Peter Norton's Complete Guide to Windows XP

by Peter Norton and John Paul Mueller

Book Overview

Peter Norton's Complete Guide to Microsoft Windows XP is a friendly, personalized, and authoritative guide from one of the world's leading experts about Windows XP, the most robust operating system... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0672322919
• ISBN13: 9780672322914
• Release Date: January 2001
• Publisher: Sams
• Length: 752 Pages
• Weight: 2.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.7" x 7.4" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

This book has saved me a lot of time

As a teacher of computer classes at a small college, I have been called on to teach nearly every class in the curriculum. This demands that I learn the latest trends in computing education in a hurry; often agreeing to teach a class before I have completely examined the subject. This takes a lot of time and increases the tension, but it is the invigorating type of tension rather than the kind that exhausts you. What I simply don't have time for is learning some of the tidbits of computing, as expressed in the latest operating system. I started using XP shortly after it was released and while it is similar to what came before and many of the new features can be intuited, there were times when I got lost (frustrated). There were also times when I wanted to explore a feature so that I could discuss it in my operating systems, networking or security classes. In these circumstances, I often turned to this book to break the logjam of annoyances and there were few instances when I was disappointed. Norton is one of the best at selecting and explaining the topics of interest to the casual and advanced user of a desktop operating system. This book has saved me a lot of time and some significant agony.

Outstanding Guide to How Things Work

Some books aspire to being everything to everyone and fail miserably. With this book you know that you're getting an outstanding guide to how things work for most people. The authors rightfully spend a lot of time explaining how the features that most people will use work. All of the explanation are well written--you really can understand what the author is trying to say.The authors go on to discuss methods for configuring and troubleshooting these areas. For example, I've found a number of great security tips in this book. I was also pleased to find information that seems to elude other authors, such as how to configure my mouse. Yes, it's a small thing until you're trying to do something and your mouse fails. The authors told me about the difference between FAT and NTFS file systems and why I would want to choose a particular file system for a particular need.No, this book won't tell you everything. You'll miss out on some topics that only a few people need such as remote computing. However, if you're looking for a great book that covers the issues that you'll normally need to think about, this is the one to choose.

Performance Enhancements

I purchased this book because Win XP Professional as it is preinstalled is very slow and I sought answers on how to enhance performance. This book had the most thorough section on performance enhancement which I followed with great success. I did have one problem and emailed the author who was kind enough to respond and solve it.

Not just another "Newbie" book

The thing that struck me about this book, as I compared it to others in the local chain bookstore, is that it's not just another "Here's how you launch programs. Now here's how you copy files. Ooooh-- and here's how you play music!" kind of beginner books. Like Norton's "Inside the IBM PC" from years ago, this book actually takes you into some of the technical details and architecture of Windows XP. The authors give you a grounding in how XP is put together "under the hood," so that you'll actually *understand* something about the OS, rather than just learning how to accomplish basic tasks. The text stays readable, though -- you don't need to be a computer science or engineering major to understand it. If you just want to learn to *use* Windows XP, you'll probably want to look at another title. But if you want to *learn about* Windows XP, this could be an excellent choice.

Why and when to upgrade to XP and if so, how to do it

Peter Norton's Complete Guide To Windows XP will introduce and discuss all of the new XP features in a style that is both conceptual and informative. Topics include why and when to upgrade to XP and if so, how to do it, understanding services and their configurations, explanation of the new internet options, such as third party cookie alert, firewalls, and web publishing wizard. Value information included on registry configurations and why the configurations work as they do, networking topics and integration ideas for home networks as well as explanations about using the networking wizards and understanding how XP works with software and hardware.