Microsoft Streets & Trips 2013 available for 14-day free trial

I've got Mappoint 2004 and S&T 2010. S&T 2011 wasn't anything to make worthwhile to upgrade from the reviews so I'll see what is said about the 2013 version. What's on the web now are just regurgitation of the press releases with some screen shots in a few cases.

I updated to S&T 2013 when it first came out a couple of weeks ago. Another year of charging for a Map Update only, for the most part. Very disappointing!

And to add insult to injury, after I paid $39.95 for 2013, Microsoft cut $10 off the price so it's now available for $29.95 from the Microsoft Store.

Lots of reviews and comments can be found at the S&T forum at http://www.laptopgpsworld.com/microsoft

for the maps alone. It really is a pretty good piece of software for trip planning though it does have its warts. One I would like to see corrected is being able to start each day with a full tank of gas rather than it estimating the range from day 1. I know you can do a series of one day trips, but I may want the full route taht takes a few days to complete.

I agree, I'd like to be able to use S&T that way as well. Although I don't really use the fuel calculator at all, I do use the start day and end day times which results in needing to do a number of one day trips instead of one trip that covers multiple days.

I don't understand your comment. "One day trips instead of one trip that covers multiple days."

I plan all my trips with M&S and just put in the start and finish, then I add stops in between and use the 8am to 2 pm driving time. It shows the end of each day and the start of the nest day for the while trip.

Is this still up to date? Last time I bought Streets and Trips was in 2007 and I found the maps to be very outdated compared with Garmin Nuvis which were much better.

Microsoft has also fallen behind with the times - they should have a mobile version of this for your cell or tablet for offline use, not just PC. Not too many people I know lug a PC around in their front seat while driving.

I agree that if you use a constant start and stop time that may work. It becomes a lot more difficult if you start one day at 8:00 am and want to finish at 2:00 pm, then the next day at 7:00am and finish at 5:00pm, and then on the third day start at 9:00am and want to be off the road 3:00pm. This is often the way we travel.

It's not a major problem as I've got used to creating one single trip and from there creating daily trips based on the projected daily stops S&T has calculated, adjusted to my actual known start and stop preferences for each day. It's just that there is no easy way to take all the individual, fully customized daily trips and merging them all back into a single continuous trip.

If you use the fuel estimator to guesstimate the amount and cost of fuel for a trip it calculates only from the start of the trip and doesn't take into account you probably refuel every evening to start the day with a full tank.

Depending on the values you enter, you can get a fairly good indication of where you will need to make a fuel stop but if the trip lasts a couple of days such as driving across the country, everything is calculated on your leaving the origin with a full tank and not refueling every night. That makes the fuel stops incorrect unless you beak the trip down into one day segments.

The maps should be pretty much the same for S&T as they are for your Garmin Nuvi. Both companies obtain their maps from Navteq so the biggest difference would be whether Microsoft's version is the same release as Garmin's. Of course, since Garmin update their maps 4 times a year and S&T only once, Garmin's maps will tend to more up to date on a consistent basis.

I agree that you won't find a lot of people using a laptop and S&T to navigate but IMO S&T is more of a trip planning computer software program than a facility to give you a GPS in your vehicle. As a trip planning program it's hard to beat. I've tried it's main competition, Street Atlas, and can easily see why S&T is the top seller in this market.

used to have one for PDa's a while back

Thanks for the link, artfd

The happiest 2 days I had with Street Atlas were the days I received it and the day I trashed it.

I always travel with one, and sometimes with a backup laptop. I do family & genealogy research on the road and occasionally do presentations using my laptop. I usually have no passenger, so leaving it in the front seat has not been a problem. Securing it in the front seat & angling the screen so I can see it has been a problem.
I have run S&T and Street Atlas on short & long trips and have regularly had my laptops crash for no known reason, usually when I most need the navigation guidance. I have been using a new TomTom 1435 the last 6 weeks & have found it more reliable (strictly as a navigation aid) than my laptop, but the TomTom let me down last week in a crowded urban neighborhood I was visiting for the first time -- when I needed it most. My laptop & S&T got me out of there faster than the TomTom could come to its senses.
I agree that S&T is great for trip planning. The TomTom doesn't come close.

Years ago, the coordinates between S&T and our gps was off by over 10 miles - never did figure out why.

This last weekend, we were meeting for a family reunion at a state park, and thought I'd try it again. And this time it brought us right up to the shelter house.

From what I've read I should be able to do the same thing with Google maps - but I'm not into that, yet.

I assume you are referring to the POIs listed under Show and Hide Places, rather than the actual roadways. I use S&T a lot when planning long trips, but don't rely on the accuracy of their POI locations.

As stated elsewhere, S&T uses the same source as Garmin but only updates the data with new releases - so it will always be out-of-date. Especially if you are using an older vesion.

I usually only get a new version of S&T every three years. I have 2010, so there are a lot of new hotels and restaurants missing, and a lot of businesses no longer in operation. But that is to be expected.

I get around with my Garmins, I use them all the time for work, but I like MST to print out certain areas I'll be in for a better over-all view at a glance.

I have found that MST does take a while to catch up with new streets, I know a of few places that my GPS had a new neighborhood and MST didn't have it until a couple versions later.

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Yea, I guess S&T is good for trip planning purposes but not so much while on the go / in the car. Good points.

