Rating: 
Summary: content terrific; interface poor
Review: The content of this package is, of course, unparalleled. As for format, well - with current technology you're never going to lose an evening curled up by the fire delighting in the texture of the digital interface under your fingertips, but as a research tool the potential for this CD is enormous. Sure, you can't savour the onionskin pages, but nor do you have to walk up and down a book case the length of a city block hunting down the right volume to look up 'oat'. And there is something perversely satisfying in knowing someone once chopped his what-not off so you could have this knowledge at your finger tips. Sort of.But that said, the realisation of the potential isn't terrific. The default word search function is narrow - woe betide should you assume a plural: search on 'oats', and the full, digital version of the twenty-two volume Oxford English Dictionary will announce: 'no entries found'. To me, that's pretty stunning. The better approach is to use the full text search, but this is buried in an obscure tab at the bottom of the screen, and it took me quite a few goes before I even noticed it. Full text search allows you to search on an text in the definition, which is where the real strength of a CD-ROM version lies. But even this is limited - only a certain amount of Boolean searching is possible, where a simple 'google' style search engine would allow far more flexibility in customising searches. But for me, the biggest drawback of this product is having to have the CD-ROM actually occupying your CD player the whole time you use the dictionary. At the best of time, CD-ROMs orbit my computer according to the laws of quantum mechanics and never actually exist in any given place at any given time - their whereabouts can only be described in terms of probabilities. So having to suddenly locate a given CD-ROM in a given place at a given time presents certain epistemological difficulties. And besides, if I fancy a spot of dictionary browsing of an evening, there's nothing I like better than some light music to go with it. Even if I correctly predict the whereabouts of said CD-ROM, I then have to turf the Inkspots' Greatest Hits out of the CD tray and browse in silence. Do I worry? You can your bet your life I do.
Rating: 
Summary: world's worst software
Review: The OED is one of the great intellectual achievements of civilization. The software on this CD-ROM, however, represents one of the low-points in intellectual history. It is slow, cumbersome, idiotic, thoughtless, counterintuitive. Either the people who wrote the software have never used a dictionary, or else the administrator who had total authority over the project has never used a computer. It is difficult to come up with a third possible explanation for this monstrosity. The software is so bad I don't know where to start with my criticism. How about the fact that each time you click the icon it does a very slow check of the CD-ROM in your drive to make sure it is an original copy? How about the fact that once it gets past that it does not allow you to start typing the word you wish to look up? Look up a word? Now, why would anyone using a dictionary want to do that? Of course, if you do want to look up a word, and are willing to click enough times, you can eventually do that. It's not worth going on. Don't buy this CD-ROM unless you want to torture yourself.
Rating:
Summary: Buyer BEWARE!
Review: This could be a decent product if it were not for the copy protection scheme used to "validate" the product each time you use it. For the amount of money you spend on this product, you would think that it should be available for use whenever you wanted to use it. The sad news is that the copy protection scheme MAY WORK for a period of time, then it stops validating (watermark or something on the CD, my CD is still perfectly clean). You are then out of your purchase price and left with a useless CD. DON'T BUY THIS PRODUCT!
Rating: 
Summary: Simply the Best
Review: This dictionary is a must have for any practicing lawyer, writer, reporter, author, scholar, or any involved in creating media for the educated. It has not only has all the words, but the depth it goes in defining each word is breathtaking. You are allowed to install this on your hard drive (this is the biggest difference from version 2.0) but you will have to validate that you own the copy every 90 days. I must say that this is without a doubt, the best dictionary ever published. The fact that it is now available in an electronic format makes searching a breeze. This is so much better than the competition, but it should be, it costs so much more, too.
You get what you pay for. The ability to look up a word and its etymology is important to anyone trying to understand the nuance between synonyms. Right when you think you know what a word means, you will learn after reading this dictionary that you really meant another word. Having the right word at your fingertips or your lips is priceless. Get this dictionary!
Rating:
Summary: Oxford Dictionary in Waltz Time
Review: This ne edition is still a fine word book, of course, but the argument here is with the technology. Installation takes a long time, startup allows delay allows you to write a letter or two in Word complete with spelling errors before the dictionary program is usable. (There is a paranoic fear of pirating, I guess, that makes setting up and using the dictionary a bit silly.)
Graphic component is prettier but not as straightforwardly clear and usable. Type more stylized and apparently smaller.
When you tamper with the redesign of a classic book/newspaper/website, etcetera, you run the risk if fouling up. That happened here, and though I love the data I hate te package. The only reason I bought it was I was told by Oxford that my earlier edition, which was occasionally coming up garbage rather than English, was not meant to be run with XP. An obligatory upgrade, alas.
