Microsoft Streets & Trips and MapPoint replacement: what to use now

Microsoft discontinued both. Streets & Trips was the trip planner for individuals and small businesses; MapPoint was its business sibling, with data mapping and Office integration. Sales were widely reported to have ended at the end of 2014, and there have been no new versions or map updates since.

Copies still turn up, and some still run on newer Windows PCs. The software isn't the real problem; the maps are. Every road, subdivision and business park built since the last map version is missing, and the gap grows every year. If you route customers in a growing area, that means more wrong pins and more "road not found" every season.

They were route planners and mapping tools that ran on your own computer, with the maps installed so they worked without an internet connection. These are the jobs people relied on, and what does each one now:

A browser-based route planner does the core job: multi-stop routes in the best order, built from an address list, on current maps, with nothing to install. EZRoutePlanner runs in any modern browser on Windows or a Mac, and the finished route goes to a phone or a printer. Here's how the old habits translate:

The free plan covers 30 saved addresses and a route of up to 30 stops, with no time limit. Paid plans start at $20 a month, with unlimited routes of up to 200 stops and room for 200 to 10,000 saved addresses depending on the plan.

Three things will feel different if you're used to the desktop programs, and a few things aren't there at all.

• You plan online. The maps and the address lookups live on the internet. Once the route is on the driver's phone or printed, the drive itself doesn't depend on the planner.
• You sign in. Your addresses and routes are saved to your account, so you can plan at the office and open the same route at home.
• The maps are current. New roads and subdivisions appear without buying a new version.
• No territory or data mapping. EZRoutePlanner plans routes. If you used MapPoint for sales territories, maps shaded by ZIP code or demographic overlays, you'll want a mapping or GIS program for that part.
• One label per stop. The import keeps each row's address and one column you choose, such as the customer name. Phone numbers and notes stay in your spreadsheet.

It also doesn't do time windows, scheduling, GPS tracking of drivers or automatic splitting of stops between vehicles; you group each driver's stops on the map yourself.

It depends which job you're replacing. Most former users end up with two or three tools, each doing one thing well, rather than one program that does everything.

• A map of customer pins to share: Google My Maps is free and takes up to 2,000 rows per import. It won't put the pins in driving order.
• Turn-by-turn on the road: Google Maps, Apple Maps and Waze. None of them reorders your stops, and Google Maps stops at 10 places per route.
• Territories and data maps: GIS (geographic information system) software, some of it free.
• Side-by-side comparisons of route planners: see our route planner comparisons.

Start with the spreadsheet, not the old program. Most people imported their customers into Streets & Trips or MapPoint from Excel in the first place, and that file, or its newest version, is the cleanest source. Saved map files generally open only in the program that made them, so if the original list is gone, copy or print the stops while the old computer still runs.

Then import the file, check the review map for flagged rows, and build the first route. How to map addresses from Excel walks through each step, and the Excel route planner page covers working from a sheet every week.