What is the best book on Vista?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Bill
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Bill

My knowledge of the computer (and specifically Vista) is somewhat limited.
My experience has been with Windows 98 for the last ten years. I would be
grateful for any suggestions you may have on the most useful and practical
text book on Vista.
 
Bill said:
My knowledge of the computer (and specifically Vista) is somewhat limited.
My experience has been with Windows 98 for the last ten years. I would be
grateful for any suggestions you may have on the most useful and practical
text book on Vista.
Click to expand...


Two to give some consideration

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9780596527624/

http://www.microsoft.com/MSPress/books/9361.aspx

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Bill said:
My knowledge of the computer (and specifically Vista) is somewhat limited.
My experience has been with Windows 98 for the last ten years.
I would be grateful for any suggestions you may have on the most useful
and practical text book on Vista.
Click to expand...

You should take a look at the reviews over at Amazon, if you have not
already done so. Here is my two pennies worth:

For starters, as a self-study text book, I recommend "Windows Vista - Step
by Step":
http://www.microsoft.com/mspress/books/9362.aspx

For reference, and maybe that is all a seasoned Windows user needs, take a
look at "Windows Vista in a Nutshell":
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9780596527075/index.html

Charlie42
 
For basics

Windows Vista Inside Out
http://www.amazon.com/Windows-Vista...bs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204588923&sr=8-1
I don't think it quite measures up to the XP Inside Out book, but this is a
complete guide to basic Vista use. The XP book seemed very different from
the hundreds of other XP books, with real insight gained from the use of XP
and understanding its quirks. The VISTA version reads more like a manual
(that spends way too much time on Windows Media Center, if you ask me), and
not much time is spent with the finder points. Hence, it is more for basic
than advanced users.

More in-depth

Windows Vista Resource Kit
http://www.amazon.com/Windows-Vista-TM-Resource-Kit/dp/0735622833/ref=pd_rhf_p_t_1
More a resource/reference than user manual....lot of good stuff here

For Vista freaks....
Windows Internals, Version 5
http://www.amazon.com/Windows®-Inte...=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204589386&sr=1-3
This book is not out yet, but if it is anything like Version 4, which
addressed XP and earlier OSs, it will be the most indepth, technical look at
the new infrastructure of Vista and Server 2008. Reading this book makes
your head hurt, but for every piece that flies over your head, that 10
percent that takes root is a "Oh, wow. I didn't know that moment."
 
I found Special Edition Using Microsoft Windows Vista by Robert Cowart and
Brian Knittle one of the best. At 1,458 pages it goes into great detail on
all topics.
 
Charlie42 said:
You should take a look at the reviews over at Amazon, if you have not
already done so. Here is my two pennies worth:

For starters, as a self-study text book, I recommend "Windows Vista - Step
by Step":
http://www.microsoft.com/mspress/books/9362.aspx

For reference, and maybe that is all a seasoned Windows user needs, take a
look at "Windows Vista in a Nutshell":
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9780596527075/index.html

Charlie42
Click to expand...

I got both of my 'learning about vista' books by borrowing from my public
library. The ones I got benefit from were:

- Windows Vista beyond the Manual", Haskell & Campbell
- Windows Vista Step By Step" (as mentioned above)

My method is to place the book on the desk beside the computer, and go
through it page by page, making notes such as the following directly into a
Word document on my computer; thus it is easily found for future reference.
This way I only log the items that are either new or especially relevant for
me. Example of my notes are:

"Windows Vista beyond the Manual", Haskell & Campbell
· Pg 96: Start/Properties/Start Menu/Customize/Display as a menu
(and other items).
· Pg 99: WKey + R = Run
· Pg 99: Rt click/Explore from Start Button
· Pg 100: drop down menu within breadcrumb trail
· Pg 101: use Alt to toggle short-key combinations and classic menus
in Explorer.
· Pg 103: Folder Options/View/Use check boxes to display items.
· Pg 106: Control Panel/Indexing Options - need to explore what
about "Index Properties and File Contents"; why is this not a default? Looks
like I could just do this for Office documents?
· Pg 109: Explorer/Organize/Layout/Preview, Details, Navigation
(navigation not absolutely necessary).
· Pg 220: IE7 - Quick Tabs, and Tab View - cool stuff

"Windows Vista Step By Step"
· pg 47: stacking windows & side-by-side from the taskbar
· pg 68: "Recent Pages" = Recent Folders; upper left of Explorer
window (up to 9 entries)
· pg 73: use Views slider to move between folder content views
· pg 80: when adding tags in Properties/Details, Vista offers
suggested tags based on initial letters typed. Cool.
· Pg 93: if you set a date in Advanced Search, the date will be
retained in the next search.
· Ctrl + click: opens a link in a new tab
· Pg 319: Empty TIF When Browser is closed check box; does this one
work?
· Disk Defragmenter Schedule (does it wake for Defrag?)
· F1 Help opens 'context sensitively' per the program you have open.
· Pg 333: Lots of good help stuff in Windows Help and Support
 
A few weeks back I sought such information here also. I
then spent a couple of hours at Borders looking through the
various suggestions. I bought "Windows Vista - The Missing
Manual" by David Pogue; ISBN 978.0.596.52827.0, $35.

I have been very pleased with it. When I have had questions
it didn't answer I returned to Borders, checked the other
books, and found they didn't have them either.

Best regards.

====================
 
CWLee said:
A few weeks back I sought such information here also. I then spent a
couple of hours at Borders looking through the various suggestions. I
bought "Windows Vista - The Missing Manual" by David Pogue; ISBN
978.0.596.52827.0, $35.
Click to expand...

Keep in mind that this book was written prior to the release of Vista, which
means it was written on the basis of beta software. Personally, I found this
book to be a great reference a good year ago, but I would hesitate to
recommend it now that lots of good Vista books based on the actual release
are available.

Charlie42
 
(Regarding "Windows Vista - The Missing Manual" by David
Pogue; ISBN 978.0.596.52827.0, $35.)
Keep in mind that this book was written prior to the
release of Vista, ... now that lots of good Vista books
based on the actual release are available.
Click to expand...

I checked the two books you recommended above, and they were
both shown as published in December, 2006 - before the
release date of Vista - which suggests to me that they also
were written based on the beta version of Vista.

Perhaps you have 2nd or 3rd editions of the books you
recommend?

Please clarify - Thanks. :-)
 
CWLee said:
I checked the two books you recommended above, and they were both shown as
published in December, 2006 - before the release date of Vista - which
suggests to me that they also were written based on the beta version of
Vista.

Perhaps you have 2nd or 3rd editions of the books you recommend?
Click to expand...

That is correct. The O'Reilly book was first published in December 2006
(after the completion of Vista), and then again in 2007. The Step-by-Step
book is published by Microsoft themselves, thus being up to speed on the
final Vista release.

David Pogue explicitly states that his book, albeit a fine reference, was
written on the basis of the betas only. Afaik, his book has not been
updated.

Charlie42
 
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