Hi All,


I'll get to my questions eventually. First, I want to lay some 
background. The point of the background is to explain why I want 
information about virtual desktop environments that is specific enough 
to act on in some way.


I started a new job early this year. What's relevant to this post is 
that I work for a government entity, that I'm probably the first blind 
employee at this specific location, that my tech support contact is 
really helpful and interested in making things work, and that HR had a 
lot of misconceptions about blind people when I applied for the 
position. Because of those misconceptions, I'm not always clear about 
whether X accommodation was granted because HR staff didn't understand 
something or because HR staff didn't think I'd work out. One example is 
that I don't have an official work email address: I use one of my 
personal email accounts, having promised to keep everything 
confidential. Again, I'm not sure whether HR thought I read email on my 
braille note taker, which would be impossible for a sighted person to 
set up for me, or figured I'd be out by the end of the month so there 
was no point in bothering to generate an email account. At this point, 
I've been on the job a little over six months, and things seem to be 
working out, so I'm trying to change some accommodations. For example, 
I'd like to have a work email.


So ... back to virtual desktop environments ...


At work, I do a very small number of tasks on a computer, but I need to 
do them everyday. I manage some tasks on my personal laptop, which I 
bring from home, and I do other tasks via some other work-around devised 
by HR. Today, when the IT tech came by to help with a different issue, I 
asked him what version of Windows was running on the office computers 
and whether we could try using Narrator with some of the computer stuff 
I need to do. Here's what we discovered together along with my questions:


* The computers in the office aren't actual computers. They're virtual 
desktops. As we experimented with them, I noticed they behaved like an 
ordinary computer. I found icons on the desktop, and opened apps using a 
screen reader. Are there any differences between a desktop and a virtual 
desktop in terms of accessibility? I'm assuming all apps are web apps. 
Is this right?


* the computer was running some version of Windows 10, but it was from a 
couple of years ago. Narrator has a scan mode, but the Narrator toggle 
is Windows+enter. Is it possible to update the computer that would be 
assigned to me without necessarily updating everyone else's? I like the 
newest Narrator much better than previous versions.


* Are there Narrator or Windows commands or settings that would help the 
virtual desktop experience go more smoothly?


* I'm not sure that I do enough computer work to justify installing a 
third-party screen reader, but if I decide to try one, ... do thumb 
drive versions of screen readers tend to work on these types of setups?


Any additional information would be helpful. I don't want to approach HR 
until I know something concrete because I don't want us to get bogged 
down in yet another misconception.


Thanks for any wisdom.


Ciao


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