Customer Reviews

Peter Norton's Complete Guide to Windows 98

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

 

 

I'm a home user and was tired of reading books that were obviously designed for use by someone in an office somewhere. This book is a very refreshing change from those stuffy books I've read in the past. The author has done an outstanding job of covering all of the new software features for Windows 98 SE. I found everything I needed to know from a usage and theory perspective. In fact, I found that the author provides more information in many places than I actually need today, which means this book will continue to help me well into the futuer. Since that's the point of this book, I give it 5 stars.

However, the author goes farther and provides me with a lot of hardware information. None of the information is wrong, it's just dated. The book doesn't include all of the connectivity options that are available today, so I feel that it doesn't provide everything it could in the way of hardware information.

So, if you're looking for a book about hardware specifics, look somewhere else. If you want to learn how to use Windows 98 SE, this is a great book to add to your collection.

I needed help on Windows 98 and bought this book because of the Author. It's the first book of his I've bought and the last. He is verbose. I needed steak - not sizzle.

Further, I don't believe the author really knows what he's talking about. I needed help on hooking up an ethernet printer on a peer-to-peer network. This doesn't strike me as rocket science. Instead, I get pages of the history of networking. Who cares.

I then needed help on an ODBC issue. No coverage is this "Complete Guide".

I wanted quick, bulletized text on issues that a user would expect to find in a complete guide. If I had a fire place - this would be in it.

If you want a complete history of the Microsoft operating system, this is the book for you. It also gives a overview of the system and can help you see how the parts are connected. Unfortanetly, it seems to be written for someone who is upgrading from DOS V.1. The authors seem most concerned with getting old DOS programs and old hardware to work in Windows 98 and assume that anyone with new components and windows programs will never have a problem. This is not true!

The book assumes you are already familier with the old diagnostic tools. For example, it tells you that the untility Dr Watson is much improved but only hints at what the utility does and gives no instruction for using it. (you will not find Dr Watson on the start menu so new users will not be able to even open it.)

I bought the book mainly because I have a software problem with my new computer. This book told me about starting in safe mode and went on to say that if that did not work the problem could be very difficult to track down. Thank you Mr Norton.

Fortanetly.

Despite the fact that Millenium and Win2K have been released, for support folks the version of Windows we most often encounter is still Win98. This book has just about everything you need to know about Windows 98 right there between the covers.

Unlike one of the other previous reviewers, I found the background and theory portions of the book to be incredibly useful in figuring out just what has gotten out of whack with a system that is giving me fits. The explanations of memory usage, peripheral drivers, and FAT32 should be required reading for anyone who does more than word processing on their computer.

The plus of buying this book is that you get a lot of useful information. There were few questions that I couldn't answer by reading a bit. I found that the information was much better organized than the Microsoft documentation and more complete as well.

In addition, the author provides really good productivity tips that have made working with Windows a pleasant experience. I usually don't have a lot of time to waste getting things done, so anything that helps me work more efficiently is welcome.

The big negative for this book is that the author spends a lot of time discussing theory. He'll talk about how things work for pages at a time. While this is OK if you have a lot of time to read, it's time consuming to dig through pages of theory to find the one piece of useful information you need. I did find the theory useful, so I can't say the author was completely wrong in adding it to the book, I just wish all of the theory had been included in separate sections so I could ignore it.

I gave the book five stars because it is an essential reference despite the organizational flaws. Any book that can fix as many problems as this one can deserves high marks. Perhaps the author will include less theory the next time around.

I bought this book because of the Peter Norton name. Now I am starting to wonder whether he has much familiarity with Windows98. The book is rather superficially written, and does not go into specifics if you are actually trying to fix something, or get something to work. If you wish to get Direct Cable Connection to work, for example, I would look elsewhere. Some things in this book are just dangerous. The authors suggest that the reader run a utility called LFNBK.EXE from the Windows CD. I did as they suggested and my computer was rendered unusable! The proper utility that performs what they describe is SULFNBK in the Windows\Command directory. Anyway, after that experience, I have lost all confidence in the book.

If you own the book "Peter Norton's Complete Guide to Windows 95" 1998 edition, then you don't need this one. Everything you must do is to replace "Windows 95" for "Windows 98" in all the book and you'll get 95% of this book. I am really disappointed with this one.