Product Description

Updated street maps with improved interface. Multi-destination routing, calculate mileage, timetables&costs. Customize your trip to match your personal travel preferences. Free highway construction updates from the Web. Send location information to your mobile device3. Spoken street names&directions, automatic re-routing. Compact GPS locator & cable included

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #61 in Software
• Brand: Microsoft
• Model: ZV3-00023
• Released on: 2008-09-20
• Platforms: Windows Vista, Windows XP
• Format: DVD-ROM
• Dimensions: .55 pounds

Features

• Plan your perfect trip from sightseeing to fuel stops with Microsoft Streets & Trips 2010, the #1 best-selling travel and map software
• Help save time and gas money with optimized travel routes and navigate easily with spoken directions and street names
• New compact, cable-free GPS Locator is fast and accurate--simply plug into your laptop's USB port and go
• Find stops on the go--1.5 million points-of-interest included (no Internet connection required)
• Includes free download of Microsoft Money Plus 2 (over $50 value) and 14-day Entertainment online trial membership for savings in restaurants, hotels and special events

Amazon.com
Microsoft Streets & Trips with GPS Locator makes trip planning and navigating easy, so you can relax and drive with confidence--just plug the sleek, cordless GPS device into your laptop and go! Whether you are traveling across country or across town, Streets & Trips with GPS Locator has the easy-to-use tools to help you get there. Streets & Trips with GPS Locator requires no Internet connection and includes more than 1.7 million points of interest to choose from--plus additional listings that you can view when you're connected to the Web. The perfect trip is at your fingertips.

Get accurate driving directions to just about anywhere in the United States and Canada. Click to enlarge.

Send your route to your GPS device. Click to enlarge.

Product Features

• Updated street level maps for U.S. and Canada
• Includes sleek GPS locator that plugs directly into your laptop
• New--Send your route to your GPS device²
• Calculate fuel usage and costs before you leave
• New--Share trip details or itineraries with friends and family²
• Get free construction updates to avoid potential delays
• New--Save time by setting your map to always start at a particular location
• Personalize your maps with comments, phone numbers and notes for planned stops
• New--Easily delete or hide groups of pushpins
• Find special savings in restaurants, hotels and events with Entertainment Online trial offer³
• Improved--Choose specific roads to use on your trip just by dragging and dropping the route
• Include multiple destinations and stops to refuel
• Improved--Comes with more than 1.7 million points of interest including post offices, pharmacies and more
• Spoken street names and directions during navigation and automatic re-routing if you make a wrong turn
• Improved--Streets & Trips now includes more than 300 unique pushpin images to choose from

The Perfect Trip Is at Your Fingertips.

Microsoft Streets & Trips makes trip planning easy.
Accurate maps and route-planning options help you get nearly anywhere in the United States and Canada. Customizable features let you plot your course down to the last detail. Once you've planned your trip, you can send your route to your GPS device for navigation on the go.²

A Great GPS Companion
Streets & Trips is a great companion to GPS navigation devices. Use Streets & Trips to plan the perfect trip, including multiple stops, points-of-interest, and start and stop times. Then export the route to a personal navigation device for easy navigation along the way.²

No DVD Drive? No Problem!
If your computer doesn't have a CD or DVD drive, you may still purchase Streets & Trips. Find out more at www.microsoft.com/activate today.

Calculate your mileage, trip costs and arrival time before you leave.
This is a great planning tool, especially for comparing different routes you're considering.

More than 1.7 million ideas for stops along the way!
Looking for an Italian restaurant in Des Moines? A hotel in Vancouver? Streets & Trips comes with detailed information on over 1.7 million locations--ATMs, hotels, restaurants, post offices, pharmacies, gas stations and other points of interest. No Internet connection required.

Comparison to online mapping
Streets & Trips delivers a mapping solution that offers much more than online mapping solutions. It doesn't require an Internet connection to use, and there are no distracting ads. You also get options to customize your trips by start and stop times, driving speeds, or even road types.

Access street-level maps and personalized directions.
Updated street-level maps and turn-by-turn directions make it easy to stay on track. You can also add personal notes to your maps. With addresses, phone numbers and other notes alongside your planned stops, you'll have all the information you need in one handy place.

Spoken street names and automatic re-routing.³
Plug in your GPS locator and Street & Trips can provide spoken directions and street names as you drive. It can also put you back on track if you make a wrong turn!

Footnotes
¹ The NPD Group/U.S. Retail Tracking Service (Jan 2000–Jan 2009).
² GPS device sold separately. Sending information to a GPS device must be done via USB or MSN Direct (subscription required after trial period expires). Separate download of free plug-in may be required. Exporting information to a GPS device via a GPX file requires a GPX- compatible device. Not all GPS devices are supported. See http://www.microsoft.com/streets/devices for more information.
³ Trial Offer Details: Free trial lasts for 14 days. Trial begins when you first sign up with Entertainment Online through Streets & Trips. Valid only in the United States, D.C., and Canada with purchase of Streets & Trips. You must activate your trial membership before June 1, 2011, to use this offer. Free trial offer not available to current Entertainment Online subscribers. Additional restrictions apply. See www.entertainment.com/microsoftst/info.html for more information.

