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Microsoft Streets & Trips 2003

Microsoft Streets & Trips 2003

List Price: $39.99
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 2 stars
Summary: buy Delorme
Review: I wish that the people at Delorme and MS would get together and create one good program. Delorme Street Atlas deluxe is a far better program than MS Steets and Trips, however; the printable map quality is horrible w/ Delorme's product.
Delorme does better with routing (no vias in MS, only stops), GPS options and downloadable waypoints. MS does a better job w/ quality of printable maps and creating a web page.
I use these programs to create motorcycle tours, give turn-by-turn directions to the participants along with maps, and look up GPS waypoints.
If you don't need to print your maps or create web pages, go w/ Delorme.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Useless for Canada
Review: I've purchased the last 3 versions of this product and the Canadian street names have gone from inaccurate (2001) to accurate (2002) to inaccurate (2003) for Toronto. I uninstalled version 2003 and reinstalled 2002. If you're from Canada, save your money.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Long Time User
Review: I've used MS Streets and Trips since 1998(or what ever it was called then) and have found it to be extremely accurate - especially the 2002 edition. It is also easy to use. I wouldn't be without it.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: DO NOT BUY THIS PRODUCT UNLESS YOU LIKE TO WASTE MONEY
Review: If you already bought this, call Microsoft and get your money back before the 90 day warranty is up! This program is lacking very much vital information which was on previous versions. For example check out San Francisco. It will tell you when you check nearby places that within 10 miles of San Francisco there are 0-Post Offices, 0 - Taverns & Nightclubs, 1-cinema and the list goes on. Huge dissapointment - AND the customer service number to call for help with this program is not Toll Free. I spent about an hour on the phone and Microsoft is refunding my money for the program and the phone call. Microsoft reps have been great about resolving this, but I would rather have had a program with all the correct information.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: A Step Backward
Review: If you have an earlier version of Streets and Trips, i.e., 2001 or 2002, keep using it and don't spend your money on this one. I've been using the 2001 version for the past couple years and have found it to be quite helpful. I received the 2003 version as a Christmas gift and decided to install it on Christmas day.

After the install, I kept receiving a message telling me that I must accept the end user license agreement to use the product. The problem was that the end user license agreement (EULA) did not appear. Wonderful. The message said to reinstall. I did. It still didn't work. Contacted Microsoft, on Christmas no less.

The follwing day I did have a response, which in the end got me past the problem and Streets and Trips 2003 finally started. So credit is due the Microsoft tech who assisted in this matter. Of course, I had to do a registry hack to accomplish this, which I'm sure all of you are familiar with.

After typing in some simple addresses to see if Streets and Trips 2003 found them, which it did, I tried a few more obscure addresses. It didn't locate any of them. But the 2001 version had no problem finding them. Hmmm...somethings not quite right here.

Bottom line: if this is the only version you have, good luck. If you have an earlier version, keep using it. Maybe things will get fixed in the 2004 version.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: microsoft streets 2003
Review: If you have an older version keep it. some street info on my 2000 version is more accurate then this version "my home address". I purchase it for the GPS feature, if it was not for that feature I would have returned it and continued to use the older vervion

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: microsoft streets 2003
Review: If you have an older version keep it. some street info on my 2000 version is more accurate then this version "my home address". I purchase it for the GPS feature, if it was not for that feature I would have returned it and continued to use the older vervion

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: DON'T BUY IT!!!! MS really screwed it up compare to 2002
Review: In whole Boston area it could find NO nightclubs or taverns (version 2002 could)! Even Museum of Fine Arts is missing!!!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: ...but was the upgrade worth it?
Review: Last year Streets and Trips changed my travel life almost as much as retirement. That was version 2002, and my travel year was routinely enhanced by good route suggestions, precise mileages, and accurate arrival estimations. Don't think I've ever used software that was easier to figure out, with basic functions obvious, and special features easy to implement with just a little effort. Optimizing stops takes a while, but it should, for the calculations are not trivial and the solutions are good. It was an unexpected bonus to often be able to locate services such as restaurants and motels.

Of course the software mislocated my house, left me in limbo trying to find a Microsoft workshop in Madison, had no idea how to get from Farmington, NM to Chaco Canyon, and was clueless about the relative efficiency of lesser paved roads in unpopulated places. All our interstate travel proceded as predicted, but our rural progress in the Midwest and Rocky Mountain states was usually much faster than the software suggested. Not surprisingly, commerce is rather better supported than scenery. National and state park maps seem generally poor, and information on topography disappears as you zoom in before you reach a resolution where it could be really useful.

Promise of "all new map content" got me to upgrade to the 2003 version. So was it worth it? Yes and no. It can find my house now, and some others that were previously mislocated. It finds a plausible route from Farmington to Chaco Canyon, and even beyond to points south. But it still does not connect two-track roads between Utah and Nevada, and shows inexplicable disconnections on forest roads in Lower Michigan. Such gaps seem trivial, but unless you stay on the good highways, they prevent you from using Streets and Trips to document your travel and may even mislead a trusting person into going far out of the way to avoid a non-problem. If you go into the boondocks, you'd better have something like the DeLorme state road atlases.

The Streets and Trips of my dreams would understand that you can average 60 on many minor roads out west, would show the topography critical to travel decisions in inclement weather, and would allow you to repair map errors or obsolescence well enough to display your travel over unsupported routes.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: STOP...!!! DON'T BUY IT...!!! I repeat, DON'T BUY IT...!!!
Review: Microsoft has really screwed up with this 2003 edition of Streets and Trips...!!! All of the map information is OLD and OUTDATED. I've been a loyal customer of Streets and Trips since the 1998 version and this is the worst one by far. In Elizabethtown, KY, you'll find streets missing (Strawberry Alley), airports in the wrong place (Addington Field), cities in the wrong place (Fort Knox, KY), roads mis-named (highway 62 west), outdated airports (KSDF -- Louisville, KY) and the problems go on and on here in this one little county in Kentucky. This is a horrible effort littered with outrageous flaws over previous versions of this program. DON'T Buy IT!


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