Microsoft Streets and Trips coming to end of life

[nazpaz]

I guess it's a sign of the times as people use on line trip planning tools but I hate seeing that Microsoft Streets and Trips is going to be discontinued: http://www.microsoft.com/Streets/en-us/default.aspx.

[RVWithTito]

I just purchased the latest version. I still prefer it for off-line trip planning. I guess I can use it for a few more years despite the lack of support.

[pianotuna]

Hi,

This just in from Delorme:

Hello Don,

The maps cannot be imported but your bread crumbs can If you can export your data out of Streets and Trips into gpx files. Street Atlas USA can import gpx files.

Keith

[crabbin_cabin]

"It's still my go-to program for trip planning., looking at alternate routes, etc."
Me also! In fact I started using its predessor (sp?) before Micro =soft bought it out - when it was just a trial system, on old floppy disks in 1991!!
Has always worked well for us in all those years of RVing!

[ohiopicker]

We use DeLorme Street Atlas. It's totally self-contained (doesn't need internet connection) and comes with a GPS receiver that plugs into a USB port on your laptop.

[Lindsay10]

Microsoft Autoroute,known in North America as Microsoft Streets & Trips,is a discontinued mapping program developed and distributed by Microsoft.Functionally the latest version is a subset of Microsoft MapPoint targeted at the average consumer to do a variety of map related tasks in the North American region including the United States,
http://free.yudu.com/item/details/2063880/Passforsure-Braindumps-70-410
vube.com/undefined/70-410-passforsure-dumps/undefined

[travelnutz]

pianotuna,

Delorme Street Atlas programs do all you have mentioned and so much more. However, I really don't know how you could directly download all your "breadcrumb" saved trips into Delorme as they seem to use a different architecture.

Back in the late 1990's I too on the challenge of mapping trails. I did 997 miles over 2 summers of various motorized trailbike trails in the 532,000 acre Manistee National Forest in one approx 15 mile radius from our membership resort using breadcrumbs on the Delorme Street Atlas program on a laptop in our Geo Tracker and also using my Garmin Marine GPS when on our trail bikes or our hopped up golfcart. Then downloaded all the info to the Delorme Street Atlas program on my desktop and printed out 8-1/2 X 11 sheets in B&W of each trail and bound them together in a booklet (47 of them) using the plastic comb binder (38 pages).

The pages had added names, reference features, compass readings, plus notes along with all the distances between each breadcrumb or major indentifying feature plus the distances from where one trail would intersect or cross another trail. Later added a lot of lat/lon numbers on several of the trails and loops. The maps were made and sold for $10 ea booklet to the resort menbers so it would be easy for them to travel the trails without fear of getting lost but some still managed to and we'd have to go look for them. However, less after they took the book with them so I'm sure it helped.

Used for motorized trail bikes and snowmobiles mainly but some used them for quads and small vehicle offroading where allowed. Full sized vehicles wouldn't get far! The trails were very narrow in some areas between the huge trees etc and we couldn't even get the Geo Tracker thru or a golf cart and it was noted on the maps. Some of the hills are too steep for vehicles to climb as they are loose beach sand but a properly set up large enough engined trail bike could climb them and in winter about 2/3 of the snowmobiles could clime them once the trail was packed down by going down only with about a dozen or so machines. Fun times!

The Manistee National forest is approx 20-50 miles wide E to W and 60 to 80 miles long N to S and is dense forest with lots of lakes and big steep hills. Very easy to get lost!

Many of the trails/loops are still maintained by the MCCCT org (Michigan Cycle Conservation Club Trails) today. Great people who maintain 1200 miles of trails in the Manistee National Forest alone. Orange and black triangle with a motorcycle image and MCCCT on them attached to trees on their trails. They have a total of 113 trail systems and loops in their 12 chapters in Michigan. I've lost track of how many thousands of miles of trails they have now in our state as we are a little too old to ride hard now.

The Delorme program worked perfect for it and included all lat/lon numbers and couldn't have made the maps back then without it. Much easier to do now as all mapping programs have been upgrades so much but Delorme is still the best and that's why the US Military uses/used them.

[pianotuna]

Hi,

Typing in the locations, since I'm a reasonably accurate touch typist makes that a breeze.

