Cook'n 2000

Rating:
Summary: Homemaking made easy!
Review: I actually found this software at Best Buy on sale, but I love it so much I had to see if I could post a review here. I see it's out of stock, but you can find updated versions. This software makes meal planning and menu planning and planning shopping trips a complete breeze, eliminating the stress and allowing your creativity to come shining through! Even more fun are the video clips that allow you to meet some of the women who contributed their expertise and tips and tasty tidbits to this fun enterprise! The software allows you to download regular updates, and the web site has even more recipes. The CD itself includes 70 cookbooks! And imagine what THAT frees up on your shelf space! The best part about this software is that it's so much fun. I have enhanced my own creativity, developed new ideas, broke out of the meal rut we were in, and by creating specific planning, shopping and cooking time freed myself up for the reading I love! I can't say enough about this product! See if you can find it...then let me know what YOU think!

Rating:
Summary: Bum Rap
Review: I was impressed by this product. You have to put it in context... MasterCook has been the big boy on the block for several years and HASN'T been that responsive to users. MasterCook 5.0 (version 1) was Bug-City. Now an 8Meg "Patch" fixes most "minor bugs." Cook'n 2000 had, after years of computer cookbook use, a very easy/intuitive interface. Enjoyed the recipes.

The only two suggestions I'd advise is: Drop the "register or Die!" mentality - look - I DON'T WANT TO REGISTER the software no matter how many perks. I like my privacy. Second, no good EXPORT routines for the major products like MasterCook. When you're not the Big Kid on the block you need to read/write in MasterCook 4/5 format.

Rating:
Summary: Software needs improvement
Review: The Cook'N 2000 software needs lots of improvement. First, The interface is not intuitive and there is no user manual included. I met or exceeded all the system specs for this product, yet I received database errors that froze up the program when logging-in, after updating just one recipe. Mulitply this by the constant "reminders" to register the product with DVO enterprises:a register.exe command is inserted in your win.ini file, causing the reminder to pop-up even when you aren't using the program. There is also the requirement that the CD must be inserted into the drive to run the program, already installed onto your PC, adding another straw to the camel's back.

I have since purchased a MasterCook 5.0 product and have been extremely happy--it has a very user-friendly and intuitive interface, comes with a detailed user book (if you need it), you can easily add your own recipes, it delivers wonderful recipes, runs without the CD inserted, and costs about the same.

Rating:
Summary: Not bad, for a Beta version
Review: This product has the look of a Beta version released on an unsuspecting public. Any time my wife can not use a product without system failures, the product is not worth recommending. I am an 'puter tech, and her system works fine - Cook'n works poorly. Also, as noted by others, the recipes are not special, the database is underdeveloped, and the images included are essentially useless. Good marketing, bad product (Marketing are misleading, or we could call them lies.)

Rating:
Summary: software really needs improvement
Review: When you first look at the box, it seems like a very good software. They offer over 6000 recipes, from about 50 cookbooks. As for the recipes themselves, they are not anything special that you wouldn't find on the internet or in other cook books. The software itself has a number of capabilities. The biggest draw back is the constant error messages, no 800 number for tech support. These error messages cause the software to shut down, and many times your computer does as well. Their website indicates that there are no known problems. This either idicates that people didn't want to be bothered with informing tech support and just returned the software like I did. Or they know about the problem, bud don't have a fix. This software contained some funny video bloopers, and gives a number of video tips. However, I would have prefered more pictures of the finished product and less tips and bloopers. I most certainly would NOT recommend this software, because of the drab boring recipes and the glitchy software, that is so full of error messages that you can barely look at 3 recipes before it shuts you down.