The foreign language help for Spanish, French, German, and Italian is another strength. Student 2007 helps you translate words, plus it conjugates verbs and offers tutorials and Web links. Student also pools reference resources in one place. The literary tools provide citation guides for APA, MLA, and Chicago styles, and geography tools help you find maps quickly.
The excellent Encarta Premium 2007 and its Internet Explorer-only Web search companion are a click away. To access Encarta's extensive online content, you'll need to create a Microsoft Passport (or Windows Live) network account. When you sign up, you're told you will receive targeted advertisements from Microsoft--a term you must accept to set up the account.
Aside from the help file installed during setup, there is no free support for Microsoft Student with Encarta Premium 2007. We couldn't find Student 2007 within Microsoft's support Web pages. It's inconvenient that help resources are scanty and pricey for a product tailored to young users. Telephone and e-mail support costs $35 per incident, with no initial free calls or e-mails--a big change from last year's toll-free phone and e-mail support. When you pursue e-mail help, Microsoft asks if it can download a data-collection ActiveX control to help diagnose the problem.
With Microsoft Student with Encarta Premium 2007, busy parents can rest assured that their children have access to sound homework resources. Parents who have forgotten their high school math will find Student 2007's new math features especially useful. Microsoft Student 2007 is inviting and easy for tweens and teens to use. Parents should calculate in the cost of Office to use all of Student's features, however, and plan on hefty tech-support costs if they need live or online help.
