Windows 7: The Missing Manual

r3lody writes "It took me a little while after Windows 7 became available before I gave up my Windows XP desktop and purchased a new laptop with Windows 7 Home Premium pre-loaded. Like those who endured the change to Windows Vista, I found myself floundering around a little trying to figure out all of the new bells and whistles Microsoft had added to its operating system. Windows 7: The Missing Manual by David Pogue is meant to address the needs of people like me. The book, while readable by beginners, is written for users with some acquaintance with Windows. Advanced users will find the book too simplistic, but users up to the intermediate level will find it a handy reference to the new features in all of the flavors of Windows 7." Keep reading for the rest of r3lody's review. Windows 7: The Missing Manual author David pogue pages 904 publisher Pogue Press rating 8/10 reviewer r3lody ISBN 0596806396 summary This book illuminates its subject with reader-friendly insight, plenty of wit, and hardnosed objectivity for beginners as well as veteran PC users. Writing for the multiple levels of Windows 7 is handled by including a little sub-heading "cheat sheet" after each major heading. Most will have "All Versions", but you may see a subset like "Home Premium ? Professional ? Enterprise ? Ultimate". Handling multiple levels of users is a little more difficult. The book is written for advanced beginners to intermediate users, but beginners to Windows have "Up to Speed" sidebars added to help them understand concepts regular Windows users already know. More advanced users have "Power User's Clinic" sidebars to provide additional information.

Windows 7: the missing manual is organized into 8 parts, comprising 27 chapters and 4 appendices.

After an introductory section describing the book's layout, Part One deals with the Windows 7 desktop. Comprised of 5 chapters, Part One gives the basics of manipulating windows, programs, and files. Chapter 1 describes the Start menu, jump lists (frequently used documents) and the Run command. Next comes Explorer, the Taskbar, and general window controls. Most of chapter 2 is devoted to the eye candy provided by Aero. The third chapter discussing searching and organizing files follows that, with a good discussion of the much-improved Windows Search. Chapter 4 covers personalization (wallpaper, color and sound themes, screensavers and desktop icons), and the last chapter of part 1 explains the ways you can get help (Microsoft's Help system, Remote Assistance, and getting help from Microsoft).

Part Two uses 3 chapters to cover Windows 7 Software. After talking about opening and closing programs, opening and closing documents, and dialog boxes, David Pogue explains how to install and uninstall software, as well as handling compatibility issues. Speech recognition and gadgets got thrown into this chapter, but seem a little out of place. The next chapter discusses various freebie applications supplied with Windows 7, and those available as part of Windows Live Essentials. Most of those are explained in sufficient detail to use, but a few are deferred to later chapters. This part is closed out with rather brief coverage of Control Panel.

The next 5 chapters comprise Part Three, which is devoted to Windows 7 Online. After chapter 9 explains how to get hooked up to the Internet, chapter 10 is dedicated to Internet security. Microsoft Security Essentials, the Action Center, as well as Windows Firewall and Windows Defender are all covered, along with methods of protecting your privacy while you surf. This all leads into the grand tour of Internet Explorer 8, which is talked about in detail in chapter 11. The last two chapters go over Windows Live Mail and Windows Live Services.

Part Four is the media-centric portion of the book. David broke the discussion into three broad chapters: Windows Live Photo Gallery, Windows Media Player, and Windows Media Center. Windows Live Photo Gallery is Microsoft's challenger to Google's Picasa. While Picasa is more mature, Photo Gallery is not shabby by any means, and chapter 14 gives excellent explanations on how to get the most from the program. The next chapter goes over Windows Media Player, which has been around for a long time. There have been some minor changes to it, including streaming media to other computers and handling of more types of audio and video files. Windows Media Center was originally designed for the Media Center Edition PC, but is now available for any version of Windows 7 from Home Premium on up. You get a lot of information on how to set it up and use it for all sorts of media. You'll also find out how to use your PC as a DVR (assuming you have a TV tuner card or USB tuner).

The next part is all about hardware and peripherals. First printing, then Windows Fax and Scan, and finally general device handling are each given their due. The third and final chapter of Part Five covers laptops, tablets, and touchscreen computers, and their special capabilities and limitations.

One thing all computer users need to handle are the inevitable problems. Part Six covers various maintenance and trouble-shooting topics across three chapters. First, general maintenance and speed tweaks, followed by an in-depth discussion of disks, compression and encryption, and finally a chapter on backup, restore and trouble-shooting. All have just enough information to be useful, and not too much to absorb.

