IMPORTANT
Patriot Virtual Computing & Labs (PVCL) consolidates George Mason’s virtual desktop environments into a new single service powered by Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop.
PVCL will provide George Mason faculty, staff, and students with secure, remote access to academic applications and university services through an innovative and enhanced platform. As a result of this change, the Citrix Virtual Lab (CVL) and Patriot Virtual Computing (PVC) will be decommissioned after exams are complete this fall.
Patriot Virtual Computing and Labs provides faculty, staff, and students with a variety of Windows virtual desktops to allow access to George Mason software and secure access to critical systems. These virtual environments can be reached via any PC, Mac, iOS, or Android/ChromeOS device.
Patriot Virtual Computing and Labs includes a standard Mason computer lab image to provide a full computing environment to complete coursework. This environment has all the same software as available in a university computer lab.
Additional computing environments can be configured to meet the FAR 52.204-21 basic safeguarding requirements for covered contractor information systems.
Key Features
The Mason Virtual Lab image includes the following software load:
| Software |
Vendor |
Version |
| 7-Zip |
Igor Pavlov |
Latest |
| ArcGIS Pro |
ESRI |
3.x |
| AutoCAD |
Autodesk |
2025 |
| Chrome |
Google |
Latest |
| Civil3D |
Autodesk |
2025 |
| Community server |
MySQL |
Latest |
| Earth |
Google |
7.x |
| Eclipse |
Eclipse |
2021-06 R |
| Edge |
Microsoft |
Latest |
| Filezilla |
Filezilla Project |
3.x |
| Firefox |
Mozilla |
Latest |
| Gimp |
The Gimp Team |
2.x |
| Ink-2-Go |
EyePower |
1.9x |
| Inventor Pro |
Autodesk |
2025 |
| jGRASP |
Auburn University |
2.x |
| Mathematica |
Wolfram |
14 |
| MatLab |
Mathworks |
R2024a |
| Notepad ++ |
Notepad++ |
8.x |
| Office |
Microsoft |
2021 |
| Power Automate |
Microsoft |
Latest |
| PowerBI |
Microsoft |
Latest |
| PuTTy |
Putty |
Latest |
| Python |
Python |
3.8.5 |
| R |
R Foundation/CRAN |
Latest |
| R Studio |
R Studio |
Latest |
| Reader DC |
Adobe |
DC June 2024 |
| SAS |
SAS Institute |
9.4 |
| SPSS Statistics |
IBM |
29.x |
| STATA |
Stata Corp |
17 |
| Visio |
Microsoft |
2023 |
| Visual Studio Code |
Microsoft |
Latest |
| VLC Media Player |
VideoLAN Organization |
Latest |
| Windows |
Microsoft |
11 (64 bit) |
| Zotero |
Center for History & New Media - GMU |
6.x |
Note: Adobe Creative Cloud is not available in Patriot Virtual Computing & Lab.
Additional Software & Environments
Other software may be available as requested by departments or faculty.
Additional environments are available upon request:
- General Faculty/Staff image
- Secure Banner Access
- Contractor Access
- Advanced Mason Lab (strictly for 3D application rendering)
Getting This Service
Download the App (Required)
For the best user experience, download the Windows App before logging in:
Getting Started
Instructions to access Patriot Virtual Computing & Labs are provided below:
Weekly Restart Notice
This service has a weekly restart scheduled at 4 a.m. on Saturday. Users will be logged out of any active/open sessions during this time. The Patriot Virtual Desktop may retain preferences, such as bookmarks and desktop backgrounds; however, users are NOT encouraged to ‘save’ items to the Patriot Virtual Desktop. Instead, we recommend users save items to their OneDrive, which can be accessed from the Office 365 shortcut on the desktop. In addition, users should log out after each daily session to reduce the risk of losing data.
Policy
Faculty and Staff must also adhere to University Policy Number 2202: Flexible Work.