How many people here use Fritz 9?

I'm a new owner of Fritz 9.  However, I'm close to being "disgusted" by the program.  The amount of effort the designers put into making the interface as painful as possible is truly remarkable.  The slowness of play is mind boggling.  The "training" functions unable to teach anything (opening training only 1 or two moves deep).

Does ANYONE on chess.com actually use Fritz 9 and like it?  Please help! 

I assumed these databases would come with the Fritz 9 software I bought.  Can someone tell me what I'm possibly doing wrong?

I open Fritz, Go to 'Tools' => 'Training' => enable 'Endgame Training'.

From this, a new window opens with a list of 24 different endgames (i.e. 'Mate with Bishop + Knight').

After choosing one of the endgames, the board is set up for play.  But it doesn't seem to actually give any training or advice or instruction for how to mate. 

I would strongly dissuade anyone from buying nearly any version of Fritz.   The main reason is the poor design.  As a professional with experience programming and leading teams that program custom software applications, I can tell you that Fritz has one of the WORST user interfaces I've ever seen in any application.  To make matters worse, the documentation provided is superficial at the highest level.

I'm a strong believer in the free market, which requires informed consumers to work.  Based on that, I'd like to "inform" anyone even remotely thinking of buying ANY version of Fritz that Fritz is inferior to nearly any other chess program out there.  Save yourself a great deal of headache or from being in a situation where you spend hard earned money on something that is so hard to use that you'll simply not use it at all.

I don't care how powerful the tool is, if you can't figure out how to use it, it's a weak tool.

Chessbase would benefit greatly by hiring a professional UI design firm and completely overhaul it's interface. 

I use Rybka (stronger) and Fritz (weaker) together. In losing positions, weaker engines sometimes put up more of a fight, because they don't know they are lost! Also, Rybka's contempt is set to 0 by default which means it assumes its opponent will choose the best moves. Fritz's contempt is set a bit higher... meaning it sometimes seeks out trappy moves. You can imagine how both views would be useful when analyzing a position.

Greersome -  I have to strongly disagree.  I would advise anyone to buy Fritz - I think it's a terrific program.  I would agree with you that the booklet provided is superficial, but there is a help menu in the program with a lot more details.

Don't give up on the program because you can't figure out how to do something.  If you search the help menu you should find an answer to most questions.  Failing that try the resources here and here.  At the first link don't miss the "T-notes" on the menu at the left as well as the articles on Fritz 9.

By the way, what do you mean by the slowness of play?   Fritz usually moves very quickly. 

Thanks, SoP.  I am slowly learning more and more about how to use the program.  I don't doubt it is powerful, I just have a thing for elegant interfaces and I had to vent a bit.  Chessmaster is so well designed from an interface perspective.  Chessbase could have a truly spectacular product on their hands if they had paid more attention to this.  Take Chess.com, for example.  Erik and team really have done a wonderful job making this site intuitive.  I respect that.

I will keep at it, though, and I appreciate your encouragement, even if you are about to whoop my arse in our online match  . 

Thanks for the links and any other tips or interesting ways to use the tool, I'll be happy to keep looking. 

 Early days, early days... it's interesting so far!

I guess Stockfish is better