The last main part covers networking and homegroups. Windows is the most useful when it's part of a network, and Part Seven explains how to connect it and use it. After discussing setting up accounts, workgroups and domains have their own chapters, so home and office users can focus on what they need. This part ends with chapters on sharing files and remote control (including VPNs and Remote Desktop).

There is a set of 4 appendices that comprise Part Eight. Included are how to install and upgrade to Windows 7, how to use Regedit, and my favorite two chapters – Where'd It Go?, and the Master Keyboard Shortcut List.

Overall, the book does assume you've at least seen a previous version of Windows, as a lot of text explains how Windows 7 is different. I personally would have preferred the author keep the focus on Windows 7 and less on the differences from prior versions. There are a lot of attempts at humor. On the plus side, it keeps the tone of this fairly large book accessible to the novice to intermediate user. On the minus side, the occasional joke usually seems out of place.

I found Windows 7: the missing manual a valuable reference to the many offerings in Microsoft's latest incarnation of Windows. While the writing style varies from simple reference to the occasional attempt at light-hearted guidance, it is a comprehensive, informative and (most importantly) useful manual of the ins and outs of using Windows 7 in all its flavors.

You can purchase Windows 7: The Missing Manual from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Comments

GNAA 4 LIFE!

[Anonymous Coward]

Oops I farted. *chortle* I'm going to go off to jizz all over my face again.

-Gary Niger

Lostdows Seven

[Anonymous Coward]

.HardeharharNeverbeforeseenyousawitfirstnow

Windows8

[drumcat]

Bring on Windows Ocho (tm) already. 7 is another swing and miss.

Re:This is just what I need.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's odd, because
(1) I am not making it up
(2) It was Dell's install/config, and
(3) It "just works" fine with every other OS I've tried.

Atheros wireless, Dell Inspiron 1545 bought new a few months ago.

I guess this is typical though, MS fanbois can't stand it when we point out the problems with windows... And since they have no solution, we get treated to ad hominem attacks.

Re:not to be an asshole...

[stewbacca]

Wait, what? I didn't get a manual with Win7 (came bundled with my computer). Windows keyboard shortcuts are an abomination, mostly because they are not defined anywhere, or they aren't very logical. Alt+F4? Huh? What's wrong with something like Alt+Q for quit? At least that way a user can GUESS what a shortcut might be. But then you run into the problem of which modifier key? How do I know? How do I get to the underlined O under the File menu to "Open" something. How is CTRL+F + CTRL+O better than a simple and consistent modifier key + O to open a file?

I still don't know how to invoke some keyboard shortcuts in Windows (15 years on).

At least with OSX it tells you exactly which keys are used for the shortcut right in the menu, and you don't have to do four keystrokes to get to one nested option.

Also, the new Microsoft Office software doesn't even have menus, so looking in the menu for the shortcut key doesn't work anymore either. I have NO idea how to find the shortcuts now.

Re:This is just what I need.

[Ex-MislTech]

It may not be M$ fanbois, corps and the government has hired ppl
to monitor and counter and down mod posts that paint them
in a bad light.

http://iaindale.blogspot.com/2007/08/government-to-monitor-blogs.html

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=337848

So when you see ppl mod you down they actually may be getting "paid" to do it.

Even if they ACTUALLY agree with you.

Brave new world indeed, "groupthink" via an ink and paper leash.

Re:Libraries

[hairyfeet]

Wait, are you talking about Linux? BWA HA HA HA HA! oh wait, were you serious? BWA HA HA HA HA HA! Dude, I spend my days fixing PCs, I sure as fuck am not gonna spend my free time dealing with Ubuntu Death March where if I'm lucky two weeks or trawling forums looking for fixes and maybe, just maybe I have 70% of my hardware actually functional. of course by the time I make the magical 100%, guess what? The latest rev comes out and breaks everything! Wow, great QA there.

No thanks, I can actually afford Windows. The only thing I've found Linux good for is really old shit, and since I don't actually keep really old shit it doesn't really work for me. New shit? yeah, good luck with that.

Re:Libraries

[hairyfeet]

Waste your time marking troll all damn day, I got karma from hell baby, yeah! It doesn't change the facts. FACT-Ubuntu has got to have the shittiest QA ever in the history of the planet. Shit that worked before? Don't work now. How many "update foo broke my device" do you want me to post? Because I can post thousands. Never had an update break hardware in Windows, even in shitty Vista.

FACT-You got NO fucking way in hell to tell if a device works without playing paperweight roulette! Ever look at "Linux compatible" lists? Unless you're dumpster diving you ain't gonna find any of that stuff, because it's no longer sold in stores! Gee, how helpful THAT is!

