JHU Hosts Small Windows-based VMs

Revision as of 20:44, 5 July 2024 by Steve410 (talk | contribs)

Unrelated to the [:Category:Virtual Machines (VMs)|CS-hosted Virtual Machines] for our department, JHU also hosts small browser-based Windows VMs that you can use, if needed. You might find that you are remote and only have a browser available, but you need to remotely get into some kind of desktop on the JHU Network that can be used as a jumping point to other systems within JHU. You can use JHU' myCloud Desktop to do this.

If you log into MyJH, you will find a pull-down menu option called Cloud. You will find myCloud there.

After you first log into it (you'll be prompted for your JHED password), it takes a few minutes for "preparing Windows" to occur. Then the Windows desktop appears as if you're sitting at a real system. This virtual system only provides you approx. 25gb of user drive space called drive H:\, so use your disk space sparingtly.

Once you are on this myCloud Windows system (via your browser), you can run... various Office tools such as

  • Office (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook)
  • Teams
  • the Edge browser
  • Chrome
  • SAP
  • Remote Desktop Connection (so you can remote into a system on the JHU Network and possibly onto one outside of JHU that you have access to.)

...and more!

You can even install software, e.g., Firefox and software

Again, be aware of how much disk space you use due to the home directory's 25gb limit. (We're not sure how much system disk space for installs is available.)

And finally, this is not a fast system. Some applications might launch or run slowly. But, it is a convenient system when you are remote, limited in your computing resources, and have a browser available to connect to the VM. (Note, we have not tested this ability using a phone browser to connect to myCloud.)