Customizable trip-planning software and maps for Europe
Provides accurate driving directions; map coverage of 37+ countries
Instantly find more than 747,000 points of interest
Import contacts from Microsoft Office Outlook and Office Excel
Add multiple destinations with simple drag-and-drop controls
Rating: - Two European trips with Autoroute with two different results
I purchased Autoroute 2007 for a trip to Germany-Austria in Sept.-Oct. 2008. I have since used it for a trip to the South of France in Dec. The two trips had far different results for the use of Autoroute. In Germany, the directions were right on. I drove from Munich to Fuessen, Germany, then to Innsbruck, back to Fuessen, then to Vienna, then to Salzburg, and back to Munich, with much of the journey on back roads. I loaded Autoroute on my laptop and set it on the floor in the car on the passenger's side. Directions were right on. The only problem I ran into was construction on one of the routes, which I was able to overcome by recalculating the route using F3.
But in France, in going from Marseille to Aix to Arles to Millau, then to Nimes and Avignon, and finally to Nice I had much more difficulty, as if the German data had been more precise than the French. In France, many round-abouts (traffic circles) were missing from Autoroute in the routes I traveled. I missed many turns because of this. Not only that, the data on the circles were suspect. For example, "take the second exit at the round-about" may or may not be correct depending how they counted the exits from the circle. Most disconcerting was the repeated "Off route!" warnings from the program, followed immediately by "Back on route!" indicating that the road registration data was imprecise in France. Furthermore, the data was out of date as demonstrated by my trip to Millau, where the A75 route has been modified.
I also ran into several problems with the program itself, such as losing connection with the GPS sensor, having to shut down the program and restart it to get out of some software glitch, or other interferences caused by the Microsoft Windows XP operating system, such as pop up messages. These difficulties led me to the conclusion that Autoroute is not a suitable program for the sole traveler, because it demands so much attention. This can certainly be a safety hazard on tight, winding European roads. A better solution, which I will implement on my next European trip even though it is more expensive, is a dedicated GPS receiver on the dashboard. The interface is superior, the graphics, more representative of the landscape, and the user interaction, minimal.
Rating: - Go buy a GPS for this purpose. In my opinion Autoroute will drive you no where but insane
We used Autoroute in Amsterdam for 3 days. Using the Microsoft GPS Antenna supplied with Streets and Trips 2008. AutoRoute Europe was the worst package I have ever worked with and was continuously slow to warn about turns and frequently planned turns the wrong way on one way streets. It was enough to convince me to by a TomTom GPS for the car and what a difference. The TomTom is an excellent product and will certainly leave you much less frustrated.
Rating: - MS AutoRoute Europe 2007
Easy to install and should work well with the Pharos GPS unit that I use with MS streets and trips 2005.
Rating: - I'm an AutoRoute NO GPS VICTIM too!
After an e-mail exchange with Microsoft Technical Support, I land in London to find the GPS features of AutoRoute 2007 won't drive my (De Lorme) antenna contrary to their assurances. Next I try to go on line, but find Win XP SP3 has knocked out my WiFi. Finally, reaching the internet, I find it full of blogs from others like me. support.microsoft won't deal with it, linking to some third party site that is no help. HELP? HELL NO! NO MORE MICROSUCX for me!
It WRECKED OUR TRIP.
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