Customer Reviews

How to Do Everything with Windows XP, Third Edition

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Great book, learned the in's & out's of XP in no time. I found the book to be well organized and easy to understand. Each chapter gives step by step instructions to do just about everything imaginable with Windows XP. It appears the author has taken extra effort in providing a well referenced index, so finding applications and definitions can quickly be found. Great as a reference tool. I highly reccomend this book.

Publishers ought to realize that people buy computer books because they want topics explained to them in plain terms that they can understand. This book is very poorly written. I can't count the number of times I scratched my head and had to read instructions over again to try to interpret what the author was saying.

Save this one for nerds.

I found this book very readable and helpful, as it covers virtually all the headings and functions of xp, detailing even the different tab headings. I would criticise the fact that it doesn't mention detail such as the fact you need software to play dvd and the limitations to cd burning. However it helped me out of a scrape as it gives helpful info on how to recover from potential pc problems - such as how to use system restore. Useful advanced detail for those interested. I'd buy it!

"How to Do Everything with Windows XP, Third Edition" could be better and could be worse. Windows XP is a LARGE operating system (OS). The notion behind the design is that anyone can have a computer installed with this OS, sit down and, after a five minute demonstration by the installer, be capable of doing several simple things. Many people will choose to do only this much. Unfortunately, once one goes beyond that first five minute introduction, things are not so obvious. Worse, Windows XP is not as hardy or as stable as Microsoft claims. After some months or years of relatively gentle use, Windows XP slows down and strange things start happening. This book will help the user to make the OS work better again. But, the user must learn how to use Windows XP properly and the instructions in this book are NOT as clear as they could be.

In order to do all the things that Windows XP allows you to do; including running business applications, listening to music, optimizing and storing photos, playing computer games, surfing the internet, editing videos, downloading music, making CDs with various types of files, etcetera; the computer operator has a lot to learn about how to do those things. However, computers no longer come with guides on what to do. Thus, guides such as this one try to fill the gap.

At first, things go well. However, by chapter 3, the instructions are getting hard to follow. Since there are 21 chapters, all I need to say is that the instructions do get harder to follow. I am not an expert with computers, but have used them for the usual home fun projects, since 1980. Working with this book, I often found myself puzzled by the instructions, but, after fumbling around, I usually figured it out. On the other hand, it is impossible to figure out how to do some of these things without a guide such as this book.

This book helps. However, I think the book could be better. Of course, Windows XP could have been better, too. Well, perhaps the lacks in this book and in this OS are part of the cost of wanting to do so many different, complex, tasks with our computers.

Truth is short. You can learn more from a retarded two year old. This book is the worst of the worst. If you just want to read a few XP buzz words then this is for you. If you want to learn something - start by saving your money. The "one star
rating" comes from my using the pages to start the barbeque.