Review: Microsoft AutoRoute

Details of the promotional give-away are now posted at the start of this review (here)

Good luck everyone!

Good vacation planner.

Hi Everybody,

It looks like there a few products highly discussed here. Is there is a place where I can find side by side feature evaluation?
Like for example:
Voice command – yes | no
3D view - yes | no
Spoken streets - yes | no
Etc.


It would be really nice.

Hope to win one. :-)

Good suggestion. Perhaps one day a comparison page like that should be created.

The single most promising "new" feature to me is the restoration of something deleted from the 2009 version: Forward/Back. I can't imagine why the developers removed it. Perhaps in 2011, they'll even add back the toolbar buttons.

Note to ThinkPad users: In addition to the standard Alt+Arrow keys, the special ThinkPad Page Forward and Page Backward keys perform the same function.

While AutoRoute has always been an excellent navigation software application, this latest version -2010- is a real advance. It has an inventory of Points of Interest that is vastly superior to the prior version -2007- and now is fully equivalent to Microsoft's sister product for North America, Streets and Trips 2010. Fill it out with various data bases of POIs available on the internet that meet your personal requirements, and you have everything you need to plan a trip and to carry through and successfully complete the trip.

I've used Autoroute for a few years now and find it excellent for planning out tours.

Only thing missing for me is mapping of roads in the east....Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia. When can we expect this or is it just simply never going to happen?

Is there any option where you can enter vehicle size & weight? Alternatively can you restrict roads such as unclassified or B roads?

I really NEEEEEEED a copy of 2010 Autoroute with a gps dongle.

My 2003 copy is a bit dated now!

Baggins

I am currently running Autoroute trial version and have to say as someone who has never used it before is finding it easy to use.
If I buy a copy will I be able to use the activation code that comes with it or will I have to unistall the trial version first?

While AutoRoute 2010 doesn't automatically do large vehicle routing, it is a feature-rich trip planning software which allows for easy route modification. You enter a destination address, a click of a button will create a route from A to B, and then you will be able to modify the route based on which areas you wish to avoid. Autoroute is popular in Europe among truck drivers, just as Microsoft Streets & Trips is in USA/Canada.

No need to uninstall. There is no difference between the trial version you download, and the version you buy. The retail version just includes the activation code.

I have AutoRoute 2002 which came with my PC. I also use it on my GPS/PDA. I'd be interested to compare with 2010.

Mike.

I have been using mappoint 2009 and find that as good/better than paper maps so would def be interested in this especially in conjunction with a gps receiver which i havn't used before. i like the ability to add waypoints /low bridges etc as and when needed which you obviously can't do on a paper map.
seems an exciting prospect .

I started to download the 2 AutoRoute 2010 60 day trial 1Gb files before I went to bed last night but Microsoft decided to reboot my PC during the night so they weren't there this morning.

I will use a download manager to download them tonight but I will have to wait until 2000 to start the download because that's when my unlimited downloads kick in.

I don't think Microsoft want me to have this program because neither MS UK nor Amazon UK will allow someone from Oz to buy this product. Ditto for Streets and Trips 2010 at MS US and Amazon US.

We used AR 2007 when we were in Europe for 4 months this year. We couldn't have survived without it.

We will be going back for another 4 months in Mar 2010 so a copy of the latest version would be very useful.

Hopefully, my luck getting a copy will be better with Laptop GPS World than with MS.


Andrew Watson
Perth, Western Australia

Is werdnanostaw how you spell your name 'down under'?

yerrT