Microsoft Visio Professional 2002 Upgrade from 5.0 or Later

A wealth of new features awaits, with Office XP integration high on the agenda. True, Visio always worked well with Office, but now you'll find XP menus, a new task pane, Auto-Recover, Office Search, and application error reporting added to the list. Note that it also uses Microsoft's new XP registration feature, and will stop working after 10 uses if you haven't entered an activation code.

A Drawing Type Selector gets you off the starting block and lets you choose diagram styles that range from building plans, Web site diagrams, and process engineering to databases, flow charts, and physical or logical network maps. Organizational charts are much improved and a wizard helps to create new charts or import existing information from TXT and XLS formats or ODBC-compliant data sources. The curved-wall tool makes creating building layouts more fun, and you can import and export drawings in standard CAD file formats. Pictures can also be imported directly from a scanner or camera.

However, there's much more, as Visio can be programmed using VBA or C++, while project-management tools include Gantt and PERT chart creation. If you're serious about your charts and diagrams then Visio 2002 Professional has everything you could possibly need, while the new interface makes it even easier to use. --Dave Mitchell

Amazon.com Product Description
There are many improvements new to this version, including enhanced graphics, text, and color, as well as the ability to import and manipulate images from other sources. Visio Professional 2002 combines and improves upon the functionality of Visio 2000 Technical and Professional, taking all the functionality of Visio Standard and adding specific shapes and diagrams for a wide range of engineering and computer-related applications. New online resources help users stay current and get more value from Visio 2002. Also, you can publish diagrams to the Web that are more attractive and effective. New and improved features streamline the process of rolling out and maintaining Visio 2002 across an organization. There is improved property reporting and database connectivity, more-powerful search capabilities, and a streamlined work environment. Developers gain greater flexibility in creating custom Visio applications through support for COM add-ins, a new XML file format, and more than 90 new automation methods.

One quite bizarre example is the database module for ER diagramming: It will REVERSE engineer a database beautifully, but... why would I want to do that if I can't use the diagram for anything but documentation purposes? So you think to yourself, "well, ok, I have ERwin, so I'll just export it to that...", but then you find out that Visio can IMPORT an ERwin model, but not export one??? What a strange omission! If Visio could export an ERwin model, I could buy ONE seat of a $4000 forward engineering database tool, and innumerable seats of $400 Visio! Then I could export to ERwin, forward engineer, and have my whole team using a very approachable, inexpensive tool to boot! I don't know, maybe even Microsoft if afraid of the mighty, abusive, litigous Computer Associates! This is kind of like the Dead Sea of software products: It will take you in, but you'll never get out!

In the software portion, it also is pretty much a dead end for forward engineering, although very cool and complete for documentation purposes, but Microsoft is also very tight with Rational and doesn't want to upset that apple cart either. One thing I was disappointed about was that nothing showed up as far as Java, C#, or .NET data types. I thought this was a little weird, as that's kind of the reason I upgraded. I didn't install it on my .NET server though, so maybe if you do that it picks that up, but to leave out Java is a little bit of an omission, I think.

On the plus side, the interface is beautiful, it does everything but the kitchen sink documentation wise, the shapes and the way they interact is downright magical, and the thing below about the software registration is really overblown: The only thing they make you provide is the country you reside in. In fact, it says right on the CD case "Don't lose this number! You must use it EVERY TIME you install this software." Microsoft is realistic: they know that you will most likely put it on at least two of your computers, and they're not in panic mode.

Bottom line: The best "single source" documentation tool ever devised is Visio 2002.


More flawed software from Microsoft   October 29, 2001
3 out of 9 found this review helpful

Upon using this software it has froze my Windows98 OS multiple times. Walls do not auto-align and in one month's worth of use it has caused 6 fatal errors.

Granted it's easy to use but for the price lacks the power of other layout software. I only use it because it is a common tool and file layout within my industry.


Product Activation scares, misinformation   October 1, 2001
Jason Jeffries (Akron, OH)
6 out of 13 found this review helpful

The new XP Product Activation that is in Windows XP, Office XP, and this Visio do not require you to phone Microsoft when you "upgrade your hard drive" as is indicated below. It would take a monstrous upgrade of many components to require another phone call - please consider that "ugly" listed below is not nearly as ugly as described.


The good, the bad and the ugly   May 27, 2001
Linda Zarate (Azusa, CA United States)
59 out of 65 found this review helpful

The good - features that I am excited about: (1) Professional and Technical versions are combined. You get IT and facilities diagrams and wizards in the same package. (2) You can create diagrams that can export properties to XML. The possibilities are endless: exchange product data with suppliers and customers based on your own product's attributes, export bill of materials to ERP systems, manage assets and get control of total cost of ownership and export process model data to other tools. (3) You can directly scan images or download photos from digital cameras into Visio and use the new photo editing tools to enhance or modify the images to suit your needs. (4) Analyze your web site and develop a complete report of all links. A powerful feature is spotting broken links, making this a good tool for your quality assurance group.

The bad - stuff I do not like: the web link feature has some possible "gotchas". Specifically, When you type a hyperlink in a Microsoft Office XP application (of which this version is a part), it has been reported that the application will alter what you've typed, without notifying you or giving you an opportunity to undo the "correction." Not good.

The ugly - things about this product that scare me: As part of the XP family of products, Visio 2002, like the XP operating system and Office family, will require activation over the Internet once it's been installed. You can bring it up and use it 5 times before activation, but after that it will not work. This is Microsoft's defense against piracy, and at first glance is a sensible scheme. However, if you reinstall it you have to call Microsoft and get instructions. This is NOT a sensible scheme for a number of reasons. First, I travel, and sometimes outside of the country. Calling Redmond is not viable if my system crashes and I need to reload applications. Second, if I want to upgrade my hard drive I cannot simply reinstall this application (or any of the "XP" family applications or operating systems) because when I first activated it there is an entry made in some database somewhere that says this application is already installed and cannot be activated again. The solution is to call and have some unknown drone bypass big brother. What is this going to cause me in lost productivity?

If you need the "good" and can live with the "bad" and "ugly" then this is a worthwhile upgrade. Think long and hard about the "ugly" part, though, because it has ramifications that can be much more serious than I've described. On the other hand, perhaps a wave of good sense will descend upon Redmond and they come up with a more workable solution that shows they care about customers and understand stuff like total cost of ownership and the value of productivity.

For the record, I am not ruining a perfectly good version of Visio by installing this version over it. My productivity and sanity is worth more to me than the new features. You have my opinion and must decide for yourself.