Rating: 

With 27 chapters, divided into 8 sections and 4 appendices this book delivers in it’s promise of being “The book that should have been in the box.”

Starting with Part One: The Vista Desktop, Pogue and his compatriots examine every aspect of the Desktop, from how to find your way around Vista’s new look and feel, customizing and an examination of just about every menu item in the Start Menu.

Part Two: Vista Software brings us through all of the software offerings that are bundled with Vista from the mundane to the absurd.

Part Three: Vista Online walks users through the basics of getting their new Vista install online and using Internet Explorer 7 and the newly renamed Windows Mail (Outlook Express as most of us know it).

Part Four: Pictures, Movies, and Media Center tells us all about just that. Vista comes loaded with ways to store, organize, view or listen too and perform some basic manipulation of photos, media files, even television.

Part Five: Hardware and Peripherals brings us through printing and faxing and the basics of installing new hardware or attaching gadgets.

Part Six: PC Health is a look at the various tools Microsoft packages into Vista to keep your computer healthy and happy, from your hard disk’s health to Windows Update.

Part Seven: The Visa Network briefly covers some more advanced topics in networking such as local accounts versus domain accounts, workgroups, networks, sharing and collaboration.

Part Eight: Appendixes contains some useful information about the actual install process, a few registry hacks, a comparison of older built in programs (from XP or 2000) and their new and newly named counterparts in Vista and an extremely thorough keyboard shortcut list.

Overall the book reads well. It’s designed as a technical reference that will be useful to both the computer illiterate and the longtime support guru. It’s impossible for a single book to be all things to all people who span these categories and Pogue realizes this. His book is concise if a bit brief on some subjects and a bit wordy on others, perhaps showing a bias towards some features. Yet he still manages to write a book that will be useful to a huge range of readers.

The approach of writing a technical manual that is funny and appealing to the average reader has worked well with other series (most notably the For Dummies books) and it works well here. If your a veteran Microsoft support person you may find yourself skipping whole paragraphs to get to the nitty gritty but you’ll still find the book as a whole very useful.

Even some of the non-technical talk may catch your eye – the book is full of little gems like “The Control Panel continues to be an object of bafflement for Microsoft, not to mention it’s customers; from version to version of Windows, this window undergoes more reorganizations than a bankrupt airline.” This in reference to what Pogue classifies as “Control Panel Terminology Hell”.

Vista isn’t perfect and while the gems are highlited, the rough spots and blunders are also noted with useful tips on how to work with or around them.

Windows Vista: The Missing Manual contains a ton of tips and tricks within its pages that will be very useful for power users and administrators. From keyboard shortcuts to a registry hack that hides all the icons on the Desktop, I found lots of useful information.

I thought it a bit odd at first that the installation of Vista section is contained in the Appendix at the rear of the book but after a little thought it makes more sense. Any veteran of windows installs or (dare I say it?) upgrades will be able to handle a Vista install without problems. Folks newer to windows or computers will most likely not be attempting this at first, if at all.

Pros: Easy to read and chock full of great tips. I’m eager to get into my Vista installs and try out a bunch of new features and tricks that aren’t immediately obvious on install. If you’re not terribly technical then this book is going to be a godsend for you. If you are technical, you’ll still pick up a lot of information. Both the good and the bad in Vista are presented

Cons: Some of the humor is a bit much and probably not necessary. Is it good to laugh while reading about an operating system? Sure but I would have liked to see more effort put into including more neat tricks and less off the cuff humor. I found myself skipping whole paragraphs to get to the meat of the book.

If you’re going to be working with Vista or using it at home, this book will be very helpful too you. I’ve had it in my hands for just under 5 days now and I’ve already completed reading it and implemented several suggestions. Plus I got to play with a neat voice recognition system that comes with Vista. I’d heard about it but this book convinced me to try it.

If your a novice, you’ll find this book an easy read. You’ll soon be much more productive on your computer. If you’re a veteran, you’ll find plenty of tidbits that will make this book worthwhile and increase you’re productivity as well.