vLab and Computer Classroom Software


The UChicago Virtual Lab (vLab) is a remote applications computing environment that provides access to licensed campus apps. For more on how to connect to the remote application service visit UChicago Virtual Lab (vLab). A standard suite of software, as well as departmental academic applications, are available in the computer classrooms, BSLC018 with 37 Windows computers and Walker 303 with 25 Windows computers. The Academic Tech team performs regular software maintenance updates, as needed, during the break between each quarter. If you need a software version update outside of the regular maintenance periods, please send a request to academictech@uchicago.edu.

Note: Additional software installation requests for lab machines require a two-week lead time to be tested and installed.

Both vLab and the computer classrooms include a variety of software and toolboxes to meet the needs of faculty and students. Below is a comprehensive list of software that is supported on Windows computers as of March 2025.

Type Software
Document viewers Adobe Acrobat Reader DC
File transfer & remote access Remote Desktop Connection
Putty
WinSCP
Mapping/GIS ArcGIS Pro
GeoDa
Google Earth Pro
Programming Python 2.7 (command line)
Python 2.7 IDLE (Python GUI)
Statistics & visualization MATLAB R2024a
IBM Statistics 31
R 4.1.1
Stata 19
RStudio
Text editors Microsoft Office 2016
MiKTeX 2.9
MiKTex 2.9 Previewer
MiK2.9 TeXworks
Web browsers Internet Explorer
Chrome

Below is the list of currently available campus license MATLAB toolboxes: