Encarta Reference Library 2004

Bill Gates and Co. put not only a very loud welcome noise (you should always turn your speakers off before running Encarta), but also a FAST MOVING CARROUSEL of pictures on your screen. There is no use of it except that you quickly get a SEVERE HEADACHE or VERTIGO looking at it. And there is no way to turn this monstrous thing off!

So, if you already have a not too old copy of Encarta on your computer, and you are not a caroussel maniac or a two or three years old child, better SKIP 2004 CAROUSSEL EDITION of Encarta and WAIT FOR A NORMAL EDITION.


Good in a Very Microsoftish Way   March 21, 2004
4 out of 6 found this review helpful

Encarta is good. It is very easy to use. It has a web site that a registered user could access. Its world map is far superior than the Encyclopaedia Britannica's. However, its contents are sometimes not that good.

For example, I searched "John Rawls," a prominent moral and political philosopher, today. Its first line reads:

[ Rawls, John (1921-), American moral and political philosopher, whose major work, A Theory of Justice, has had a profound impact on ethics and political theory since its publication in 1971. ]

For God's sake, Rawls died on Nov 22, 2002. It's March 21, 2004 today. And Encarta, which supposedly should be updated weekly, did nothing to correct this mistake.


Great Product, Questionable Support   September 9, 2003
disillusionz (Indiana)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful

I bought this product for sheer curiousity and self-educational purposes. I was very impressed by the content and multimedia.

Something I would have liked for this product to do is pronounce words in spanish, german, french, italian, etc. It states on box that it pronounces words (in the same paragraph it says it translates between english, german, french, and italian, but fails to specify that it only pronounces words in english - a bit misleading).

I gave this digital encyclopedia only 4 stars because of it's questionable support. I thought that with microsoft being one of the largest profitable companies in the world that they could provide first rate support for it's customers. I learned that this isn't exactly the case (at least with my experience).
I ran into a problem with downloading the article updates as it would only begin the download and terminate a few minutes into it every time I tried for over a week, and did so at exactly the same spot every time. I contacted their support number (long distance and not toll-free), was on hold for a surprisingly short period of time before being connected to a live customer service rep who took my product ID # and gave me a case # before switching me over to tech support.
Then things got interesting.
For starters I couldn't understand the guy as he was foreign. As I explained the problem to him he started asking me if other things with my internet worked and if I could open web pages. I explained to him that everything does and that I was browsing their FAQ pertaining to this product before I had called. I don't think he understood as he kept questioning me about my internet connnection and I pointed out again I still had FAQ up on desktop. He then basically sugessted that I read through that and see if my problem was in there. I began reading off each of the FAQ's and pointing out at each one that it had nothing to do with my problem. I was getting pretty irritated at this point in the run-a-round as it became obvious that this guy had no clue as to how to help me.
After getting 3/4 of the way down the FAQ page he cuts me off and leads me to deleting my temporary internet pages and cookies, tells me to give it another try after doing that, and then takes my email address down saying he was going to send me more information as to how to deal with problem. And that was the end of that.
I still had the problem and never recieved any emails after 2 days of waiting. I called them back up and was swithced from friendly customer service to another tech support rep. This lady was not only foriegn, but sounded like she was talking through 4" of soundproofing material. Communicating was hopeless. After extensive effort she told me she was going to call right back. She called back later when I wasn't home and explained that my problem was due to the server being down (this is odd as I was able to begin the download) and then emailed me a couple times. I emailed her back, but the problem seems to be corrected for the time being as I was just able to download the updates after having product for nearly week and a half. Updates added 620 updates to articles and etc.

I'm glad I got this, but I will be wary of buying future microsoft products that may rely on an internet connection for some of it's features or may require high end technical support.


Encarta Reference Library 2004: An Encyclopedia Masterpiece   July 26, 2004
Marcelo Esteban Mauricio (San Justo, Buenos Aires, Argentina)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

This is the one edition that my father will give me, Amazon.com staff. This powerful encyclopedia has it all: Encyclopedia and atlas on one product. Previously, if you wanted to see all countries, you had to buy the atlas separately. But, from 2000 on, Atlas and Encyclopedia have bundled up since the 2000 edition. This new bundle is what we actually know as Encarta Reference Library, and this new edition incorporates 20 Discovery Channel videos, a feature that wasn't found in prevous editions.

Moreover, I want to congratulate the people at Microsoft Corporation for creating this new version of an exciting product.
And, Mr. Gates, you can include this review on the side of the 2006 edition packaging.

Thank you for reading,
Marcelo Mauricio



Same old thing   September 12, 2003
I usually only write reviews when I have postive comments, but I was disappointed in this years version of Encarta. It has very few improvements or new features.
Although the content will always remains secondary to the real encyclopedia publishers. I always enjoyed seeing what new flashy features Microsoft has come up with... (and 10 new videos was not good enough for me).

There is no question that this is the best functioning encyclopedia (at least if you are using Windows and other Microsoft products) but without any new flash... and considering the nature of the content I can not recommend anyone purchase this product (and will probably see if I can return mine).