Thread: Beware of Netter's Interactive Atlas

Public spirited as I am, I'd like to warn everybody about the disastrous CD, "Netter's Interactive Atlas of Human Anatomy, v. 3.0", which set me back forty bucks and is useless.

It's not the content, but the delivery. The eighth grade programmers who Elsevier hired to design the disk made it runnable only from the CD, not the pc hard drive. You can't copy the files to the pc, tweak the registry, redirect the D: drive with a SUBST command, or any of that. The program probably looks for a GUID in the CD boot block, which can't be faked on the C: drive.

The disk is designed for heavy interaction (note the "Interactive" in the title!), but the program doesn't seem to cache anything. Every time you click something, the program hits the CD drive. If you click away like you're supposed to, the motor keeps running. In other words, your CD motor will run the entire time you're using this disk. If you're looking for a way to burn out your motor, this disk is it.

I called the programming group in charge of it and spoke to Customer Disservice. The guy was surprisingly candid and said they had received this complaint several times before. Well, duh!

I didn't get into the content at all, because I just couldn't stand the sound of my motor running that long. Note, however, that the reviews of the previous version of this disk are overwhelmingly negative, based on content.

In general, I have found that the CDs which accompany textbooks are a waste. Netter's Interactive Atlas of Human Anatomy v. 3.0 is no exception.
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Update: since my initial post, several reviews of this disk, based on content, have appeared on amazon.com. They are all aggressively negative. Amazon wouldn't print my review because it was over the top.