Windows Vista for Starters by David Pogue (2007, Paperback)

This is an introductory book in the Missing Manual series. I have read many of these books on various computer topics and found them very useful. This book, however, is properly titled For Starters. If you are looking for in depth technical information on Vista, the full Missing Manual book would be a better choice, as would many others. This is half to a third as long as a typical Missing Manual book.

In my case, I have used a lot of other operating systems - DOS, Windows (1.0 though XP), Linux, Mac OS X - but knew nothing about Vista, so I was at the proper level to appreciate this book. Pogue is a very clear write. The material is well organized and broken down into bite sized chunks, and it is easy to find the information you are looking for.

There is one thing which might be a downside, depending on your point of view. Pogue is a long time Mac user who is more than willing to point out features that were copied ftom that OS (there is a very funny video of him doing this on YouTube). This shows up here as little jabs - "Microsoft isn't exactly know for making things simple" and similar comments. This doesn't bother me any, but if you are a Windows fanatic, you might be a bit put off.

My Windows Vista computer is the first computer I ever had. I knew nothing whatsoever about computers and it did not come with a manual, so I bought this manual. It helped in that it told me what the advantages were of the windows Vista program, but it didn't instruct a beginner like me on how to use it very much. In other words, it was for someone new to the program and not someone new to computers. The terminology was way above my knowledge and experience. But, I'm sure that someone who uses computers and especially in their work, would find it very useful. I did learn some things that none of my friends who helped me the most to learn the computer knew, and so I got enough out of it that I am glad I bought it.