Customer Review(s)
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Not as bad as others would have you believe
Comment: My first attempt to own Microsoft Projects was to buy the 2003 version. In general, Microsoft did best in 2003. I was rough on Microsoft Office 2007 for good reason: it is not an improvement over 2003. After getting bogus software I bit the bullet and bought Projects 2007; the guy who provided it said it ran fine on his machine.
All in all, this software is adequate. I am only disappointed in that I expected more after years of development. I used an Gantt chart program developed by Symantec in the 1990s; I always suspected that MS stole the core software but this the nature of the business: "Yo, ho, ho... it's the pirate's life for me."
Other reviewers will tell you that the software won't work with the web. I really don't care. If you want that, pay the extra for Primavara. If you want Pert charts, Gantt charts and want to do it simple, with your eyes closed, then this is the software for you. Avoid the other planning software that you can google. Go with Microsoft Projects. The other software will nickle and dime you with add-ins.
They did improve this software over early versions. I used Projects 2000 and it was clumsy and hard to edit. Oh, and by the way, there really is no good training material with this software. I looked at "Projects for Dummies" and was not impressed. I did buy a book on details but don't expect to use it. Microsoft Projects is really a hands-to-learn software. So, dig into your wallet and buy this software. It really is a good deal, not a great deal, but a good deal.
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Customer Rating: Summary: Warning - "Save as Web Page" removed
Comment: I previously used Microsoft Project 2003 heavily, but was dismayed to find out that the 2007 version removes the "Save as Web Page" feature that was present in the 2003 version. This feature was quite handy for a project administrator to manage a project and publish it for viewing by other interested parties.
Instead, the feature has been replaced by "Save as XML". Although Microsoft's Help claims that the XML format is "more flexible" -- which is true -- it is also true that this requires that the user program a style sheet to transform all the project tags into a readable format. Although this could be useful to users who need to process the data with other programs, it removes the easiest way to share your data. Note that there is no free viewer for Project the way there is for other Microsoft Office programs. Coincidentally, Microsoft sells an expensive Project Server which allows users to see web page versions if they pay per-user Client Access Licenses and upgrade to the expensive Professional version of Project.
XML could have been an addition alongside the HTML support. Instead, HTML export was removed, crippling this program's usefulness for anyone not willing to shell out thousands of dollars and install a Project Server.
Customer Rating: Summary: Rough Start
Comment: I'm running on Vista. Unlike what is specified at the top of Amazon's page for Project, the platform for Project 2007 is NOT just XP. All Microsoft 2007 products are Vista compatible (or so I'm told). At any rate, Project works on my Vista machine.
Sort of. I've never used Project before, although I'm highly experienced with Excel, Word, Power Point, and other Micrsoft products. I've always had staff doing my cost-schedule engineering, but now I'm running my own company so I thought I'd give Project a go.
First, there is very little that is intuitive about this program. I just recently received my "Project 2007 for Dummies" book and am really glad I made that purchase, because I was ready to set fire to this product.
For example, where I work we have no Sat/Sun weekends (Afghanistan). But Project doesn't agree with that schedule. It was extremely frustrating to select a Saturday to start a task, and Project automatically changing it to Monday. It would be understandable if it gave you a prompt or a warning about working weekends, but instead it simply refused to allow you to pick a weekend day for a task.
It took me about an hour going through the Help Online thing to figure out how to make Project allow me to work on a Satruday. I was fully expecting to feel like an idiot and find some simple way to tell Project to ignore weekend constraints. But I found that doing so is actually a multi-step process (about 7 steps, few intuitive) to get Project to allow me to start work on the day I wanted. Ridiculous.
And the Help that comes with the software doesn't work. When I clicked on Help, it said it has to configure and install Help. So I waited for the task bar to go all the way across after several minutes, and then it required a reboot for the changes to take effect. After reboot, I started up the program fresh, clicked Help, and went through the same thing all over again. After the third time, I was spitting nails. Hence the need to go to on-line Help (not your first choice in Afghanistan).
You know, if there's one part of any software that should NOT be messed up, it's Help.
Bottom Line: Bugs; not intuitive at all. But it does seem to work mostly, and I acknowledge I'm a PRoject rookie. I did finally produce my simple schedule, hence the 3 stars and not 2 or 1.