I like if for planning trips and used it in the motorhome all the time until I got my 660. Liked the biger screen but the 660 works great and the wife doesn't complain about the taable between us.

NICE,, Will try it!

i also like to use it to give me a general idea about the area im travling in and i find there poi file has a lot of info in fact sometimes to much info. their poi mega file is 29 megs u can get it at the s and t web page

Not impressed. The main intersection between my town's main drag has some unusual on ramps southbound to the 4 lane limited access going through town - which has been the case for 30 years. I use this almost daily. S&T 2013 still will not route correctly through this interchange. The diagrams of the on ramps are correct, but S&T will not route using those ramps. Makes me wonder what other defects there are in places I haven't been to yet.
I'll be taking it on a long road trip soon.

I have a somewhat similar situation where I live. If I set up a route to take me to Detroit, about 20 miles from home S&T 2011 has me exit the highway and take a number of local roads and then takes me right back onto the highway that was left a little while before. I can add all the via points I want it does not change a thing. In fact it does the same on a highway in Mexico where again it has made up its mind and adding via points will not change that!
STUPID!

Regardless how much MS will drop the price I will never buy MS S&T it again!

Check to see which box you have checked on referenceses. (Shortest or quickest) it makes a difference. Mine will try to takde me on different streets but by putting in one or two via It always takes me the way I want.

I was objecting to having to put anything extra into my routing scheme in order for the program to create a routing that 95% of the locals prefer to use since it's the fastest & most direct. That should just not be necessary for a long-established interchange.
It would be a different consideration if the interchange were not the busiest one in my town.
And again, it makes me wonder if I will encounter similar snafus in other towns that I am not as familiar with.

Great to be able to try before you buy.

What you have as local knowledge and comparing that against a route drawn using a set of data points by a program isn't a fair test. Of course there will be differences. But now draw a route from Richmond Va to Boston. See what the unit comes up with and then compare that to what you know personally. Is there a difference? Oh, wait, you don't have any personal knowledge of the roads in that area so what would you do differently?

It's not what I know personally about an arbitrarily planned route, but whether I trust the program to compose routes in the future that are optimal over roads I have not yet driven on.
My "local knowledge" is simply map knowledge that has been in existence for over 30 years on a major local road. It obviously has not been incorporated into the current S&T by now. My test & objection is a fair one.

I have no horse in this race, but the criteria by which I would judge S&T is how this same routing is handled by Garmin, TomTom, and similar products. Although they are not exactly direct competitors, if I were thinking of buying S&T, I would expect S&T to have similar capabilities.

If you have a GPS such as Garmin or TomTom, take a look at how it deals with the roads in this area. If it is better than S&T, then write S&T off your list of possible purchases. If it is no better, then judge S&T on the basis of its other features that might be of interest to you - especially the trip planning features that your GPS might not have.

With best wishes,
- Tom -

Amazon is offering 2013 S&T for $25.99 shipping included, best price I've seen so far.

I noticed a similar thing happen with S&T2011 on a route west on I-80 through Nebraska and Wyoming. If the route prefs are left on the default ("Quickest"), there were a couple places where it took the route off of I80 for 10 miles or so, then came back to it. The older version I have (2007) did not do that. At first I though this may have been due to S&T "thinking" that those bypassed stretches of I80 were undergoing construction. But if I changed the routing prefs to "Preferred" (and also change the "Preferred" values to strongly prefer Interstate highways), the default routing would no longer go off of I80. But the problem is you cannot make S&T use "Preferred" as the default, so every time you add any route segment, it will always use the "Quickest" setting, and you have to manually change it. It is great that S&T has the "Preferred" route prefs, because it allows a better form of fine tuning than any PND I've seen, but it's really stupid that you cannot make S&T default to "Preferred" for every route segment, without having to manually change it after you add segment(s). It is possible to shift-select multiple route segments and apply the "Preferred" setting to all segments at once, but that doesn't help if you later add a new segment (and may easily forget to go change the route prefs again).

Over at laptopgpsworld.com, many people have asked for this to be changed, but as usual, Microsoft does not respond to user requests like this.

Looks like Amazon has a sale on again. The version that comes with a GPS receiver is $44 with free shipping. Pretty good price if you ask me.

During your trial period, check the transfer of files to your unit...I have used several versions of S&T (that I like _)and have the 2013 version as well. I am not happy with.
Since my Zumo is a Garmin based unit, there are issues with transfer of route files to the Unit...having to do with Time Zones.

S&T, you save the file to your folder with with .est ,
go back to map and Export to your GPX file....
I find that I then connect my Zumo to computer, open up the Zumo unit file and find GPX file...then transfer drag and drop the newly created GPX file from my PC folder to the Zumo GPX file.

My 2013 version will not recognize my Zumo unit.

I hope that Microsoft and Garmin will resolve this issue so these two can at least recognize each other.

Norwood - here is a possible workaround.
1. Open the exported GPX file in notepad
2. Press Ctrl+h (to open up the replace dialog)
3. in Find what: type 'Invalid DateTime-08:00' (or whatever matches what you see in the file)
4. in Replace with: type '2013-01-28T09:01:17' or anytime in a valid format.
5. Press 'Replace All' button

I don't have a Zumo unit to test this workaround but hopefully I'm on the right path with this suggestion.