Find answers to frequently asked questions about OSR training.
Registering for an OSR public seminar is easy. You’ll find a “Register Now” link on the outline page for any seminar with a presentation currently scheduled. Your credit card payment is handled online and securely, with all relevant detail provided. This is the easiest and most efficient way to secure your registration. If you wish to arrange registration by alternate means, please send an e-mail to seminars@osr.com or call us at +1-603-595-6500 and we can assist.
Yes, we highly recommend you review the prerequisites on each the seminar outlines to ensure you meet the minimum requirements to attend our seminars. Please know that most of our seminars are not designed to appeal to beginners, so you must have some basic understanding of O/S concepts, working knowledge of C/C++, Visual Studio and Windows. If you have any doubts, please contact an OSR seminar consultant for assistance.
We do our best to offer frequent presentations of our most popular seminars. This has been more possible through use of our dedicated training space in Manchester, NH where we host remote presentations with live instructors. Stayed tuned by joining our Seminar Update email list located on our website under seminars.
The number of attendees can vary, depending on many factors, but 10-20 students is not common. We work hard to keep the student to instructor ratio low to maximize time for individual learning
This can vary per seminar, but you will always include a hardcopy of the seminar handout plus lab materials. For example, our WDF Driver I seminar includes a free OSR USB FX2 Board.
And, of course, your attendance at any OSR seminar means that you are now part of the OSR family. We very often field questions from students who attended a presentation years ago!
OSR’s live streamed seminars are presented using Zoom Meeting software. As a registered online attendee, you’ll be provided with a link to join the meeting, which will be persistent for the duration of your training.
While we assume most folks are familiar with Zoom (or equivalent web conferencing solutions), we encourage attendees to “jump on” the zoom link at 8:30, prior to the 9am start. Let us know if you have a need to do this prior to the first day of the seminar.
During the seminar presentation, you will have a live-stream feed of audio and video of your instructor presenting content of the seminar. The instructor will use multiple camera views (e.g., whiteboard view, close-up code view) to highlight specific portions of the presentation, while using “classroom” views as the standard view to provide a sense of inclusiveness for online participants. Of course, you can ask questions, and we do encourage them. It’s like being at the seminar, or rather…as close an approximation as we can reasonably manage. But hey…you don’t have to spend $$$ on travel, or haul yourself across the country/globe to attend!
The quality of the A/V experience will vary by attendee and is mostly subject to the internet connection available at your location. For this reason, you will be provided hardcopies of the seminar handouts to follow along. In any case, we do recommend use of a hard-wired internet connection, and a speaker/microphone combination and webcam that you are comfortable with. We’ve had great feedback from students who have attended OSR training online. Zoom Meetings include options for “chat”. Students may use chat to ask questions of the instructor, with the caveat that these may not be addressed until break or at the end of the day. If you are comfortable, we recommend putting your mic to use and jumping right in with questions that are timely based on the topic being covered. Speak…and you shall be heard!
Certainly. While lab exercises are always option, we highly encourage you take the time in the “evenings” or “mornings” (depending on the time zone you are joining from) to work through provided lab exercises. Please be sure to read through the laptop setup requirements to ensure that the laptop you use is properly configured and tested for use in the hands-on lab exercises of this seminar. The instructor will provide an email address for questions that you can take advantage of during and after your seminar. If you have any questions regarding setup, please do contact us in advance of your seminar so that we may assist.
Yes, you do! All previous students whether they took a seminar with us last month or five (5) years ago, will receive an additional discount for attending a future seminar. It never expires either. Let us know when before you register!
The answer to all these questions is YES. Subject of course to the terms and conditions, reiterated HERE.
Yes, all students attending a public seminar presentation will receive a certificate of completion. Those attending a private presentation will also receive certificates of completion, if access to attendee information is provided to us.
To ensure the student material is as up-to-date as possible, student handouts are shipped out to arrive within a few days prior to the seminar.
No. We do not permit audio or video recording of our seminar presentations.
We have several engineering staff members who instruct our seminars. As their availability can change depending on project and consulting schedules, we are not typically in a position to confirm the name of the instructor in advance of your presentation. Rest assured, all instructors are senior OSR staff who have been teaching students how to write and debug kernel mode software on Windows for many years. We take our real-world experience and apply it in the classroom.
For many years, we traveled the globe, teaching public and private seminars in Europe, Asia, Australia and just about any place that you can imagine! We never made it to Antarctica, and imagine the restrictions to travel to McMurdo Station for a seminar on WDF drivers might be insurmountable.
Of course, all OSR seminars are now taught exclusively online with a live instructor…so, subject to time zone annoyance, you can attend an OSR seminar from anywhere in the world with internet access!
At the present time, we only teach seminars in the English language. We strive to teach using International English to make it easier for an international audience.
A lot! We can teach a customized version of any of the seminars we offer. We can even custom-develop content for any topics within our area of expertise.
Start by checking out our Private Seminar page and then contact an OSR seminar consultant for more information.
Before you register, if you have concerns about background or prerequisites, get in touch…we can help!.
Before your seminar, participate in the test call, when provided for your seminar, dig into suggested pre-reading, or go explore Windows internals topics on your own. The more exposure you have, your questions you come in with, the better your experience!
During your seminar, we’ll do our best to keep the presentation animated. The sheer amount of content we go through, and the importance of creating a foundation of knowledge to build upon is one of the reasons we chose the format of our presentation. We’ll have breaks about every couple of hours (including an hour-long “lunch” break). There are other logistics we’ll cover in the test call and the morning of the first day, but above all, ASK QUESTIONS! In an open enrollment session, we can’t cater to your needs alone, but if you don’t ask questions to ensure you understand the material (and help US understand you are grasping it), you really only have yourself to blame. Maximize your experience…you paid for it. Just jump in with “I have a question” or “Yo Peter” 🙂
After your seminar, stay in touch, because we hope to hear from you. We know that sometimes that burning question only comes after you have had time to digest the material. Maybe it doesn’t come up until months later and you are deeply involved in a project. No matter. We provide you with the email address of the engineer who instructed your seminar for a reason. Send us your question. Ask for pointers to more info. This is your privilege as one of our students, and while we can’t promise you unlimited support by email, we can tell you we regularly answer questions from former students.
OSR Open Systems Resources, Inc.