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Microsoft Plus! for Windows XP

Microsoft Plus! for Windows XP

List Price: $19.99
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: You couldn't get more for the price
Review: If you were to buy all of the items included it would cost triple the price. The Plus! DME is worth it just for the Movie Maker 2 add-ons alone.

Already a huge value for only $19.95 (US), and there is also a free update for existing customers and new-purchasers includes brand-new features and enhancements for two of the most popular features of Microsoft Plus! Digital Media Edition, including the new Plus! Photo Story 2 with Video CD burning and more Plus! Dancers.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Losing its touch
Review: Microsoft Plus! for Windows XP is only okay, as a program. It does have a few good features, but lacks to its previous counterparts! Microsoft needs to add more to Plus! (as in the days of Windows 98) or scrap the entire idea together and throw the few good things it has into the original copy of their next Windows. This version feels like more of a promo than ever. The seven desktops, eight screensavers, few themes combining icons with the two previous mentioned ites, and the three games do make it an acceptable program though. I give it 2-3 stars, but since I am able to compare with a previous version, I'll go with two stars.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Okay product, better options on the market
Review: This is an alright product but certainly not excellent.

The plus dancers are interesting but you will get bored with them quickly.

The alarm clock is great if you sleep in the same room with your PC otherwise why bother

The label maker is ok but it does not as promised print the track names for you. All it does is print the playlist name with a cool graphic behind it. If you have Roxio's cd creator installed then just use that products label maker for free.

The party mode is actually useful if you decide to have a party in which your computer is the centerprice. It basically lets anyone change the song or playlist but nothing else.

The plus audio converter is pretty good but i have limited experience with it. Basically lets you convert music from one format to another with the new lossless WMA format a preference.

The Plus Sync and Go program is very nice if you have a PDA. It basically lets you auto-sync media content with your PDA everytime you plug it in. Very good if you are stuck in gridlock and want to watch the news on the way home.

It realy depends on how badly you want the features above. What is listed is all that comes with it. If you are hardcore into music and have no money then this is a great product for you. Otherwise look into other options.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: USELESS !!!!
Review: THATS RIGHT.......IT'S TRUE.....IT HAS MANY FEATURES.....BUT BELIEVE ME.......THEY ARE USELESS!!!!!.
PLEASE MAKE YOUR SELF A FAVOR......DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY.....IF YOU CAN BUY IT USED AT HALF THE PRICE.....MAYBE YOU WON'T BE SORRY.
PEACE.!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Good Deal for the Money
Review: If you keep in mind all that's included for the price, you really can't complain. XP's visual interfaces have always been appealing, and the components of Plus! DME are all nicely done and easy to use. I bought it mainly because I was interested in Photo Story, and now that there is a free online upgrade available (Photo Story 2), you can save projects to edit later. That makes this program much more sensible. It allows final saving in only two formats: "medium quality" (240x320) and "high quality" (480x640). There are also two quality choices for audio. Happily, saved "stories" (WMV format) can be imported into Movie Maker and rendered as full DV-AVI with good results.

The audio capture program is also simple, straightforward, and wizard-based. It lets you trim unnecessary parts before saving. I used it to capture audio in order to make CDs from language lesson tapes. It worked great. I haven't tried it on a wide variety of music, but it worked fine with the music I did digitize. You cannot do any fancy editing, but for importing analog music into your PC, it couldn't get simpler than this.

The Alarm Clock integrates nicely with XP, and I use it often. Plus! DME also came with many new transition effects for Movie Maker which are pretty cool.

There are other features, which are mainly just "toys" to me, but even without them, I feel that the price is fair enough for only the goodies I've mentioned above.

Although I confess that this will not satisfy those who prefer high "tweakability" and professional results, I feel that Plus! DME is worth its price for what it does and will please those who want a simple solution to a few digital media tasks.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: I Still Don't Believe It !
Review: I purchased this item last Summer. I enjoyed using it becouse it made my works easier! My dad had a pocket pc and he couldn't download his favorit musics into it but with Plus! Sync. I made his dream come true! :) I also could change my musics format to WMA and download them into my MP3 Player with Plus! Converter and Portable Audio Device. There are many other stuff that I can do with it but I can't write them down here. I recommend to buy this software; I bet you'll like it. :)

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great for Windows Movie Maker Users!!!
Review: I was referred to this from the windowsmoviemakers.net website and I am very pleased with all of the new effects for MM2. It also came with a lot of neat toys for WindowsXP. I think the best part is that if I were to have purchased the add-ons for Movie Maker from the Pixelan website I would have paid double and gotten a lot less. You really can't go wrong for the price.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Thank you Microsoft, I lost a day...
Review: So I bought this thing, based on the reviews and the price, mainly to do a slide show from our last vacation photos.
I really like the product (that the slide show) BUT THERE IS NO WAY TO SAVE YOUR WORK AS YOU GO. You have 1 shot at it, once you are done and that's it. Guess what, I spent a day building a slide show with sound and music. Did generate the show a few times, being carefull to not exit at that would 'close' the project for ever. Decided to add one more slide, generated the slide show and bang, the app crashed... +/- 6 hours of work down the drain (sound a lot, but by the time you add voice and music bit on 120 photos time flies by).
Think twice before byuing this thing...
(by the way ther rest of the utilities are fairly useless specialy those dancers...)

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Looking for a jukebox program? This isn't it.
Review: I was looking forward to this package because of the "Party Mode," which "Transforms your PC into a full-featured party jukebox." That is the most misleading statement I have ever seen on a Microsoft product. "Party Mode" is basically a media player add-on that keeps people from accessing your other files while it's running.
A jukebox program (such as eJukebox from AudioSoft) lets people browse by artist, genre, album, etc.- and then add files to a dynamic playlist. That's not what this program does. If you double-click on a song, it stops the one currently playing and begins the song you clicked on.
This program:
-Doesn't display cover art,
-Has a complicated interface,
-Doesn't give complete song info,
-Let users exit by simply clicking the "x",

If you're looking for a jukebox program, this isn't it. If you're thinking of using this program as a jukebox, save your money and just click "full screen" on Windows Media Player.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: hidden gotcha
Review: Preliminary reviews and the box for this product tell you it only works on Windows XP. But it doesn't tell you it can only be used with the latest version of Windows Media Player; there are other competing products around.

For me the real stopper came when I found out that you can't even install Plus until you have version 9 of Media Player. Until now, I've been happy with version 8, and I am reluctant to update to version 9 since it won't allow you to return to version 8 if problems occur.

I wanted to try the analog to digital features of Plus, but I'm afraid this will stay in the box until and unless I decide to risk the upgrade to version 9 of Windows Media Player. Sigh!


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