Microsoft Encarta Premium 2007 -Old Version

I had already bought this for my son a year ago, but I mistankenly had deleted it from the computer, started to search websites and they no longer had it. Went into Amazon and there was only one. I bought it and it arrived real fast, I downloaded into computer and its just great. My son loves it, and besides when-ever he wants to search a word it speaks the answer. Its also great to search history which my son is into to. I would give it a 10, for being the most precise software and fun to work with. Thanks!!

Poor support and updates. Has a lot of info you can get elsewhere on the web. Also don't need the kids games.

Very awesome program for adults and chidren,lots of information on the kids encarta.My son is in first grade and he needed to find some information on money from around the world he did it all himself.

I regret that Microsoft has removed items I had on my last edition (2005)-Archives (1938-1994) are not any longer on the DVD-Rom : you have to look for them on the Encarta Premium website on which you are allowed to go for a limited time (18 months I believe).-Encarta Africana has fully disapeared either on the DVD or on the website : why ? It gave an interesting point of view on lots of items.-You can't focus on a particular place of the world atlas with drawing lines which were more accurate than the new system for spotting and printing.As a piece of advice, I should tell to the owners of pre-2006 editions of Encarta Premium to keep preciously their software if they want to have all these items !It's only for these light critics above that I give a three stars to this edition instead of a four or five.And obviously for updating its personnal base of knowledge, I say that it's still interesting to buy the new Microsoft Encarta Premium 2007 edition.

The Encyclopedia material is becoming obsolete as more and more the world has access to the Internet and free online sources such as Wikipedia. Granted. That is why this product was discontinued. But the virtual globe of Encarta is fantastic and worth the price of the product. Aside from Google Maps, which is great, Google Earth is the only thing comparable online and if you have a slow computer, it can be cumbersome. I travel a lot and carry a netbook with me to document my travels. When I am in remote locales without internet access, having the Encarta Virtual Globe on my netbook saves me a lot of time and trouble.Microsoft should consider marketing the Encarta Virtual Globe as a stand alone product. I'd buy it.

I sort of grew up on Encarta and still favor it. Easy to use at a good price and don't have to go on and off line all the time and buy updates for more than I can afford. I'm sorry Microsoft stopped making it. I can live with an older version for like computers, encyclopedias have always been out dated by the time you get it home anyway.

If you think that getting the latest Encarta means getting the latest data and information... think again. I got this hoping to update my trusty Encarta 2001 installation (which I have just for the wonderful interactive virtual globe.. now somewhat surpassed by Google Earth but still great). Before uninstalling the 2007 version (Encarta won't allow more than one installation on a machine) I took some screenshots from the 2001 Atlas. Having installed the 2007 version, I did some comparisons... and found the map data is exactly the same! Yup, what you got in 2001, you get in 2007, and nothing more! OK, so there are some political updates in the big, obvious cases - Montenegro, for example, is shown correctly in Encarta 2007 as an autonomous region, a status it didn't have back in 2001. But these differences are few and far between (I could only find a couple). In the main, the *geographical* data is exactly the same as it was 6 years ago. For example, the map of the Aral Sea shown in Encarta 2007 IS EXACTLY THE SAME, pixel for pixel, as the Aral Sea shown in Encarta 2001 - despite the fact that it has shrunk more than 50% in size since then. Already in 2001 the map was a couple of years out of date, but now it's quite hopeless. Placename information is much the same, despite many changes in the real world. Just one example - Meigs Field Airport in Chicago ceased to exist in 2003 but despite yearly updates to the Encarta Encyclopedia, there it is, still cheerfully shown in the Encarta 2007 World Atlas (4 updates later). In fact, the entire Chicagoland area in the 2007 atlas is EXACTLY the same as in the 2001 edition, pixel for pixel, placename for placename.So, apparently the Encarta Atlas 2007 people think we're too stupid, or igorant, to notice? Or is it just that it doesn't really matter to them to be accurate? Bring out yearly updates but make no changes to the core data? This isn't a very serious reference work, is it? OK, perhaps, for the occasional schoolboy homework assignment, but not for anything more important, is the message they are giving us. I used to think electronic editions of books would make for more rapid updates - but this demonstrates the reverse is true. The latest edition of the Times Atlas of the World is 2005 (hardcover only) and will give you much more up to date geographical information than the 2007 (or 2008) edition of the Encarta. And the previous edition of the Times Atlas was 2001, which just goes to show you - the printed version, in this case, is the more quickly updated version.As a side note, a change that I find quite unwelcome in the 2007 edition (and in earlier ones after 2001, as far as I know) is that you don't get any choices on what to install. It's either everything, or nothing. With Encarta 2001, you got an extensive choice on what to install. I installed the Atlas only (and consider it alone well worth the price of the full product) and nothing else. Now, that is impossible. Apparently the Encarta people think we're too stupid to THINK about what we're doing when installing, so we are given no options, no choices?Finally, the interface (for the Atlas) is far superior in the 2001 Encarta. In the later versions, including the 2007 version, it is all integrated with the other content, and it is clunky and annoying. If I am looking for a place on the map, I don't need 20 links to other irrelevant rubbish. Furthermore, you have to click TWICE to search for a placename in the 2007 version - once to get a general list of related content in the entire Encarta, and one reference to a map, which doesn't do a very thorough listing of the Atlas index, then another click to search the Atlas index by itself, which reveals a lot more hits to the Atlas index. In the 2001 version, you get JUST the Atlas hits for placenames right from the get-go, which is what I want.I uninstalled the Encarta 2007 version and will be selling it on eBay, and have now gone back to the trusty 2001 Encarata.

I enjoy researching various subjects simply out of intellectual curiosity and find Encarta a useful tool. I'm somewhat overwhelmed by the multimedia offerings but like the chronological updates and appreciate this treatment of current events.