Rating: 

Pogue’s style of writing makes for easy reading and understanding with enough humor to keep you interested. The book is well-illustrated, but unfortunately, there are no color graphics, even for the “Aero look” which loses much when viewed in black-and-white. And you can read it “cover-to-cover” or just look at the chapters of interest, except perhaps for the introductory material.

The book is divided into seven parts with several chapters each. It starts with the Vista Desktop (everything that you see on the screen), then covers software use, doing the Internet, multimedia stuff, hardware questions, backing up files and trouble-shooting (do they go together?), and finally, running Vista in a network (a particularly important area for many of us today).

Unfortunately, there isn’t too much information on problems and fixes (maybe that warrants a special book?). For that you have to rely mostly on the various community web sites where people post questions and hopefully get useful answers or talk to a guru from your computer club. Of course, you could try Microsoft Tech Support (which costs), but you are most likely to wind up dealing with someone overseas and a difficult-to-understand accent. As an example, I had a problem with getting Internet Explorer 7 to work and the book wasn’t much help although one Web site did have a related question. That is, until I discovered with the help of my guru that my pre-installed Vista Ultimate put both 32-bit and 64-bit versions on my laptop and set the 32-bit one as default. Unfortunately, the machine is a 64-bit system! Go figure. Yes, the book mentions both versions, but didn’t say anything on what is installed by default.

Now although it is true that Vista doesn’t come with a printed manual “in the box,” it does have a big electronic Product Guide as well as a much-improved (vs. Windows XP) built-in/online Help system with illustrations and useful links that is easy to query. (The 315-page Product Guide exists in print form, but I don’t know if Microsoft offers it for sale – I did get a copy as part of the Vista promo campaign.) So, on the question of whether to buy a book, it really gets down to the question of whether (1) you’re a do-it-yourselfer and like to learn as you tinker, (2) you don’t mind reading electronic manuals, or (3) you’re an old-fashioned print-book person (like me) who favors that method of learning and inquiring.

My Bottom Line

I like the book as I have Pogue’s previous offerings. It was useful not only for navigating Vista’s capabilities, but also as a desktop reference in doing a review of Vista Ultimate. Too bad it wasn’t available when I participated in the beta test program! The book could benefit readers more, in my view, if it paid greater attention to the myriad of problems that computerists encounter with a new operating system; hopefully, when the first revision is published?

The price is reasonable at $35 list less a 35 % computer-club-member discount and free shipping. So, if you prefer print books over the electronic kind as I do, you probably will enjoy Pogue’s latest offering and find it useful in getting up-to-speed quickly and then as a handy reference. Corrections and updates, if any, can be found at www.missingmanuals.com. More information on this book can be found at the O’Reilly web site: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9780596528270/.

Finally, it should be noted that a slimed-down version, Windows Vista for Starters – The Missing Manual, also is available from Pogue-O’Reilly. At $20 a pop (less 35 %) and 400 pages, it should appeal to new computerists (at least new to Vista) who don’t want “the whole nine yards” that is provided in the regular Missing Manual.