Microsoft Streets and Trips
Encyclopedia
Microsoft Streets & Trips, known in Europe as Microsoft AutoRoute, is mapping software 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, Canada, and Mexico, such as route planning
.
The European version is marketed as Microsoft AutoRoute and covers all of Europe
, including European Russia
, as well as Armenia
, Azerbaijan
, Georgia
, Cyprus
and all of Turkey
. AutoRoute is also produced in several European languages besides English.
A version of the product is currently sold with a GPS (Global Positioning System
) receiver to allow users use the product as a satellite navigation system. Since version 2008, Microsoft has started requiring Product Activation
for Streets & Trips.
Streets & Trips 2006 and later versions install the new text-to-speech voice, "Microsoft Anna", which is part of Windows Vista
, onto Windows XP
computers for the voice-prompt direction feature. Version 2006 of both Streets & Trips as well as AutoRoute is the last version for Windows 98
/Me
and version 2007 is the last version for Windows 2000
.
Streets & Trips 2009 adds pronunciation of street names, as part of the voice directions prompts. The map of Mexico
now includes street level data of even small towns, but the address-find feature still has not been enabled for there.
Version 2008 (and older) included 336 pushpin symbols. The new version 2009 replaced these symbols with a new set of 46 pushpins. The Streets and Trips user community thus created a default map template wihich has the 2008 pin set in order to re-add them to the program. The former pushpins were restored in the 2010 version with updated visual styling.
Version 2010 adds hide/show pushpinsets, hide/show information balloons, import/export GPX files, export to GPS navigation device, export to mobile phone, and 348 new pushpin symbols were added, the majority restored former pins as mentioned above.
Version 2011 is mainly a database update adding 88,000 miles of new mapping to the program and the removal of support for the ending MSN Direct
service and coupon data, while allowing direct map correction feedback to maps provider Navteq
and the addition of cardinal direction guidance and alternate road names to direction data. This version came out in February rather than the traditional August/September release date due to unknown factors.
based PCs and later for the Apple Macintosh, Atari ST and Psion PDA. In the early 1990s it was ported to the Microsoft Windows
operating system. The company created a version for the United States called Automap Road Atlas which it sold through its American subsidiary Automap Inc. in Bellevue, WA. In 1994 the product was sold to Microsoft
. Microsoft combined the Encarta
World Atlas Mapping Technology with new routing technology derived from Autoroute to create Automap Streets/Streets Plus and Automap Road Atlas/Automap Trip Planner products. These were produced under the Microsoft Home
division and were later branded for a few releases as Expedia
Streets and Expedia
Trip Planner. After Microsoft spun off Expedia, they were merged into a single product called Microsoft Streets & Trips 2000, newer versions of which continue to be produced today in the USA. In Europe the Autoroute brand was retained. In 2000, Microsoft also developed Microsoft MapPoint
as a business mapping program based on this technology. The technology was also used in MSN Maps which later became Bing
Maps.
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
. Functionally the latest version is a subset of Microsoft MapPoint
Microsoft MapPoint
Microsoft MapPoint is both a technology and a specific software program created by Microsoft that allows users to view, edit and integrate maps. The software and technology are designed to facilitate the geographical visualization and analysis of either included data or custom data...
targeted at the average consumer to do a variety of map related tasks in the North American region including the United States, Canada, and Mexico, such as route planning
Route planning software
Route planning software is a computer software programme, designed to plan a route between two geographical locations using a journey planning engine, typically specialised for road networks as a road route planner. It can typically provide a list of places one will pass by, with crossroads and...
.
The European version is marketed as Microsoft AutoRoute and covers all of Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, including European Russia
European Russia
European Russia refers to the western areas of Russia that lie within Europe, comprising roughly 3,960,000 square kilometres , larger in area than India, and spanning across 40% of Europe. Its eastern border is defined by the Ural Mountains and in the south it is defined by the border with...
, as well as Armenia
Armenia
Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...
, Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan , officially the Republic of Azerbaijan is the largest country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west, and Iran to...
, Georgia
Georgia (country)
Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...
, Cyprus
Cyprus
Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...
and all of Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
. AutoRoute is also produced in several European languages besides English.
A version of the product is currently sold with a GPS (Global Positioning System
Global Positioning System
The Global Positioning System is a space-based global navigation satellite system that provides location and time information in all weather, anywhere on or near the Earth, where there is an unobstructed line of sight to four or more GPS satellites...
) receiver to allow users use the product as a satellite navigation system. Since version 2008, Microsoft has started requiring Product Activation
Product activation
Product activation is a license validation procedure required by some proprietary computer software programs. In one form, product activation refers to a method invented by Ric Richardson and patented by Uniloc where a software application hashes hardware serial numbers and an ID number specific...
for Streets & Trips.
Streets & Trips 2006 and later versions install the new text-to-speech voice, "Microsoft Anna", which is part of Windows Vista
Windows Vista
Windows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs...
