I thought I would share two software resources available to you that you probably are not aware of and are fully supported by UNC IT helpdesk.  These resources are similar in that they allow you to run software (such as Photoshop or SAS) on your computer without having to install or buy a license.

The first resource is Virtual Lab (https://virtuallab.unc.edu/).  This gives you access to software from companies such as Adobe (Acrobat, Photoshop, Illustrator), SAS (JMP, SAS 9.x, Enterprise Guide), Microsoft (Word, Visio, Excel, Project…) to name a few.  Most popular statistical programs (such as STATA and SPSS) are also available, and you do not need to install these programs to use them.  This resource is nice it you need to use a program such as Photoshop for a one time project and don’t want to bother with installing or buying a license.  Simply log onto the site to view the full listing of applications available to access directly from your computer.  I have used it to convert STATA files to SAS for example since I do not have STATA installed on my machine and do not normally have a need for it.
Running any of the programs from this service requires your computer to do the processing (as any program installed on your computer normally does).  So if you have a large Photoshop file you are editing then your computer will need to have the memory and processing power to handle it.

The second resource is VCL (Virtual Computing Lab) https://vcl.unc.edu/. This resource basically gives you access to another computer to do your processing from your own computer.  This is good for intensive statistical analysis processing or the case I mentioned about large Photoshop file editing.  With this service you make an online reservation (like reserving a computer at the library), then you are given access to connect remotely to the computer using Remote Desktop.  Most of these virtual computers are only loaded with statistical programs such as SAS, but if you wanted to get fancy with it you could use this service to log into a virtual computer and then open a program using the Virtual Lab service within that virtual machine.  You can even go so far as setting up your own custom virtual machine (as I did for a project I am working on here at TARC) and install your own software on it for use by selected members of your research team/group.

Of course if you simply want your own versions of software to install on your machine there is http://software.sites.unc.edu/software/ where you can pick up some versions of software for free, such as SAS (for research use).