Microsoft Streets and Trips 2009 disappointing

Loaded up my netbook, placed my antenna on the roof, plugged into my Trucks Audio System and off I went (wide open spaces).

Text to speech was to fast (ran altogether) Difficult to understand
SR 1 (State route 1) came out senior 1
At stop with turn it takes about ten seconds to catch up

I purchased S&T hoping to get rid of my $25 a MO Sprint Data plan with Sprint Navigator.
Hate to say it but, the only thing I see S & T has over Sprint Navigator on my cell is map size.

I'll stick with it but I expected more.

Oh, The Hot keys program is great! Makes things a lot easier. Many thanks to the author!

My set up:
Acer Aspire One
XP Home SP3
1.5 GB Ram
160 Gig HDD
Gosget USB Receiver (sirf star III)

Jhill110 said:

Thanks a lot, enjoy it

You may disable S&T option to avoid pronouncing complete street names and it will return to previous S&T behavior, which gives quicker voice guidance and sometimes easier to understand...

Using a third party voice (other than microsoft Anna) could improve the understanding

I don't like the fact that you cannot zoom into a particular area quickly like you could before with the magnifying glass tab.

OBXJeepGuy, welcome to the forums. The feature is still there: Tips & Tricks for Microsoft Streets & Trips - tip #25.

OOOOOooohh, I see now... Thanks, Marvin!

OHMYGOD!!!

2009 Streets and Trips has some admittedly HUGE flaws. You can't print out any form of the directions for a route except the long, confusing and wordy default format of the directions. If you go to TOOLS and OPTIONS, it lets you eliminate some of the detail from the instructions, but only for viewing; it will not let you print it out!!!
I just got off of the phone with Microsoft, they admitted that they have had many complaints about this, and offered me a refund (but only if I could find the receipt and sent the software back priority mail).
Here is a little advice for the dunderheads at Microsoft. Are you ready???

FIELD TEST YOUR SOFTWARE BEFORE RELEASING IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry about the yelling, I am just frustrated. Now I have to go out and find another direction finder program, and spend more money.

Hi iluvpizza,

:welcome: to Laptop GPS World.

Hey, this may not be fair to the good guys who do all the testing at Microsoft. I bet they know very well what they are doing, and they do take their work seriously, just like you and I.

A public Beta program could help, and so would a bigger budget for the team working on the product.

You came to the right place. There are many experienced Streets & Trips users around here, sharing their tips, tricks, etc.

The following link may help: List of laptop GPS navigation software programs and reviews

Hi iluvpizza,

Sorry to hear about the frustration you had with the Print feature. After getting dierctions if you hit the print button then it does give you the default format of 'Driving Directions only'




1. You can try other Print options and see if that suits your need, or

2. You can eliminate the fields from Tools-Options as you did earlier and then right click on the Directions Pane and choose 'Copy Directions'



and paste the copied text in your favourite editor or a word document and you can then print it from that software.



i just used MS-Word in this case. And this is just a work around for your issue. Hope that Helps

-Gladwin

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Thank you to those who responded to my plea.

I guess I am frustrated because I used Microsoft Streets and Trips 2000 - the original - for about 10 years. This program was GOLD. I used it 1000s of times.
What a simple, but brilliant program!!!

It came with a red install disk and a yellow run disk. The maps and directions could be updated by pressing the highlighted bar at the top of the direction pane - via the internet. The directions were easy to read and could even be printed out nicely.

But I took it for granted. On a recent airline trip, I stored the run disk in my overhead bag, and surprise, it cracked. I said to myself "no problem, I'll just buy the new and improved version".

You know how you leave an old girlfriend for a woman who is more flashy on the surface, but then it dawns on you that you never knew how good you had it with the old girlfriend? This is the way I feel about Streets and Trips - first version.

I am going to look for this old version of Streets and Trips everywhere I can. Now, I am willing to pay more for this than I did for the new version.

I guess life Is a learning experience

iluvpizza

I have a set. What are you offering?

Terry

Picture from: "Streets & Trips" or "Trips & Streets"?

Mine doesn't have the Navtech note, $20 off, or red and white sticker.

Terry

And that was back when they used to spell themselves Navtech.

My first version was Streets/Trip Planner '98. It was a revelation, especially compared to the state-of-the-art in mapping websites back then: Mapquest. The fluid panning of the map was simply mesmerizing. The interface was really very modern for the time -- I remember being very struck by the buttons that became 3D when you hovered over them!

These days, the Internet bubble is over, Microsoft is out of its rapid-growth phase, and individual products have generally had to pay for the costs of their own development (exceptions: online services and XBoxes are allowed to lose as much money as they like). And the decreased investment in the product line (most evident in the freezing of the Mappoint API) has resulted in S&T slowly falling behind the curve.

On the other hand, it could be worse. Just be glad that S&T avoided the fate that recently befell Microsoft Flight Simulator.

Just my two cents:

My S&T main requierements are that the program must be well debugged, with map as fresh as possible every year, having online update could be usefull to achieve that. Keeping also compatibility with previous versions files is very important. Perfect routing is a better place to work than bells and whistles that are not the main purpose of this program. Making the POI database more and more bigger and complete is welcome.

I prefer a conservative approach with this kind of program. This scenario is enough for me to buy it.

Choosing a lot of gadget improvements and adding a lot of bugs at the same time is not my favorite direction with this software. I prefer less gadget, but rock solid performance and good routing, plus good fresh maps.

I want to trust this software as much as possible when travelling and unused gadgets are not necessary for me to achieve this.

Some changed in 2009 version has broken compatibility like the poi icons missing and this should be avoided in the future...