For me, the ability to store essentially unlimited bread crumb trails is wonderful.

The ability for me to enter towns at random, then pick a start point and a stop point, and have the program "design" the most efficient way to visit all the spots is great.

Setting exclusion zones for big cities such as St. Louis allows me to avoid freeways.

Being able to "drill down" to grid roads is useful to me.

Setting up fuel costs helps with budgeting for my travels.

Having the ability to "dislike" toll roads (for example) helps me get to the type of road I prefer (i.e. staying on the "red roads").

Since 2011 the way points entered can have their names changed, so I can put in a clients phone number or other information quickly and easily.

Sending the maps so created to other users is quick and easy.

pnichols wrote:
I'm curious ... what are the details of "trip planning" that S&T make so easy? The larger screen you get with S&T on a laptop I appreciate - but what else?

[Me_Again]

pnichols wrote:
I'm curious ... what are the details of "trip planning" that S&T make so easy? The larger screen you get with S&T on a laptop I appreciate - but what else?

I use my Garmin to finger-tip zoom in/out everywhere in the U.S., find all kinds of destinations before a trip or while traveling using both Garmin's built-in databases and the hundreds of thousands of destinations I've loaded in from POI websites, and plan custom routes from beginning to end with multiple destinations. All this of course can be on tap in the Garmin without Internet access or the monthly access charges.

Enter start and end point. Calculate route and if you are not happy with that routing you simply add a mid point somewhere on the route you would prefer and re-caculare. You can lay out a whole trip with stops along the route and it will compute mileage increasing to each stop and give total mileage, driving times, on and on. Chris

[pasusan]

Veebyes wrote:
What so many here seem to miss is that internet based mapping is useless if there is no phone service. There are loads of places where there is no cell service making stand alone mapping like S&Ts the only way for flexible on the go mapping.

Exactly. It has been our go to program whenever we need a map when we're out.

[pnichols]

I'm curious ... what are the details of "trip planning" that S&T make so easy? The larger screen you get with S&T on a laptop I appreciate - but what else?

I use my Garmin to finger-tip zoom in/out everywhere in the U.S., find all kinds of destinations before a trip or while traveling using both Garmin's built-in databases and the hundreds of thousands of destinations I've loaded in from POI websites, and plan custom routes from beginning to end with multiple destinations. All this of course can be on tap in the Garmin without Internet access or the monthly access charges.

[Veebyes]

What so many here seem to miss is that internet based mapping is useless if there is no phone service. There are loads of places where there is no cell service making stand alone mapping like S&Ts the only way for flexible on the go mapping.

[Me_Again]

When we first retired and start doing longer trips we used MS S&T on a laptop and it was great to have the bigger screen and be able to zoom in and out. However I got tired of putting it in and out of the truck, so we bought a TomTom. We still use S&T for planning and then put the days destination in the TomTom. I like the TomTom better than my smart phone for navigation!

However the smart phone allows me to do voice searches for "things" which is cool, and it knows when I am driving and will automate texts and phone calls via voice commands.

Chris

[pnichols]

Also ... not considering trip planning ... how does one navigate using their iWhatever "Map App" when they can't connect to the Internet?

Can iWhatever devices store the complete maps of Canada and the U.S. inside their memory like my Garmin does? All my Garmin needs is for me to keep it's huge internally stored Canada/U.S. map database updated and to be able to connect to satellites. It works anywhere it can see the satellites ... especially nice way out in the middle of nowhere when boondocking.

I don't think iPhones/iPads/Etc. can keep a complete U.S./Canada database stored internally - this means they NEED Internet access to keep going. Also, do they give turn by turn voice directions like the pure navigator instruments do?

For us, our Garmin navigator keeps us out of trouble everywhere in the entire U.S.. We'll try out it's Canadian capabilities on an Alaska trip in the future. The Internet is in a lot of places, but not everywhere ... plus we don't have monthly connect charges with the Garmin navigator.

[Jim_Shoe]

I use the 2011 version. I use it for trip planning and will continue to do so. The roads don't change much. But CGs do. And a CG could go belly up or change names the day after a S & T version is released.
I suspect that Microsoft has figured out that you really don't need to buy the new release every year if you're only using it for trip planning. I use RV Park Reviews to pick a CG.