I must confess that I would not ordinarily think of buying a windows nutshell book because I foolishly thought that I already knew a fair bit about Windows 9x and NT for that matter. However, after browsing through W98Nut in a Border Books, I discovered that this book thoroughly covered many aspect of Win9x in a very concise and readable fashion: networking, boot process, all (and I mean all) miscellaneous and utility programs.

Each aspect is covered very nicely - syntax, command options, the effects of the choices (*very important*) and something that I found neat...often there are URLs pointed to a Web reference for a piece of shareware or freeware that either replaces the Windows functionality or supplants it with a better idea.

This is thr type of book that I call a "commuter book" because you are unlikely to read it cover to cover at one sitting, but more likely to pick it up every spare moment and just cruise through it looking for a gem (and there are many tidbits).

In my case, I was on the commuter train thinking about how to automate an FTP file upload from a customer's machine to a Unix server on their network and I looked up the DOS mode ftp program and discovered the syntax to conduct an unattended ftp session! Marvelous.

I think if you run Windows 9x you have to have this reference book - forget all the other books that are phone book size (with a CD full of useless stuff that is out of date anyway) and get this compact and chock a block full guide.

(I already own Unix in a Nutshell, but I had bought that when I knew little about Unix - now I realize that you need these books more when you THINK you know what you are doing!).