Product Reviews

If Windows XP is the most significant software release in the history of Microsoft, 'Microsoft Plus! for Windows XP' is the opposite. It costs £25 when a Windows XP upgrade pack will set you back only £69, and despite claims of adding great new features, it's far from a must-buy.

The pack is split into four areas - Digital Media, Games, Desktop Themes, and Screen-savers. Within Digital Media only two items are of any real note. Voice Command for Windows Media Player is promising as it allows you to control your computer by voice. The first time you call out, "DJ Play!", and your computer responds, you'll definitely feel that the future has arrived. But then the music player will stop and start erratically and you'll realise that this is no breakthrough.

The useful CD Label Maker, as its name suggests, allows you to make your CDs look cool and professional by adding coloured labels to recorded disks. Great stuff, but the vast majority of CD burning packages, including Easy CD Creator 5, already have this feature built in.

Next in the Plus! pack's collection of new features is Speaker Enhancement. And this is particularly pointless. It aims to tweak your audio to make

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your speakers sound better. Just select your speakers from a list and sit back (the theory goes) to enjoy cleaner, richer sound. Actually, the system supports very few speakers and results are not impressive, producing only a small tweak to the treble and bass.

I did like the new Media Player visualisations - psychedelic collages that pulsate and spin in time with your favourite tunes. Very enjoyable. The pack also contains some skins or interface designs to make Media Player look funkier. Some are excellent but, I would feel aggrieved paying for skins as there are bags freely downloadable from the Internet.

There are three games which are a big improvement over the dated ones included by default in XP - tired old classics like Solitaire, which predates Windows 95. I found the complex puzzle game 'Russian Squares' challenging, but it sadly lacked excitement. The new bowling game is great fun but only two lanes are included - you have to go online and pay $16 for more. The cheek!

Windows Themes are provided, allowing you to have icons, desktop wallpaper and sounds all in a matching style. These are all well designed and great looking but sadly there are only four - not nearly enough in my book. Even more disappointing is the choice of screensavers. Though good looking, of the eight new options, four are already part of the new Themes collection and one is actually already included with XP.

Microsoft should be disappointed with itself. The new Plus! pack is expensive and offers little more than a collection of programs which it either should have built into Windows XP or given away free on its Web site.

With themes, screen savers, skins, games and sound filtering software all available freely on the Internet, my advice is to get surfing!