The simple "fact" is Linux sucks as a desktop, it really REALLY does. The reason it works on servers is corporations spend millions to make sure it "just works" because other corporations are willing to pay $$$$ for RHEL. That simply ain't true on the desktop. Hell even when a corporation bothers to put out a Linux PC, guess what? Nobody bothers with QA and they get borked just like the rest of us! I was talking to one right here on /. that put his money where his mouth was and bought a Dell Ubuntu netbook. Guess what happened when he updated? No sound and broken wireless! sound familiar? If Canonical can't even bother with QA on their OEMs, what chance does the rest of us have?

A wise man once said "Linux is free if your time is worthless" and no truer words have ever been said. I ran Ubuntu on 4 PCs, three desktops and a laptop, from 6-9.04. I spent more damned time trawling forums looking for fixes trying to get my hardware to work than I did using the damned things. Instead of bothering to fix shit they just crank out NEW shit, which breaks as much as it fixes. Bitch ALL you want about Windows, but at least their life cycle is long enough you can get several years out of their OS without major breakage, and can easily go from stable to stable by timing it right. Good luck pulling that shit with Ubuntu or any other Linux pal. Maybe one day Linus will pull his head out of his ass, make a stable driver ABI, and then things that worked in Foo will work in Foo+1. Until then this shopkeeper is avoiding your OS like the clap. Can you imagine the uproar if I sold customers an OS that broke itself first update?

Re:Libraries

[hairyfeet]

I honestly think it is Shuttleworth and his totally insane 6 month release schedule. How in the fuck are you supposed to do even minimal QA in that little amount of time? I got so damned tired of being told "It'll get better in the next release" only to have two things fixed and three things broken! It got to the point I looked at the update notification as a "break Linux NOW" button. How can I sell an OS to customers that I myself am afraid to update?

And I hear your pain drinkypoo, God I spent more time after Drapper just trawling forums hoping to God somebody somewhere knew how to get whatever broke working it wasn't even funny anymore! Graphics, wireless, sound, networking, you name it broke at least twice, usually more, and in wonderful combos like no wireless AND no Ethernet! And it wasn't like I was using some uber strange hardware here, we are talking bog standard ATI and Nvidia GPUs, Realtek sound, and either Realtek or SiS Ethernet. If it can't work on the bog standard gear that a good 90%+ of desktops have onboard, what chance do we have?

Definitely get Windows 7 drinkypoo, you will NOT regret it! I went from sliding the DVD in to a fully functional desktop in under 35 minutes, Windows found and downloaded ALL the drivers, no hassles, no trawling looking for fixes, it all "Just worked. If you are worried about whether it will run well on your hardware you can get a free trial of enterprise 7 but I can tell you it purrs like a kitten, even on this 1.8GHz Sempron with 1.5Gb of RAM. Windows 7 HP x64 was the best $100 I ever spent!

A word of advice, just to make the journey a little easier, a little trick from your old pal hairyfeet, once you get to desktop load IE and go to Ninite. There you will find FF and Chrome, iTunes and songbird, Irfanview and Picasa, even free AV like MSFT security Essentials, all automated so a single click will install any combo you desire. It really takes the setup hassles out of a new windows PC, and if there are any programs you want they don't have, just let them know and they'll add it!

And sorry for the length, but I am just fed up with the hype and bullshit. I wanted to believe in Linux, I really did. I came from the days of Atari and Amiga and wanted there to be a "third way" to offer my customers choices and lower prices. But when I can't even run a SINGLE update without something breaking, every single damned time, how can I sell that to customers? I take pride in my work, I have computers over a decade old still working in factories or as point of sale PCs. I can't sell a PC where the first update is gonna take out half their hardware, and where the forums would tell me either "it'll get fixed next release" or "buy new hardware". Yeah, like my customers would like being told they have to throw out half their gear because update foo broke everything. No sale.

Re:not to be an asshole...

[hairyfeet]

Uhhh...you DO know it is trivial to make shortcuts in Windows 7, yes? Just go to Network Sharing Center -> Change Adapter Settings, right click on the network device and make shortcut. if you would prefer to have Network right there on the Start menu it is trivial to add with Ultimate Windows Tweaker which works quite well. simply go to Personalization -> Start Menu Items -> Network. This way you can simply click start -> Network and there you go.

Remember with windows there is ALWAYS more than one way to skin a cat, and if the default doesn't cut it there is nearly always a free tool that will let you tweak it to your liking. Enjoy!

Re:This is just what I need.

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty sure that was a joke, you sperging moron.