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 - Difficult update pathGood product but purchasers need to be careful about product updates. In their earlier editions NG did not maintain the updates in the market for very long. Individuals interested in keeping their collection up to date may end up needing to repurchase the entire collection to fill in a one year gap. Given the low cost of reproducing CDs this is not easily understandable. Rating:  - One of the best pieces of software I've bought!I love this thing! Every single article from 1888 til 2000. This is a really treat, being able to look back on history. These articles provide me with a method to get anwsers to my history questions, and these articles come in handy when doing research. The software works great on my PC, under XP, and this software works great in MacOS 9. It doesn't seem to work in X under the Classic environment. Rating:  - works on XPThis product works fine on Windows XP (Home Edition). (We just installed it this week.)32 CDs can cause the user to spend quite a bit of time swapping discs. Definitely could be constructed with a better interface but it is wonderful to have the entire collection available. Rating: - Great but not 100% perfect (BTW, it works on Macs also!)The amount of information in this cd set is mind boggling and the way it's presented is fine, but the quality of the scans leave much to be desired when viewed on a modern system - The pictures often show jpeg artifacts, the text is sometimes hard to read and smaller pictures are often blurry. Much of the content was scanned some 4 or 5 years ago, which somewhat excuses it's not so great quality. That gripe aside this set is absolutely essential to anyone who's ever enjoyed reading a National Geographic, anyone interested in the progress of marketing and our society (The preserved ads are priceless) and for the armchair explorer - Very highly recommended. Mac users, don't forget: You are not left out! It fully works under OS8 & OS9, although it does not work under OS X or Classic mode. Rating: - Get Yours While You Still Can!This wonderful product will soon be extinct because of its system requirements. It can only be used on systems using the Windows 98 or Windows ME platforms. That means that someday when you upgrade your computer to work with Windows XP or some future operating system, this product will cease to run. I checked with National Geographic customer service and they said that there are absolutely no plans to upgrade this product to work with XP. So as wonderful as this product is, you will still have to store your old paper copies of the National Geographic in the attic if you wish to maintain a retrospective collection. This product will not suffice as a long term archive for users. National Geographic gave no official reason why it does not plan to update the product, but it probably has something to do with the outcome of the 2001 federal case: Greenberg v. Nat'l Geographic Soc'y, 244 F.3d 1267, (11th Cir. Fla. 2001). This was a case of copyright infringement that National Geographic lost and then was required to pay a freelance photographer for re-use of his pictures in this CD-ROM product. The economics of intellectual property involved in creating such a product may be cost-prohibitive for National Geographic in the future. Ultimately, a loss for publisher, consumers and copyright holders. So get yours while you still can!
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