Microsoft Student with Encarta Premium 2008 [Old Version]

by Microsoft

Product Features

• A full set of study aids that help get homework done right the first time
• Students can find trusted and up-to-date information quickly and easily using Encarta Premium 2008
• Mathematical tools help students tackle math and science problems quickly and easily
• Tools for completing foreign language assignments and a full-featured dictionary to help translate and conjugate
• Includes more than 1,000 book summaries that help students understand some of the most commonly studied literary works

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses. For APO/FPO shipments, please check with the manufacturer regarding warranty and support issues.
• ASIN: B000Q6ZK3A
• Item model number: 96J-00139
• Date first available at Amazon.com: May 14, 2007
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,882 in Software (See Top 100 in Software)
  • #7 in Software > Education & Reference > Encyclopedias & Dictionaries
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com

Microsoft Student with Encarta Premium 2008 is a productivity suite of homework tools and trusted information designed to help students quickly and easily complete assignments in a variety of subjects and excel in school.

Microsoft Student with Encarta Premium 2008 gives students a full set of tools to help them succeed and get homework done right the first time.

Make research entertaining. Find information on just about any topic. Thousands of articles, photos, sound clips, and links to related information from trusted sources(2)-plus political, climatic, and topographical maps of the world-make discovering new information fun!

Equation Solver. Enter a problem into the Equation Solver and get step-by-step help on how to solve it. And with free online access to Hotmath(3), students can quickly find their textbook and select the problem they're solving. They'll instantly receive step-by-step guidance on how to solve the problem and what the correct answer should be.

Microsoft Student with Encarta Premium 2008 gives students a full set of tools to help them succeed and get homework done right the first time.

Full-featured graphing calculator
A full-featured graphing calculator that's simple to learn and use (similar to those costing more than $100!) helps visualize and solve math and science problems.

Equation Solver
Stuck on a math problem? Input your own problems into the Equation Solver and get a quick answer and step-by-step help on how to solve it.

Triangle Solver and Equation Library
Interact with a library of more than 100 equations and explore the relationships of triangles and their parts while viewing associated rules or graphs.

Learning Essentials
Get past the blank page. Learning Essentials helps students achieve better grades. Step-by-step writing tips and preformatted report and presentation templates give students a quick start in creating great-looking reports and presentations.

Foreign language help
A full-featured dictionary helps translate and conjugate verbs in Spanish, French, German, and Italian. Learning Essentials also unlocks tools in Microsoft Office that are specially designed for foreign language study, providing templates and tools for completing assignments in Spanish, French, and German.

Book summaries
Need to know more about that literary story? Includes more than 1,000 book summaries that help students understand some of the most commonly studied literary works from middle school to college level.

The easy, all-in-one homework assistant that helps students excel in school.
Designed to be easy to use and simple to learn, Microsoft Student with Encarta Premium 2008 makes learning fun. Whether it's a math, research, or foreign language assignment, students can find the right tools and information to get homework started quickly, get fast answers to academic questions, and complete assignments that can help earn higher grades.

Find trusted content when you need it.
Complete with Encarta Premium 2008, the #1 best-selling encyclopedia software brand(1), it's content you can trust. With editorially approved content, students can use Web Links to more than 25,000 Web sites, preselected by Encarta editors for relevant and age-appropriate research material(2). Through multimedia content, Encarta Premium 2008 provides engaging visual tools to help explore and discover historical events and places. It even includes Encarta Kids, a separate encyclopedia geared to young learners ages 7 to 12!

Get questions answered fast.
With time pressures to complete assignments, it's frustrating to get stuck without knowing where to go for answers. Whether they're stumped on a math, science, or a foreign language problem, students can quickly get the answers they need. They also get helpful ideas on how to solve problems, so the next time they're more likely to figure out the answer on their own!

Includes a full suite of homework tools to help students get homework done right the first time.

Foreign language tools help complete assignments in Spanish, French, German, and Italian

Quickly grasp the plots and themes of commonly studied books.

Encarta Premium 2008
Students can fi nd the information they're looking for-quickly and easily-with Encarta Premium 2008. With trusted content that's accurate and up-to-date, Encarta has been the #1 best-selling encyclopedia software brand for the past 8 years!(1) You'll be amazed at how much time your student will spend researching-compelled by the sights and sounds of one fascinating presentation after another.

Students can easily-and quickly-access trusted information provided by world experts. And since they can automatically download updates from the Encarta Web site, they'll have up-to-date and accurate reference software when they need it.(2)

Encarta Premium 2008 comes complete with a wide range of reference tools, including a dynamic atlas, dictionary, thesaurus, and language translation dictionaries.

Microsoft Math
Microsoft Math features a large collection of tools, tutorials, and instructions designed to help students learn mathematical concepts while quickly solving math problems. In an instant, they'll see how to solve problems-step by step! Works for many grade levels-from basic math, pre-algebra, algebra (including logarithms and exponents) to trigonometry!

Need advanced help? A full-featured graphing calculator that's simple to learn and use (similar to those costing more than $100!) helps visualize and solve math and science problems.

Triangle Solver and Equation Library. Interact with a library of more than 100 equations and explore the relationships of triangles and their parts while viewing associated rules or graphs.

