The Active Network
ActiveWin: Reviews Active Network | New Reviews | Old Reviews | Interviews |Mailing List | Forums 
 

Amazon.com

  *  

Product: Visio 2002 Professional
Company: Microsoft
Website: http://www.microsoft.com
Estimated Street Price: $499.00
Review By: Julien Jay

Final Results and Overall Mark

Table Of Contents
1: Introduction
2: Getting Started
3: Easier To Use
4: Advanced Features
5: Network Diagramming
6: Conclusion

Well we have reached the end of the review. Here are my final comments, notes and grades for Microsoft Visio 2002 Professional.

 

Final Comments

How It Grades
  Installation: 90%
Features: 90%
Performance: 80%
Diagrams: 95%
Web/Network cartography: 85%
Ease of Use: 85%
Help: 80%
Overall: 86.4%
 

It’s clear that Microsoft Visio 2002 is a winner! The latest version of Microsoft’s diagramming solution sets the bar very high letting users build more visually impacting diagrams. The software is more integrated with the rest of the Microsoft Office XP suite while being more available and more maintainable than before. Microsoft managed to add an infinite number of new features to make the already outstanding Visio program even more complete, powerful and yet easier to use. Many of these new enhancements were designed to answer the needs of various users exercising specific functions (from engineers to architects and IT specialists) proving Microsoft really listened to its customer base in order to release a new version of its flagship diagramming software. Visio 2002 remains quite heavy and maybe complex to approach, but the new help system along with the strict respect of the Microsoft Office & Windows interface guidelines ensures better handling of the software by novice users. Productivity has been clearly enhanced so users can create diagrams with just a few mouse clicks. Microsoft Visio 2002 has to date no real equivalent on the market and is to our eyes the ultimate, most complete, feature-rich, excellent diagram solution available today.

 

 

Specs & Package
Overall Score 86.4%
Version Reviewed Microsoft Visio 2002 Professional
Release Date Available Now!
In the Box 1 CD-Rom
1 Users' Guide
1 License Agreement
The Good Points Totally Integrated with Office XP,
Office Task Pane,
New Shapes,
Ability to retrieve new shapes on the web,
Enhanced Drawing Engine.
The Bad Points Heavy,
No Support for the Office clipboard,
Very Slow When Editing Visio Documents from Word,
Expensive.
Reviewers PC Setup

Pentium 4 2.0 Ghz
Intel D850GB Motherboard
Windows XP Professional
512 MB PC800 RDRAM w/ECC
DirectX 8.1
19" Sony Trinitron Monitor
Hercules 3D Prophet III 64Mb AGP 4x Graphics Card
Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum
Adaptec 19160 Ultra SCSI card
Pinnacle Studio DV Plus
Pinnacle Studio PCTV USB

Microsoft Wireless IntelliMouse Explorer
Microsoft Natural Keyboard Pro

DVD Pioneer 105s (16/40x)
Yamaha CRW2200E

PC Required

Minimum System Requirements

Pentium 200MHz or higher
Microsoft® Windows® 98/98SE, Windows Millennium, NT 4.0 (with SP6), Windows 2000 or Windows XP Home/Pro
64Mb of RAM (128MB recommended)
170Mb of free hard disk space
4x CD-Rom drive
VGA (640*480) or higher resolution - 256 colors required

Links of Interest

Microsoft Office XP Professional with FrontPage Review
Microsoft MapPoint 2002 Review

« Network Diagramming  

 

  *  
  *   *