Hi Peter,
I've been using a program by Delorme called "Street Atlas" for a few years.
I do
on screen mapping and route planning with it on my desktop. I also use it on
my laptop in the car, and plug my Garmin handheld GPS into it. It follows
my position and a voice tells me when to make turns. Mine is an older version
called SA7. I've used it on several computers with 98 and XP and it is
perfectly
well behaved. I've read varying opinions of newer versions. I think newer
versions
(maybe after SA9) have a less "Windows like"  interface which some users of
previous
versions were unhappy with. Also some later versions have voice recognition to
understand enroute navigation commands. (Having read that, I will get a newer
version because voice input would make for much safer driving) Delorme also
makes their own GPS for use with SA, but for a little more money you can get a
small Garmin with data output which can also be used for other purposes.
I've used SA7 in eastern US and haven't had any problem due to outdated maps.
If you could find SA7 on ebay, I think you'd like it.
Here's an old ebay description.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3659364465&category=51342
This is my "best guess" chronological list of SA versions:
SA7, SA8, SA9, SA USA Deluxe, SA USA 2003, SA USA 2004
Heres an evaluation by a knowledgeable map software user:
http://www.pitt.edu/~kconover/street_atlas.htm


>I have been using Microsoft Streets for a while, but find that there are
>very many errors in it. The latest version that I have (2003) even corrupted
>some of the information that previously was correct. Is there better
>software out there? Is the Rand McNally product any better?
>Thank you for any feedback.  Peter