Templates and Tutorials
Having trouble getting started on class projects? Sometimes the hardest part about completing a project is getting started. Microsoft Student with Encarta Premium 2008 includes the latest version of Learning Essentials.

Working with Microsoft Office Word, Office PowerPoint, and Office Excel (in either Microsoft Office XP, Office 2003, or the 2007 Microsoft Office system, sold separately), Learning Essentials helps students achieve better grades. Step-by-step writing tips and preformatted report and presentation templates give students a quick start in creating great-looking reports and presentations.

Get past the blank page. Easy-to-use tools, templates, and tutorials help students get past formatting questions to the core learning in assignments. Learning Essentials includes tips and tutorials for managing projects and creating high-quality reports, presentations, science projects, and other assignments.

Foreign Language
A full-featured dictionary helps translate and conjugate verbs in Spanish, French, German, and Italian. Learning Essentials also unlocks tools in Microsoft Office that are specially designed for foreign language study, providing templates and tools for completing assignments in Spanish, French, and German.

Literature
Need to know more about that literary story? Microsoft Student with Encarta Premium 2008 includes more than 1,000 book summaries that help students understand some of the most commonly studied literary works from middle school to college level.

Note:

1. The NPD Group/NPD Techworld, January 2000 to February 2007. Based on total U.S. retail sales.

2. An active Internet connection is required for Math Online Help, Update Encarta, Web Links, Weather and Radio Links and Encarta Premium Online. Update Encarta and Math Online Help are available through October 2008. Access to Encarta Online Premium requires a Microsoft .NET Passport (Windows Live ID) and an Internet connection. You must be 13 years or older to create a Windows Live ID.

3. Hotmath contains primarily US-based textbook problems.

Product Description

Microsoft Student with Encarta Premium 2008 Win32 English US Only DVD Mini Box.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Gets worse with age..., April 13, 2008

By 

Greg Abrams (Largo, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Microsoft Student with Encarta Premium 2008 [Old Version] (DVD-ROM)

I've been using Encarta along with Britannica for years. I once believed that for overall depth of content, the higher mark would go to EB. But with regard to software ease of use and organization of material, Encarta would always get the nod. Not so anymore. This new version is a step backward compared to earlier years and seems to be plagued by its own desire to be both a great encyclopedia/dictionary and a homework aid for students. In the end, it achieves only a mediocre showing in both categories.

Just as an example: the new dictionary looks better and has two new tabs for translations and verb conjugations, but performs poorly compared to the 2006 version, in my opinion. It is now almost incapable of recognizing certain word inflections as typed. As an example, take the word "intoning", a present participle of "intone". Well, if you type it in to the dictionary, it will not be recognized as a word...even though if you look up "intone", you'll find the present participle form listed there. So in order to get a match, you must type in the basic form of the word in most cases.

However...some words, such as "intoxicate", have separate entries for other forms (in this case, the present participle "intoxicating"). I don't recall this idiosyncrasy in the 2006 version of Encarta dictionary. In that version, any inflection you typed in would lead you back to the basic form (e.g., present indicative) definition. This new dictionary is actually fairly annoying after a few days of working with it.

It also seems that some words were completely dropped. For example, "reenact" isn't a word from Encarta's perspective. You won't find it under that listing, or the hyphenated "re-enact". But you can find it in Merriam-Webster and practically every other dictionary on the planet. It's almost like they abridged what Encarta had in earlier versions. The weird thing about it is that you can find the word "reenact" in the Thesaurus and Verb Conjugation tabs...but not in the dictionary. What's up with that? Did Microsoft lay off their software testing team?

Perhaps there's some logic to it all. But in my opinion, it comes across as sloppy and not very helpful. I once used the little Encarta icon on my task bar every day. Now I'm opting for Britannica 2008's Merriam-Webster component instead. Oh well, it seems that some good things come to an end through unnecessary tinkering.

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars not for adults, March 10, 2008

By 

Michael A. Johnson (San Jose, California) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Microsoft Student with Encarta Premium 2008 [Old Version] (DVD-ROM)

Unfortunately this is not an encyclopedia and dictionary with student aids, but student programs with the encyclopedia added on. You must wade through all kinds of homework, math, etc. programs to reach the dictionary and encyclopedia. Microsoft apparently thinks that after you leave school you can never have need of an encyclopedia or dictionary again. Also once you load it on, you cannot turn it off. It will run forever on the grounds that you might have to look up something. Once you do get in, the interface is harder to move around in than in the old 2004 edition.

24 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Each recent version gets worse, September 2, 2007

By 

Rod Walsh (Southern California, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Microsoft Student with Encarta Premium 2008 [Old Version] (DVD-ROM)

I've used Encarta for many years. However, the 2004 version was the last version worthy of carrying the Encarta name.

Navigation used to be extremely simple. Now, you need a PhD to get around. The use of the "find" box in 2004 is so much more helpful than the "search" box in this 2008 version.

This version crashes regularly (running Vista). By regularly, I'd say it crashes 20% of the time. On the plus side, they have all been soft landings and I can re-open without a re-boot.