HELP ME FIND MY WAY (MS Autoroute Express Euro 2000)

Member Name: thingywhatsit

Product:	MS Autoroute Express Euro 2000
Date:	26/07/05 (664 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: USEFUL WHEN TRAVELLING TO NEW PLACES.

Disadvantages: not enough detail on town centres.

When I bought my computer from Dell, I got Works Suite 2000 included with the package and one of the programs within this package was Autoroute Express. For a long time, I was more interested in other programs in the Works Suite package, but last year I had a lot of running around to do here in France, and put this program to the test.

SO WHAT IS AUTOROUTE EXPRESS ?

Autoroute express is a mapping program, that helps you decide a route from A to B, and gives you the opportunity to chose the kind of route you wish to take, i.e. shortest, most economical, prettiest. The choice is yours, and the program finds a route from Point A to Point Z, and you can set stopping points as well to make your day out a little more enjoyable. This is a very comprehensive program that takes you from one end of Europe to the other, although having said that, I can only assume that as Europe gets bigger and more member countries are included, the geographical limits of the program will become outdated.

INSTALLATION

Installation is simple. This forms part of the package that I had already installed on the computer when I bought it, although having formatted my hard disc several times, I have had to reload the program and the installation is easy, following on the screen instructions. Microsoft may be unpopular, although I have to say that their programs are user friendly.

USING THE PROGRAM

In order to find your way from Point A to B is relatively simple. You press “set start point” and type in the name of the town that you will use as the beginning of your journey. Then you can set the finishing point in much the same manner. Here, if there are towns with similar names, the program gives you the choice of which names were nearest to the one you are looking for. Then you have the option of adding stops on the way, although I have only used this feature twice.

A map is displayed which covers the whole route, and with a magnifying feature, you can make the make more or less detailed according to your needs.

THE FUN BIT

Having decided where you are going, you then get to chose by which route you would like to travel. You can chose between quickest, shortest, scenic or preferred, and I am always interested in seeing which they consider to be the shortest and have tested the program against the reality many times with local trips and found that it’s accuracy is governed by chosing trips where roads have not been changed recently, which is pretty obvious. It is a great shame that there are no updates of this program to keep it current, although I do find the help it gives me is wonderful. The program has a quirk which is interesting although has little relevance to me. It tells you about petrol consumption for the drive that you are about to take and is costed in dollars. I have to admit, I find this of no help to me at all because I believe it depends on the vehicle and also the upkeep of the vehicle as a car’s efficiency cannot really be generalized.

The fun for me is seeing the number of possibilities, adding stops from the map that look interesting. I live in France and am discovering new areas all the time, and used this program to plan a recent trip to Toulouse, because I wanted to see a few more towns on the way back, and seeing the map in front of me on the screen helped me determine which towns fell pretty much along that route. Just for the sake of this review, I thought I would test the program on a difficult trip and see what it came up with, and was amazed by the way that the program directed you from country to country, safe number of hours to be driving, and ended each day at a certain town. I also wanted to see how the program coped with travel over water. Of course cars do not float and it was interesting to see that the accuracy of the trips was actually quite realistic, arriving at the right port in France and telling you to check ferry crossings. I thought that they may play clever and make people travel to the tunnel which is actually miles away from where I live and not a viable proposition, but the program took into account the possibility of crossings which impressed me.

PHRASE BOOK

With traveling of any kind, it is useful to know the odd phrase of a language, and here the program has a section with a phrasebook and phrases put into different categories such as accommodation, Recreation, Shopping etc., and lists phrases from 11 languages. Passing a glance over the details listed for French, there was a surprising accuracy although in Greek, Czech, and Russian where alphabets are much different from my own language, I cannot speak for the accuracy although from looking at the languages that I am familiar with, I would assume that Microsoft have done their homework.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON TOWNS

This section was rather helpful though scant. What it helped me to establish for my trip was towns that have historic interest and are likely to be of interest to me as a tourist. It doesn’t give you a mass of information, although that little that it does give is useful enough for you to decide if that particular town is of interest and worth a stop. A “What’s nearby” button was helpful here for me to determine which towns were worth a look and this section also gave me telephone numbers and details of festivals, details of historic monuments, railway networks, museums and galleries, etc.

AREAS TO AVOID

In planning your route, this is a handy alternative. For example, if I want to go to Nancy and avoid at all costs the center of Paris, I can tell the program to avoid that area I do not wish to drive in. For drivers that have an absolute dislike of driving in a major city, this feature is a must.

OVERALL IMPRESSION OF PROGRAM

I really do believe that I was a fool not to use this program before now. I love it. I used it all the time these days and often plan trips for friends. I live in a new county in France that I am unfamiliar with and when I need to go to administrative offices like tax offices, and places of this nature, I can simply look them up and feel sure of my route.

DOWNSIDE

I wish that the program covered all the small roads and road names in towns, but that would be rather hard for a programmer since of course these things change from time to time. Even in my last small village, roads were re-named as recently as last year so I am probably being a little too unrealistic. I see from looking at the newer version that this problem has been addressed to a certain extent with major cities being much more detailed.

WOULD I RECOMMEND THE PROGRAM

Yes indeed. It is a worthy program.

PRICE – Part of my Microsoft package, although available from Microsoft at a price of £35.69 from Amazon.
My version is suitable for Windows 98 onwards, and the newer version is available for Smartphone and Hand held computers.

For those who cannot afford the newer version, this one does what I need in finding my way from place to place, and is a worthwhile product which can be found second hand on Ebay. For those who have the money, go for the new one which has all the major cities more detailed.

A very worthy product nonetheless.

Summary: helps to find your way around.

Variety of features:
Reliability:
User friendly:
Installation:
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