Anyway, belatedly, the original issue was to advise potential customers of Microsoft reference products that the rules have changed for the "2000" versions.
For years, Microsoft produced the Encarta encyclopedia itself, later adding an atlas to the product line. It also offered a "Bookshelf" package that included the American Heritage Dictionary, a quotation book, a thesaurus, and similar titles. In the past, these offerings were also available as a suite at the typical package price.
In the latest product cycle, Microsoft offered Bookshelf 2000, pretty much as before. But the company also teamed with Bloomsbury Publishing to create a new Encarta World Dictionary. It sold separately, and is packaged with the encyclopedia and atlas to form the new Reference Suite 2000. The Bookshelf package isn't part of the suite any more.
Ordinarily, this would be no big deal. However, there is a little wrinkle here. "Dictionary" is a misnomer for the Encarta product. It actually has the same features as Bookshelf -- quotations, thesaurus, and so forth -- lacking only the mini-encyclopedia that's part of Bookshelf. The effect of that "lacking only," though, is that to get encyclopedia you now need to buy Encarta or the Encarta Reference Suite. (You can still get Encarta 2000 for free, after rebates until October 31, 1999. After that it'll cost $14.95 after rebate. See the link in the Software Bargains section. -- Ed.)
Moreover, once you install Encarta Dictionary, it overrides the "QuickShelf" features of Bookshelf that allow you to look up the definition of a word with a mouse click from inside other applications. Or, in simple English, if you had previously purchased Bookshelf, installing Encarta Dictionary pretty much makes it worthless.
Several readers emailed to ask about the diagnostic tools I mentioned in the previous article. These are contained on the Encarta Reference Suite 2000 setup disk, and primarily involve registry issues specific to Encarta. However there is a fairly useful multimedia test utility. I searched the Microsoft Web site to see if it was available for download, but could not find it. Redmond would be doing its customers a service if it put the tool up on the Web.
The technical support supervisor who had been involved in my case was kind enough to write back after reading the article (TNPC #2.20) with a gracious response, admitting to some of the problem areas in the system, although he noted that Microsoft has found that a very large percentage of requests to its free support services involve relatively routine issues. Accordingly, free support is organized on that basis, while paid support is oriented towards higher-level issues.
The most interesting thing he said, however, was that Microsoft indeed has provided only limited training to its support providers on NT. But this will change with Windows 2000, for which support personnel will be trained to be as conversant as they are on Windows 9x. Or at least so the theory goes.
My experiences with Windows 2000 Release Candidate 2 so far have been fairly positive, and if the company is looking to eliminate the support gap, it reinforces my view that Windows 2000 will be the system of choice for people using their PCs for business purposes.
