Office, even if you have a 64 bit machine and 64 bit operating system. The reason is that most third party applications that communicate and interact with Office do not play well with the 64 bit version, and the only real benefit you will get is being able to create Excel spreadsheets larger than 2GB. If you have a need for these, then you should be asking yourself some serious questions about the data being held in a spreadsheet that large.

Office 2016 can be used in a standalone mode or as part of Office 365, which allows you to use online versions of the office applications. JCS only supports the standalone mode of Office (Desktop applications). For more information about Office 365 in the cloud, see the section below.

Office 365

Office in the cloud is a fantastic concept, but in reality you should be asking where your data is being stored. Microsoft’s cloud services run from only a few data centres in the world, and they reserve the right to backup your data to another data center. We have not found anything to convince us that Microsoft will not export data out of your jurisdiction. Due to the nature of the data relating to financial advice, we cannot at this time recommend using Office 365, without you first making an enquiry to the Information Commissioners office for the jurisdiction that you are working from.

If after this, you still wish to use Office 365, please contact us to register your interest as we currently do not support Office 365, but will be happy to look into it if there is enough interest.