Works Suite 2003 CD (Word, Money, AutoRoute, Encarta, Picture It, Works)

The Works 7.0 core is very task-based. For example, if you choose to "Manage a club" you'll end up using the spreadsheet to track finances, the database for membership records, Word to design the newsletter, and Picture It to handle your club photos. By organising its interface around things to do rather than old-style menus of programs, Works encourages novices to explore its wide range of features; once you know what you're doing, you can use the programs menu to jump straight to the applications themselves.

The extras (even the year-old AutoRoute) are really worth having. Word is the most widely used word processor in the world and it never hurts to have a copy on your home PC, while Picture It Photo has a decent selection of mainstream photo projects (calendars, address cards, flyers, kids ID cards and so on) to go with its easy-to-use editing features for removing red eye, adding picture frames and text to photos, cropping and framing photos or preparing them for use on the Web.

Elsewhere, Money 2003 remains the friendliest of home finance programs, with good investment tracking and an excellent, customisable front summary page. AutoRoute 2002 still sets the pace for getting from A to B in Europe. The standard version of Encarta 2003 is a good study aid for juniors upwards; it's updatable via the Web and it incorporates more than 30,000 articles and images along with videos, animations and audio.

Microsoft Works Suite 2003 is simple enough to allow beginners to accomplish a wide range of home computing tasks. Thanks to the inclusion of Word, it will also appeal to the workaholic who just won't let go. --Rob Beattie