Windows Vista: The Missing Manual

I have not used this book extensively to date. It has been helpful in those limited areas that I have consuted. At this point, I am pleased that I purchased the book and believe that it will prove its worth in future use.

Title: Windows Vista: The Missing Manual
First Edition: December 2006
Series: The Missing Manuals
ISBN 10: 0-596-52827-2
ISBN 13: 9780596528270
Pages: 848


Book description from O'Reilly:

"Windows Vista: The Missing Manual offers complete and comprehensive coverage of all five versions of Vista. In his inimitable witty style, New York Times columnist and bestselling author David Pogue illuminates this subject with clear technical insight and hard-nosed objectivity. He explains Vista's features clearly and thoroughly, revealing which work well and which don't. Written for beginners, veteran stand-alone PC users, and those who know their way around a network, this jargon-free guide is the book that should have been in the box!


Windows Vista is Microsoft's most important software release in more than a decade. It offers users an abundance of new and upgraded features that were more than five years in the making: a gorgeous, glass-like visual overhaul; superior searching and organization tools; a multimedia and collaboration suite; and above all, a massive, top-to-bottom security-shield overhaul.


There's scarcely a single feature of the older versions of Windows that hasn't been tweaked, overhauled, or replaced entirely.


But when users first encounter this beautiful new operating system, there's gonna be a whole lotta head-scratchin', starting with trying to figure out which of the five versions of Vista is installed on the PC (Home, Premium, Business, Enterprise, Ultimate).


Thankfully, Windows Vista: The Missing Manual offers coverage of all five versions. Like its predecessors, this book from New York Times columnist, bestselling author, and Missing Manuals creator David Pogue illuminates its subject with technical insight, plenty of wit, and hardnosed objectivity for beginners, veteran standalone PC users, and those who know their way around a network."


This description can hardly start to reveal how good this book is. I did both types of installation: the complete wipe [second] and that other install I will not name. The author claimed the "other install I will not name" would take 5 days, but it only took 4 for me. The performance was not there and I was too research oriented to take his remarks seriously. I thought if the first type of install did not work right, the other would make up for it. The clean install 'might take 15 minutes' according to the author. It took about 4 hours and I still ended up with three partitions and 12 GB of stuff on my hard drive when I was looking for about 4-5GB. Sounds like a book of my own to write someday...


I do love Vista, do not get me wrong. This book really helped me do things I did not think of before I got the Business edition. It would have been very hard to figure out problems that occurred if you were not online to get the Windows version of the fix without this book. It would take at least two computers: the one you are loading with Vista and the other one that is online and searching for fixes.


There are some mistakes in the book, but you can deal with most of them. Page 58, the author means 'translucent' when he writes 'transparent...blurry image...underneath'. Some errors are more troublesome, such as page 350 where 'personal folder==>appdata==>roaming==>etc' does not exist.


This book is worth 5 stars and every penny charged for it, taking everything into account. A balanced point of view is being used by the author in parts of the text. Well done.


I really like Windows Vista: The Missing Manual and find it to be an impressive book and operating system.


Frederick J Eccher Jr
MBA
M.S. Management of Information Systems
A.B. Psychology
B.A. Biology
CIO, Community Partners
President, Board of Directors, Saint Louis Visual Basic Users Group
rick@stlvbug.net

For the most part, I've found The Missing Manual series to be generally well written, informative and useful. This one - "Windows Vista: The Missing Manual" is better than average.

Reluctantly I had to install Vista on at least one computer and learn it, so I needed something that would help me quickly and hopefully painlessly transition from Windows XP Pro.

I tried Windows Vista: The Definitive Guideand found it lacking. Very lacking.

"Windows Vista: The Missing Manual" is well done. It is a very nice blend of material for the novice, the power user and everyone in between. It's really quite an accomplishment, I think.

Pogue has a very light style. I found that just by going through the book quickly page by page, I learned all the significant differences between Vista and XP. Pogue uses sidebars extensively to make the task user. He is also very much into providing useful tips.

Overall, "Windows Vista: The Missing Manual" is very well done and will help the reader to quickly transition from XP to Vista.

Jerry

the book contains over 800 pages and covers just about everything I may wish to do on a computer and very much more. Mr Pogue makes Vista appear to be easy to operate and a pleasure to use well that may be the case for the geeks of the world but it's also a pain in the but.

However the information contained in the pages of David Pogues book will enable me to enjoy a new computer experience.
That's all I have to say for the present. I have 3 more chapters to read
DRB

I bought and read this book while I was waiting for my new Dell XPS to arrive, and I thank my lucky stars every day since that I did. When my computer was installed, I already knew where everything was so I just fell into it with no problem whatsoever. I've told a lot of my friends, if you're thinking of getting Vista, do two things. Get your computer made with a LOT of ram, no less than three gigs, a good sound card, a good video card, big hard drive, and READ THIS BOOK FIRST before you ever open the computer. It'll save you a lot of angst over VISTA. I'm sure most of the problems people report having with it are because they went into it without any real preparation beforehand. Vista is different, but it's not impossible once you've gone through this book. It's very long, but you're not trying to memorize everything in it, you're trying to help yourself make your way around a brand new and very beautiful operating system. As long as you have this book in your house, you'll be fine. HIGHLY recommended.