Microsoft Streets & Trips, known in other countries as Microsoft AutoRoute, is a discontinued mapping program developed and distributed by

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

. Functionally, the last version is a subset of

Microsoft MapPoint Microsoft MapPoint is a discontinued software program and service created by Microsoft that allows users to view, edit and integrate maps. The software and technology are designed to facilitate the geographical visualization and analysis of eithe ...

targeted at the average consumer to do a variety of map related tasks in the North American region including the United States, Canada, and Mexico, such as

route planning A journey planner, trip planner, or route planner is a specialized search engine used to find an optimal means of travelling between two or more given locations, sometimes using more than one transport mode. Searches may be optimized on differe ...

. It was originally developed by NextBase Ltd., which was acquired by Microsoft in 1994. Its primary competitor was

DeLorme DeLorme Publishing Company is a producer of personal satellite tracking, messaging, and navigation technology. The company's main product, ''inReach'', integrates GPS and satellite technologies. ''inReach'' provides the ability to send and rec ...

, particularly its ''Street Atlas'' series of mapping software.

Region-based editions

The European version is branded as

Microsoft AutoRoute Microsoft AutoRoute is a discontinued travel planning program, and the European version of Microsoft Streets & Trips. It covers the United Kingdom and all of Europe, including European Russia, as well as Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Cyprus and ...

and covers all of

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

, including

European Russia European Russia is the western and most populated part of the Russia, Russian Federation. It is geographically situated in Europe, as opposed to the country's sparsely populated and vastly larger eastern part, Siberia, which is situated in Asia ...

, as well as

Armenia Armenia, officially the Republic of Armenia, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of West Asia. It is a part of the Caucasus region and is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia (country), Georgia to the north and Azerbaijan to ...

Azerbaijan Azerbaijan, officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, is a Boundaries between the continents, transcontinental and landlocked country at the boundary of West Asia and Eastern Europe. It is a part of the South Caucasus region and is bounded by ...

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the South Caucasus * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the southeastern United States Georgia may also refer to: People and fictional characters * Georgia (name), a list of pe ...

Cyprus Cyprus (), officially the Republic of Cyprus, is an island country in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Situated in West Asia, its cultural identity and geopolitical orientation are overwhelmingly Southeast European. Cyprus is the List of isl ...

and all of

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

. AutoRoute was also produced in several European languages besides English.

Early history

Originally released by NextBase Ltd in the 1988, a UK company, under the name "Autoroute", it was sold for

DOS DOS (, ) is a family of disk-based operating systems for IBM PC compatible computers. The DOS family primarily consists of IBM PC DOS and a rebranded version, Microsoft's MS-DOS, both of which were introduced in 1981. Later compatible syste ...

based PCs and later for the Apple Macintosh, Atari ST and Psion PDA. In the early 1990s, it was ported to the

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

operating system. The company created a version for the United States called Automap Road Atlas which it sold through its American subsidiary Automap Inc. in Bellevue, Washington. In 1994, the product was sold to

. Microsoft combined the

Encarta Microsoft ''Encarta'' is a discontinued Digital data, digital multimedia encyclopedia and search engine published by Microsoft from 1993 to 2009. Originally sold on CD-ROM or DVD, it was also available online via annual subscription, although ...

World Atlas Mapping Technology with new routing technology derived from Autoroute to create Automap Streets/Streets Plus and Automap Road Atlas products. In Europe, the Autoroute brand was retained. The initial products were 16-bit with Automap Streets Plus 5.0 (1997 version) being the first 32-bit version. Automap Road Atlas was later rebranded in a future release as Automap Trip Planner. These were produced as two distinct products under the

Microsoft Home Microsoft Home is a discontinued line of software applications and personal hardware products published by Microsoft. The Microsoft Home brand was first announced by Bill Gates in a presentation on October 4, 1993. These applications were designed ...

division and were later rebranded for a few releases as

Expedia Expedia Inc. is an online travel agency owned by Expedia Group, based in Seattle. The website and mobile app can be used to book airline tickets, hotel reservations, car rentals, cruise ships, and vacation packages. Expedia.com was launched on ...

