Rand McNally StreetFinder and TripMaker

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Summary: Do Not Buy Rand McNally StreetFinder and TripMaker
Review: I have purchased successive versions of StreetFinder and they seem to continually get worse...In some cases, it shows sidewalks as streets. In other cases, the streets it maps are simply incorrect. Even the way it labels streets and highways is poorly done. In short, do not buy this product...

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Summary: Rand McNally Street Finder & Trip Maker
Review: I upgraded from a previous version hoping that they had made improvements from user comments. Somehow I missed the fact that I upgraded from the Deluxe Version to the Standard version and several of the features that I previously used were missing. I have many complaints with this version. It set an end of day marker and I wanted to stay at a place 20 miles further on. I couldn't get it to remove the marker it placed, so I had a whole day with 20 miles of travel. I tried to set a road segment as preferred, it stated that a portion of that road was set to avoid and I must reset. There were no segments set to 'avoid' to reset. There were so many other problems that I am unable to use this product at all. I asked some questions by email from their support and offered to list my problems and suggestions for improvement. They answered that I didn't have the deluxe version and showed no interest in my comments.

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Summary: Utter Frustration
Review: I upgraded from a previous version hoping that they had made improvements from user comments. Somehow I missed the fact that I upgraded from the Deluxe Version to the Standard version and several of the features that I previously used were missing. I have many complaints with this version. It set an end of day marker and I wanted to stay at a place 20 miles further on. I couldn't get it to remove the marker it placed, so I had a whole day with 20 miles of travel. I tried to set a road segment as preferred, it stated that a portion of that road was set to avoid and I must reset. There were no segments set to 'avoid' to reset. There were so many other problems that I am unable to use this product at all. I asked some questions by email from their support and offered to list my problems and suggestions for improvement. They answered that I didn't have the deluxe version and showed no interest in my comments.

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Summary: Works well for me!
Review: I use the Deluxe version on an XP platform and it works quite well. Areas that were poorly mapped in previous versions were updated, and features were upgraded. I work in commercial real estate and when mapping the buildings for my customers, it always does the trick quickly and well. If you use StreetFinder for planning trips, I have no idea how well it will work, but compared to the other complex and time-consuming mapping software on the market (including REGIS!), StreetFinder performs as promised.

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Summary: Not bad maps, worthless directions
Review: The only value I have in this product is exporting a local map to my PDA. Other than that, Street & Trips is far superior. The automated directions are worthless. They don't pick the fastest route, they don't pick the shortest route, and they go fictitious near the end of the route. As an example, if I map a route from my office to my house, it takes a meander through side streets instead of travelling down the street I work on to the highway, then, when it does eventually get on the highway, the directions say to take the highway directly to my house, rather than getting off the highway and taking the 3 streets needed to do so. The map display shows the intended route taking a straight line through the woods between my house and the highway near the end as well.

Rating:
Summary: Not bad maps, worthless directions
Review: The only value I have in this product is exporting a local map to my PDA. Other than that, Street & Trips is far superior. The automated directions are worthless. They don't pick the fastest route, they don't pick the shortest route, and they go fictitious near the end of the route. As an example, if I map a route from my office to my house, it takes a meander through side streets instead of travelling down the street I work on to the highway, then, when it does eventually get on the highway, the directions say to take the highway directly to my house, rather than getting off the highway and taking the 3 streets needed to do so. The map display shows the intended route taking a straight line through the woods between my house and the highway near the end as well.

Rating:
Summary: Not bad maps, worthless directions
Review: The only value I have in this product is exporting a local map to my PDA. Other than that, Street & Trips is far superior. The automated directions are worthless. They don't pick the fastest route, they don't pick the shortest route, and they go fictitious near the end of the route. As an example, if I map a route from my office to my house, it takes a meander through side streets instead of travelling down the street I work on to the highway, then, when it does eventually get on the highway, the directions say to take the highway directly to my house, rather than getting off the highway and taking the 3 streets needed to do so. The map display shows the intended route taking a straight line through the woods between my house and the highway near the end as well.

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Summary: not much of a help
Review: This product seems like a waste of money to me. First, it was difficult to use the tripmaker - it would only plot a course from city to city, not from an address to an address. Then it was not easy to change the route that was suggested - I spent 20 minutes trying to have the route take me the length of Skyline Drive in Virginia before I finally figured out how to do it. And last, and probably worst, the maps seem very out of date. The date on the box of the software said 2002, yet the maps did not have the Midpoint Bridge in Fort Myers, Florida, which opened in October of 1997. "Streetfinder" made "Streets and Trips" look good.

Rating:
Summary: not much of a help
Review: This product seems like a waste of money to me. First, it was difficult to use the tripmaker - it would only plot a course from city to city, not from an address to an address. Then it was not easy to change the route that was suggested - I spent 20 minutes trying to have the route take me the length of Skyline Drive in Virginia before I finally figured out how to do it. And last, and probably worst, the maps seem very out of date. The date on the box of the software said 2002, yet the maps did not have the Midpoint Bridge in Fort Myers, Florida, which opened in October of 1997. "Streetfinder" made "Streets and Trips" look good.

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Summary: Not On XP
Review: This runs fine on our other windows systems but refuses to plan anything over a 40 mile trip on the XP system we bought it for. The "tecnical support" help was NOT--they basically said, "too bad, how sad..." If you plan to run this on Windows XP, make sure you save all of your boxes and receipts!