, onto Windows XP
Windows XP
Windows XP is an operating system produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops and media centers. First released to computer manufacturers on August 24, 2001, it is the second most popular version of Windows, based on installed user base...
computers for the voice-prompt direction feature. Version 2006 of both Streets & Trips as well as AutoRoute is the last version for Windows 98
Windows 98
Windows 98 is a graphical operating system by Microsoft. It is the second major release in the Windows 9x line of operating systems. It was released to manufacturing on 15 May 1998 and to retail on 25 June 1998. Windows 98 is the successor to Windows 95. Like its predecessor, it is a hybrid...
/Me
Windows Me
Windows Millennium Edition, or Windows Me , is a graphical operating system released on September 14, 2000 by Microsoft, and was the last operating system released in the Windows 9x series. Support for Windows Me ended on July 11, 2006....
and version 2007 is the last version for Windows 2000
Windows 2000
Windows 2000 is a line of operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, business desktops, laptops, and servers. Windows 2000 was released to manufacturing on 15 December 1999 and launched to retail on 17 February 2000. It is the successor to Windows NT 4.0, and is the...
.
Streets & Trips 2009 adds pronunciation of street names, as part of the voice directions prompts. The map of Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
now includes street level data of even small towns, but the address-find feature still has not been enabled for there.
Version 2008 (and older) included 336 pushpin symbols. The new version 2009 replaced these symbols with a new set of 46 pushpins. The Streets and Trips user community thus created a default map template wihich has the 2008 pin set in order to re-add them to the program. The former pushpins were restored in the 2010 version with updated visual styling.
Version 2010 adds hide/show pushpinsets, hide/show information balloons, import/export GPX files, export to GPS navigation device, export to mobile phone, and 348 new pushpin symbols were added, the majority restored former pins as mentioned above.
Version 2011 is mainly a database update adding 88,000 miles of new mapping to the program and the removal of support for the ending MSN Direct
MSN Direct
MSN Direct is an FM radio-based digital service which allows 'SPOT' portable devices to receive information from MSN services. Devices that support MSN Direct include wristwatches, desktop clocks, in-car GPS satellite navigation units, and even small appliances such as coffee makers...
service and coupon data, while allowing direct map correction feedback to maps provider Navteq
NAVTEQ
Navteq is a Chicago, Illinois-based provider of Geographic Information Systems data and is a dominant company in providing the base electronic navigable maps...
and the addition of cardinal direction guidance and alternate road names to direction data. This version came out in February rather than the traditional August/September release date due to unknown factors.
History
Originally created in the late 1980s by NextBase Ltd, a UK company, under the name "Autoroute", it was sold for DOSDOS
DOS, short for "Disk Operating System", is an acronym for several closely related operating systems that dominated the IBM PC compatible market between 1981 and 1995, or until about 2000 if one includes the partially DOS-based Microsoft Windows versions 95, 98, and Millennium Edition.Related...
based PCs and later for the Apple Macintosh, Atari ST and Psion PDA. In the early 1990s it was ported to the Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
operating system. The company created a version for the United States called Automap Road Atlas which it sold through its American subsidiary Automap Inc. in Bellevue, WA. In 1994 the product was sold to Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
. Microsoft combined the Encarta
Encarta
Microsoft Encarta was a digital multimedia encyclopedia published by Microsoft Corporation from 1993 to 2009. , the complete English version, Encarta Premium, consisted of more than 62,000 articles, numerous photos and illustrations, music clips, videos, interactive contents, timelines, maps and...
World Atlas Mapping Technology with new routing technology derived from Autoroute to create Automap Streets/Streets Plus and Automap Road Atlas/Automap Trip Planner products. These were produced under the Microsoft Home
Microsoft Home
Microsoft Home is a defunct line of software applications and personal hardware products published by Microsoft. Microsoft Home software titles first appeared in the middle of 1993. These applications were designed to bring multimedia to Microsoft Windows and Macintosh personal computers...
division and were later branded for a few releases as Expedia
Expedia
Expedia is an Internet-based travel website based in the US with localised sites for 21 countries...
Streets and Expedia
Expedia
Expedia is an Internet-based travel website based in the US with localised sites for 21 countries...
Trip Planner. After Microsoft spun off Expedia, they were merged into a single product called Microsoft Streets & Trips 2000, newer versions of which continue to be produced today in the USA. In Europe the Autoroute brand was retained. In 2000, Microsoft also developed Microsoft MapPoint
Microsoft MapPoint
Microsoft MapPoint is both a technology and a specific software program created by Microsoft that allows users to view, edit and integrate maps. The software and technology are designed to facilitate the geographical visualization and analysis of either included data or custom data...
as a business mapping program based on this technology. The technology was also used in MSN Maps which later became Bing
Bing
Bing is a web search engine from Microsoft.Bing may also refer to:* An onomatopœia of a bell sound* Bing cherry, a variety of cherry* Bing , Chinese flatbread* Bing , a German company that manufactured toys and kitchen utensils...
Maps.
External links
- Microsoft Streets & Trips review
- Microsoft Streets & Trips website
- Streets & Trips unofficial forum
- Streets & Trips blog by Microsoft employees
- Tips & Tricks for Streets & Trips
- Unofficial wish list for Streets & Trips
- Business uses for Microsoft Streets and Trips
- POI Mega File