Streets, Expedia Streets Deluxe and Expedia Trip Planner. During these early versions, core new features were added like updated maps, pushpins, weather, traffic and construction updates. In 2000, they were merged into a single product called Microsoft Expedia Streets & Trips 2000. After Microsoft spun off Expedia, later releases were rebranded as Microsoft Streets & Trips. In 2000, Microsoft also developed

as a business mapping program for geographic analysis, based on this technology. The technology was also used in MSN Maps which later became

Bing Maps Bing Maps (previously Live Search Maps, Windows Live Maps, Windows Live Local, and MSN Virtual Earth) is a web mapping service provided as a part of Microsoft's Bing suite of search engines and powered by the Bing Maps Platform framework which al ...

History of releases with ''Streets & Trips'' branding

Streets & Trips 2000 was the first version combining the 2 separate products. Like Expedia Trip Planner, it also included a travel guide with pictures and information on points of interest and tourist spots for a particular address. Streets & Trips 2001 dropped the travel guide but added the ability to run without the CD by copying all the map data to the disk drive. Streets & Trips 2002 added a Pocket Streets for

Windows CE Windows CE, later known as Windows Embedded CE and Windows Embedded Compact, is a discontinued operating system developed by Microsoft for mobile and embedded devices. It was part of the Windows Embedded family and served as the software foun ...

devices. Like every yearly update, Streets & Trips 2002 and 2003 were also database updates with Streets & Trips 2003 adding more than 300,000 miles of streets and highways. Streets & Trips 2004 added drive-time zones, a feature to see on a map how far you could travel within a specified amount of time. Streets & Trips 2005 significantly improved the GPS features with an on-screen compass and support for USB

plug and play In computing, a plug and play (PnP) device or computer bus is one with a specification that facilitates the recognition of a hardware component in a system without the need for physical device configuration or user intervention in resolving reso ...

GPS receivers. The GPS version of Streets & Trips 2006 introduced voice-prompted directions, a hands-free option with turn-by-turn directional information/ All versions starting with 2006 and later install the new

text-to-speech Speech synthesis is the artificial production of human speech. A computer system used for this purpose is called a speech synthesizer, and can be implemented in software or Computer hardware, hardware products. A text-to-speech (TTS) system conv ...

voice, " Microsoft Anna" on Windows XP, which is part of

Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, released five years earlier, which was then the longest time span between successive releases of Microsoft W ...

, for the voice-prompt direction feature. Version 2006 of both Streets & Trips as well as AutoRoute is the last version for

Windows 98 Windows 98 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. It was the second operating system in the 9x line, as the successor to Windows 95. It was Software ...

/ Me and version 2007 is the last version for

Windows 2000 Windows 2000 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft, targeting the server and business markets. It is the direct successor to Windows NT 4.0, and was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RT ...

. Streets & Trips 2008 added online services integration like MSN Direct and Live Search Maps for current traffic updates, and an automatic re-routing feature if the driver missed a turn or took a wrong turn. Streets & Trips 2008 (and older) included 336 pushpin symbols and they were easy to spot due to the use of bright colors. Streets & Trips 2009 replaced these symbols with a new set of 46 pushpins and removed many pushpins, besides reducing their contrast. In response to this, the Streets and Trips user community created a default map template which has the 2008 pin set in order to re-add them to the program. The former pushpins were restored in the 2010 version but still with the newer visual styling. Streets & Trips 2009 also added pronunciation of street names, as part of the voice directions prompts. The map of

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

now includes street-level data of even small towns, but the address-find feature still has not been enabled for there. This release saw the first

user interface In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine fro ...

update in many years with new colorful and optionally, large toolbar icons. Streets & Trips 2010 added hide/show pushpinsets, hide/show information balloons, import/export GPX files, export to GPS navigation device, export to mobile phone, and 348 new pushpin symbols were added, the majority restored former pins as mentioned above. Streets & Trips 2011 is mainly a database update adding 88,000 miles of new mapping to the program and the removal of support for the ending

