Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

The Chessmaster series of programs have been fine tutorials with some nice showy features for the casual chess enthusiast. However, the publishers of this program are continuing to show their laziness in upgrading the product. Most "upgrades" just tweak a few aspects, so that they are really not needed if you're running an older version. They are two very serious problems with this program that they seem intent on never fixing. One is their continued insistance on forcing the player to have the original CD in the drive when starting the program. No one likes having to do this, and as a result, there's a flourishing blackmarket on the net of cracks to remove this feature. The second, and most serious problem, is their continued neglect of the Windows 2000 operating system. This program will only work correctly if you're running Windows 98, or one of the poor saps who was suckered into Windows ME. Even though it touts itself as running on XP, there are severe problems with it in that environment. If the Chessmaster folks want to continue selling their product, they must make it Windows 2000 and XP compliable, in every way. Until then, we'll turn to other products.