Rating:
Summary: Oxford Dictionary in Waltz Time
Review: This ne edition is still a fine word book, of course, but the argument here is with the technology. Installation takes a long time, startup allows delay allows you to write a letter or two in Word complete with spelling errors before the dictionary program is usable. (There is a paranoic fear of pirating, I guess, that makes setting up and using the dictionary a bit silly.)
Graphic component is prettier but not as straightforwardly clear and usable. Type more stylized and apparently smaller.
When you tamper with the redesign of a classic book/newspaper/website, etcetera, you run the risk if fouling up. That happened here, and though I love the data I hate te package. The only reason I bought it was I was told by Oxford that my earlier edition, which was occasionally coming up garbage rather than English, was not meant to be run with XP. An obligatory upgrade, alas.
Rating: 
Summary: Doesn't work on Win2000
Review: This software, as beautiful as it is, uses a copy-protection mechanism that apparently doesn't work under Windows 2000 (at least I was unable to make it work neither under Win2000 Professional nor Win2000 server). It works under Win 98 though.
Rating:
Summary: OED CD 2.0 Misleds Purchasers: Fails to discuss issue
Review: When I purchased this CD, I was under the strong impression that I could load it on my hard drive. Oh, what a costly and irrecoverable mistake! In order to use this CD, one must leave it in the CD drive. So if one, as I, uses the CD drive for other purposes and then needs to look-up a word on the fly, one is required to first look-up the CD and then load the CD. Although the CD is nice, Oxford neglected to simultaneously use informed state of the art technology to prevent piracy and allow friendly, appropriate access to those of us who are OED lovers. At this writing, OED has slightly modified their website to note this "feature," but it is still slightly less than buried. When I purchased it, there were no such hints. I would expect better behaviour from Oxford University Press. I have tried taking this issue to Oxford, and they won't reply. Their customer service is appalling. No one is in charge. What a shame.
Rating:
Summary: Dreadful Interface
Review: Whoever put this software together for Oxford sold them a bill of goods. In fact, this version is even worse than the previous one, especially since you can't scroll through the word list, but instead have to know what you're looking for. I've also turned up more than a couple actual errors (which are not in the paper version). Oxford should hire a new developer, create a useable version, and offer it as a free upgrade to people who bought this one.
Rating:
Summary: The Word Lover's Guidebook
Review: You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t love the English language. Thus, I do not need to wax over-eloquently on the joys of investigating words. Of finding their common and rarer meanings and learning their history. Nor do I have to dwell on the great pleasure of knowing that you have used exactly the correct word in its correct context. Whether you are an etymologist, a student, writer, lover of the obscure, or even someone who likes to make a wager now and then, the OED has to be one of your most vital references. Untold man years of effort have gone into the collection and redaction of the atoms of written and spoken English. To peer into the many pages of the OED is to peer into the many corridors of the human mind. Until the popularization of the compact disk, the only way to take this journey was via the ponderous 20 volume set, or the nearly unreadable miniaturized version (magnifying glass included). Now, thanks to modern technology, I can have all this incredible word wizardry on my computer, quickly responsive to my needs and curiosity. The OED arrives as a set of two CD’s, one of which contains the software and indices, the other of which holds the definitions and data. Installation was straightforward on my Windows 98, 1 Gigaherz machine, although the software did develop a slight glitch which then went away. The data CD is required for operation. It cannot be copied, unfortunately, which means it must be treated with considerable care and love. It is possible to get a replacement CD once, for a fee. This is an unfortunate arrangement, but one can understand that the publishers wish to prevent the pirating of very valuable data. I would have preferred that they had found a better way to accomplish this. When you initiate the software there is a slight delay while it checks the CD for the copy protection scheme. On my machine this was hardly noticeable, but I see that others have complained about this, so slower drives (mine is 40X) might cause irritation. In use the OED works very much like a web site, providing search facilities and entry lists to aid you in tracking down a word. The entries themselves are displayed clearly, and several options are provided to simplify of extend the display. Cross-reference links are also provided. It is possible to search definitions as well as entries themselves. The CD version of the OED it technically every bit as useful as the paper editions. In some ways it is an improvement. My only complaint is that it lacks the ‘feel’ of a book. I’m used to letting my eyes range over the pages after looking up a particular word, spelunking, if you will, for new words to add to my personal collection. Browsing is still possible, but it is reduced to an unbookish scanning of the index list. This is a small price to pay for the overall convenience and economy of the CD’s, so I will survive it. One other negative is that Oxford University Press has not quite mastered the support of software yet. The support website for the CD edition is promising but incomplete. Resign yourself to having to take on their technical support in a more direct fashion.
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