MSN Direct MSN Direct was an FM radio-based digital service which allowed ' SPOT' portable devices to receive information from MSN services. Devices that supported MSN Direct included wristwatches, desktop clocks, in-car GPS satellite navigation units, and ...

service and coupon data, while allowing direct map correction feedback to maps provider

Navteq Navteq Corporation (styled as 'NAVTEQ') was an American Chicago-based provider of geographic information system (GIS) data and a major provider of base electronic navigable maps. The company was acquired by Nokia in 2007–2008, and fully merged ...

and the addition of cardinal direction guidance and alternate road names to direction data. This version came out in February rather than the traditional August/September release date. No reasons were given. There was no release called Streets & Trips 2012. The last version, Streets & Trips 2013 was released on July 1, 2012 with a new online custom ratings and reviews feature and

Metro UI Microsoft Design Language (or MDL), previously known as Metro, is a design language created by Microsoft. This design language is focused on typography and simplified Icon (computing), icons, absence of clutter, increased content to UI chrome ...

-style icons. Despite previous reports that the 2013 version did not accept data from older versions, the 2013 version converts the old files for usage and the user can save them in that format. A separate version of the product was always sold with a GPS (

Global Positioning System The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a satellite-based hyperbolic navigation system owned by the United States Space Force and operated by Mission Delta 31. It is one of the global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) that provide ge ...

) receiver to allow users to use the product as a satellite navigation system. Since version 2008, Microsoft started requiring

Product Activation Product activation is a license validation procedure required by some proprietary software programs. Product activation prevents unlimited free use of copied or replicated software. Unactivated software refuses to fully function until it ''determi ...

for the retail versions of Streets & Trips, although Volume License (VL) versions available through

MSDN Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) was the division of Microsoft responsible for managing the firm's relationship with developers and testers, such as hardware developers interested in the operating system (OS), and software developers developing ...

did not require activation. Microsoft announced the discontinuation of Streets & Trips in 2014, with online support for existing users to end on July 14, 2015. All versions of

Windows 10 Windows 10 is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. The successor to Windows 8.1, it was Software release cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on July 15, 2015, and later to retail on July 2 ...

include a free GPS-ready mapping app similar to Streets & Trips. This can be used offline, though the map data must be initially downloaded before use on a state by state, province by province basis. In the U.S. and Canada, actual (not calculated) residential and commercial street addresses are included. Voice navigation is provided to GPS-enabled devices. The drawing tools from Streets & Trips have been removed, however.

Compatibility

Streets & Trips 2006 and later are compatible with Windows Vista and later modern operating systems (Windows 7, 8, 8.1, 10). The software had an incompatibility with

Advanced Vector Extensions Advanced Vector Extensions (AVX, also known as Gesher New Instructions and then Sandy Bridge New Instructions) are SIMD extensions to the x86 instruction set architecture for microprocessors from Intel and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). They w ...

in x86 processors causing it to hang/freeze on the splash screen on Windows 7 SP1 64-bit.Fixed: Streets & Trips stops responding at the startup screen in Windows 7 SP1
Microsoft patched Windows 7 with hotfix KB2643882.

System requirements of the 2013 version

* Processor: 300 MHz or faster * Operating system: Windows 8, Windows 7 with 1 GB RAM, Windows Vista with 1 GB RAM, Windows Server 2008 with 512 MB RAM, or Windows XP with 256 MB RAM (64-bit versions of Windows XP and Windows Server excluded); service packs for operating systems recommended. * Hard disk space: 2.0 GB available hard disk space * Display: Super VGA (1024 x 768) or higher resolution monitor * Certain features require Internet Explorer. If not present, Internet Explorer will be installed but will not displace your primary browser. * Input device: Microsoft Mouse, Microsoft IntelliMouse, or a compatible pointing device * GPS features require a USB GPS device that supports NMEA 2.0 or later. If the GPS device supports GPX file format, the routes created in the app can be sent directly to the device.

References

External links

Microsoft Streets & Trips website

AutoRoute

Microsoft AutoRoute review

Microsoft AutoRoute website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Microsoft Streets and Trips Streets and Trips Route planning software