Customer Reviews

Great Navigator
I purchased this program with GPS recently to use with my laptop as a navigator on road trips. I have used it on a couple short trips so far, and it works great. Getting ready to use it on a long, 7,000+ mile road trip. Easy to use, easy to change course for side trips. I like the display of all restaurants and motels at any given spot. Great price - approximately $50. I saw this same product at Office Depot for $75. I like it better than a Garmin GPS I purchased a couple years ago for $500.

Five stars for software, two stars for GPS. Read below if you are going to use on a netbook.
I installed Microsoft Streets and Trips on my ASUS Eee PC 1000HE netbook.
Software installed easily and quickly using an external DVD drive. The computer recognized the GPS unit, however it could not find any satellites (in comparison the Garmin sitting next to it was finding 10 satellites).

I contacted Microsoft and through remote access the tech did the following. I asked him to send it in an email to me so I could provide it here.
*******
Following are the steps we did

Step 1: Click on START and then click on RUN. In the RUN box, type MSCONFIG and click on OK.

Step 2: Under System Configuration, click on Selective Startup, and uncheck the following items...

Process System.ini file
Process Win.ini file
Load Startup Items

Then click on the tab SERVICES and check the option - Hide all Microsoft Services. Then click on DISABLE ALL and the click on APPLY and CLOSE.

When prompted to, restart the PC and try Streets and Trips with the GPS, it should work. Once it Starts working, repeat Step 1 above, and then switch back to Normal Startup, apply that change and click on CLOSE. That will get the computer back to normal. Now, try Streets and Trips with the GPS again, and it should be working, with the PC in normal mode.

********

Once this was done the GPS did pick up satellites. However, when actually using it on the road the connection was dropped and picked up once every few minutes, then every time it would pick it up it would recalculate the trip again. After speaking again to the tech he told me that it might be that the USB ports are not powered enough. He got this information from another tech and sounded unsure about it. I myself do not know if this is true. Perhaps someone who does can comment on it. I learned also from the tech that there are two different GPS units provided with this software. I got a Navation GPS 168 with mine.
The software is great and intuitive. My 13 year old son quickly figured out how to use it. Great for finding restaurants, gas stations ect. You do need someone else to run it, it would be dangerous to be making adjustments while driving yourself.
I am giving it 3 stars, five stars for the software and one for the GPS receiver to average 3 overall. The only downside I have found to the software is that sometimes it knows the street name (displays it on the map) but still calls it a "local road" when speaking directions. I think it should work with a netbook, or if it does not they should tell you so in the description. Tech support was very helpful and even called me back to see if it was still working a few days later.


****UPDATE

We bought a longer USB cord for the GPS so it could be right up in the windshield and now it works much better. The cord supplied did not have a very tight connection and the short length made it hard to get it near a window. I am upgrading it to two stars, since now it works pretty well but Microsoft should have sprung for a slightly better USB cord that holds the GPS securely and reaches far enough to go into the window.

Not perfect, but still a great product
Only a couple of complaints. First, the documentation and help for this are horribly inadequate, causing a serious learning curve in order to figure out all the features. Be prepared for a lot of trial and error before you can quickly and easily navigate with this thing. You're on your own.

Second, the audio is VERY low. I have my laptop volume as far up as it can possibly go, and I still cannot understand the navigation voice over highway noise. And I drive a brand new car that is quite quiet. They definitely need to put a volume control on the program itself. I mean seriously, this is made to use in a car! What was MS thinking?

Third, the database of sites that can be displayed on the map is terribly inadequate. If you set it to display schools, you won't see many schools. I realise that new schools are being built all the time, but even old schools are commonly not shown. Same with many other sites. It would also be nice if fire and police stations were in the database to be shown as an option.

Now the good stuff. The program was incredibly easy to install, set up, and get started using. No problems at all quickly getting on the road with it, albeit very basically.

Not sure what everyone is complaining about with the GPS hardware. It has worked just fine for me. During the several interstate trips I have taken since buying this, I have only a couple of times lost GPS contact. But I had the GPS module attached directly to the laptop. The problem was very quickly remedied by putting the GPS module on the dashboard, using the extension cable.

I am amazed at how many streets that I would never expect to see appear on this product. Even the streets on some military bases and many private roads. It is also very good about showing all names for a road when multiple names are used locally. There are obviously some inaccuracies found in all maps, and this one is no exception. Some long closed streets still show up, and some newer ones still do not. But overall, the accuracy is extremely impressive. I have used Delorme, and this program is definitely more accurate and easier to use.