National Geographic Maps- The Complete Collection Description:

National Geographic Maps: The Complete Collection review:
1 stars (What a disappointing experience!) - These are some of the most wonderful maps in the world, especially from a historical geography perspective. But of what use are they in this format? It is difficult to search, impossible to browse effectively, and there is no way for an educator to present these images in any sort of useful format. I would suggest buying this collection only if you have hours of free time with nothing better to do than switch back and forth between 8 CDs for mild (but frustrating) entertainment with a nice glass of wine.
1 stars (Difficult to use) - I purchased this product thinking that I would be able to sail around the world like a National Geographic adventurer. Unfortunately, I have been unable to use it at all. It appears that you need to place each disk into your computer as prompted to view the contents. I want to be able to stick the disks in once and have my computer bring up the information when requested. Maybe I didn't give it a good try, but I have not been able to see any maps at all.
4 stars (NG Maps and XP) - I have had this collection since 2002 and never had a problem until today: I was aghast when I inserted the install CD into my spanking new XP setup, only to be informed by the dreaded popup that 'National Geographic Maps Will Only Run Under Windows 95'! Then a furious search turned up the following on the NG website:



"XP has the Program Compatibility Wizard which can help XP run programs developed under previous versions of Windows. To activate this feature:



Click on the Start button.

Go to All Programs then Accessories.

Select the Program Compatibility Wizard.

Select for it to look into the CD drive.

Choose for it to run in Windows 98/ME mode.



Another alternative would be to make a dual-boot partition."



The first solution worked instantly for me, even without setting it to a lower screen resolution when given the option.



I love this collection. Yes, the maps are scanned. Yes, the disk swapping is extremely annoying. Yes, the most recent version of the map of Britain I was looking for turned out to be from 1979! But searching through a couple of disks sure beat the time I spent earlier hunting down a map online, and then rejecting those I found because they were copyright/expensive/not detailed/low resolution etc. At least England hasn't renamed any major cities recently...