Microsoft Works Suite 2002

Microsoft Works gives you the essential tools you need for your home PC: word processor, spreadsheets, database, calendar, address book, e-mail tools, and more. Easily manage your personal finances, budgets, and spending down to the penny. Use the rich photo-editing tools in Works Suite to correct, organize, and enhance your images to make them great pictures and fond memories. Help everyone in the household learn more and do research for school. Make traveling a breeze and take the stress out of road trips by mapping your route, printing directions, and finding points of interest, restaurants, and hotels.

Just a warning to everyone, make sure you have everything you're supposed to have right away. I'd even take your Gateway computer to a Gateway store and have them verify that everything is included. Or just don't buy from them at all.

So besides not working if you don't have the disc, This Suite is pretty decent, I really like the Streets application (but it doesn't work if you don't have the disc)


Word 2002 - if you upgrade to it say goodbye to macros!   September 10, 2002
13 out of 17 found this review helpful

Microsoft Word is a very good word processor, but if you use to work with macros, I strongly advise against upgrade to Word 2002. This version of the most famous word processor seems to be a step back instead forward. At least my experience with it says so.

In older versions of Word you are able to record macros by performing a sequence of actions. In Word 2002 you can do the same, but with one important difference: macro does not remember font attributes like underline, italic, bold, style, font etc. If you're a PC guru you may probably be able to repair such incomplete macro by entering Visual Basic Editor, but if you aren't, you'll probably be helpless.

Word 2002 has also some other bad characteristics. One of them is the size of its files. A 34 Mb Word 97 file fattened to enormous 49Mb in Word 2002 and a 55 Kb file to 70 Kb.
Another is a fact that almost all of the Spelling&Grammar and Auto Text options are turned on by default. If you're not an English or an American, you need to do a lot of clicking before you can begin to work with Word normally. And poor you if you don't know what to turn off to make auto corrections and other disturbing features disappear. Try to imagine what happens if you write in Slovenian language with the English spell checker turned on! Microsoft should bear in mind that only (small) part of the world is English speaking and writing.

There are also some troubles with cut and paste (Clipboard memory seems to be unreliable).

PS
I gave Word 2002 4 stars for its basic word processing features, but only 1 star for its macros and reliability.


software user from chicago IL from user in Seattle,WA   August 4, 2002
2 out of 10 found this review helpful

Hi, Very interesting about office/word 2002. We just installed XP and I can't print from Word now. No problems with anything else just office 97 and I installed the drivers? So is there any word or office system that will work? I need to study Excel for a job? Software user in Seattle, WA. THanks!


More Bugs than a Raid Commercial   July 20, 2002
28 out of 34 found this review helpful

I am a CIO and a writer, and a heavy user of MS-Word. When I upgraded to XP, I began having quirky problems with Word, so I decided to upgrade to Works 2002. Bad decision on my part. Now I have even more problems than before. On Word: Strange white boxes, sometimes with text and icons, pop up randomly, blocking my text. It takes a reboot to clear. This usually happens if more than one document is open. Lines of text are displayed duplicated. This happens regularly. Scrolling the text will remove this, but just as often duplicates lines somewhere else. If you have been using Internet Explorer, and close the last document window, planning to open another, Word shuts down unexplainably. It does not do this if you haven't used Word and IE concurrently. It now takes significantly longer to open and close either Word itself or documents. I have a fast CPU, tons of memory, and since upgrading I'm constantly waiting on Word. Also, once again MS has redesigned the interface, making it even more cumbersome than before. If you know zero about computers, it probably makes it easier to use. But if you're anything other than a raw neophyte, it's going to take you longer than before to do whatever it is that you wish to do. With the Calendar, it will no longer print if you start the calendar from a shortcut, but will print if you take the several extra steps to start it from the Works icon. Also, since installing Works 2002, Internet Explorer now has a problem. A dialog box pops up saying there was a error and asking if I want to debug. Regardless of what I answer, it just keeps looping and popping up the dialog box. Again, a reboot is required to clear the problem. I've downloaded all the current updates, including device drivers for my video, sound, and printers, and the problems are still here. I don't think this product is ready for primetime yet. In fact, I have far more reboots since installing Works 2002 under XP, than I did using the original Works under Windows ME.