Windows 7: The Missing Manual 222
r3lody writes "It took me a little while after Windows 7 became available before I gave up my Windows XP desktop and purchased a new laptop with Windows 7 Home Premium pre-loaded. Like those who endured the change to Windows Vista, I found myself floundering around a little trying to figure out all of the new bells and whistles Microsoft had added to its operating system. Windows 7: The Missing Manual by David Pogue is meant to address the needs of people like me. The book, while readable by beginners, is written for users with some acquaintance with Windows. Advanced users will find the book too simplistic, but users up to the intermediate level will find it a handy reference to the new features in all of the flavors of Windows 7." Keep reading for the rest of r3lody's review.
Writing for the multiple levels of Windows 7 is handled by including a little sub-heading "cheat sheet" after each major heading. Most will have "All Versions", but you may see a subset like "Home Premium ? Professional ? Enterprise ? Ultimate". Handling multiple levels of users is a little more difficult. The book is written for advanced beginners to intermediate users, but beginners to Windows have "Up to Speed" sidebars added to help them understand concepts regular Windows users already know. More advanced users have "Power User's Clinic" sidebars to provide additional information.
| Windows 7: The Missing Manual | |
| author | David pogue |
| pages | 904 |
| publisher | Pogue Press |
| rating | 8/10 |
| reviewer | r3lody |
| ISBN | 0596806396 |
| summary | This book illuminates its subject with reader-friendly insight, plenty of wit, and hardnosed objectivity for beginners as well as veteran PC users. |
Windows 7: the missing manual is organized into 8 parts, comprising 27 chapters and 4 appendices.
After an introductory section describing the book's layout, Part One deals with the Windows 7 desktop. Comprised of 5 chapters, Part One gives the basics of manipulating windows, programs, and files. Chapter 1 describes the Start menu, jump lists (frequently used documents) and the Run command. Next comes Explorer, the Taskbar, and general window controls. Most of chapter 2 is devoted to the eye candy provided by Aero. The third chapter discussing searching and organizing files follows that, with a good discussion of the much-improved Windows Search. Chapter 4 covers personalization (wallpaper, color and sound themes, screensavers and desktop icons), and the last chapter of part 1 explains the ways you can get help (Microsoft's Help system, Remote Assistance, and getting help from Microsoft).
Part Two uses 3 chapters to cover Windows 7 Software. After talking about opening and closing programs, opening and closing documents, and dialog boxes, David Pogue explains how to install and uninstall software, as well as handling compatibility issues. Speech recognition and gadgets got thrown into this chapter, but seem a little out of place. The next chapter discusses various freebie applications supplied with Windows 7, and those available as part of Windows Live Essentials. Most of those are explained in sufficient detail to use, but a few are deferred to later chapters. This part is closed out with rather brief coverage of Control Panel.
The next 5 chapters comprise Part Three, which is devoted to Windows 7 Online. After chapter 9 explains how to get hooked up to the Internet, chapter 10 is dedicated to Internet security. Microsoft Security Essentials, the Action Center, as well as Windows Firewall and Windows Defender are all covered, along with methods of protecting your privacy while you surf. This all leads into the grand tour of Internet Explorer 8, which is talked about in detail in chapter 11. The last two chapters go over Windows Live Mail and Windows Live Services.
Part Four is the media-centric portion of the book. David broke the discussion into three broad chapters: Windows Live Photo Gallery, Windows Media Player, and Windows Media Center. Windows Live Photo Gallery is Microsoft's challenger to Google's Picasa. While Picasa is more mature, Photo Gallery is not shabby by any means, and chapter 14 gives excellent explanations on how to get the most from the program. The next chapter goes over Windows Media Player, which has been around for a long time. There have been some minor changes to it, including streaming media to other computers and handling of more types of audio and video files. Windows Media Center was originally designed for the Media Center Edition PC, but is now available for any version of Windows 7 from Home Premium on up. You get a lot of information on how to set it up and use it for all sorts of media. You'll also find out how to use your PC as a DVR (assuming you have a TV tuner card or USB tuner).
The next part is all about hardware and peripherals. First printing, then Windows Fax and Scan, and finally general device handling are each given their due. The third and final chapter of Part Five covers laptops, tablets, and touchscreen computers, and their special capabilities and limitations.
One thing all computer users need to handle are the inevitable problems. Part Six covers various maintenance and trouble-shooting topics across three chapters. First, general maintenance and speed tweaks, followed by an in-depth discussion of disks, compression and encryption, and finally a chapter on backup, restore and trouble-shooting. All have just enough information to be useful, and not too much to absorb.
The last main part covers networking and homegroups. Windows is the most useful when it's part of a network, and Part Seven explains how to connect it and use it. After discussing setting up accounts, workgroups and domains have their own chapters, so home and office users can focus on what they need. This part ends with chapters on sharing files and remote control (including VPNs and Remote Desktop).
There is a set of 4 appendices that comprise Part Eight. Included are how to install and upgrade to Windows 7, how to use Regedit, and my favorite two chapters – Where'd It Go?, and the Master Keyboard Shortcut List.
Overall, the book does assume you've at least seen a previous version of Windows, as a lot of text explains how Windows 7 is different. I personally would have preferred the author keep the focus on Windows 7 and less on the differences from prior versions. There are a lot of attempts at humor. On the plus side, it keeps the tone of this fairly large book accessible to the novice to intermediate user. On the minus side, the occasional joke usually seems out of place.
I found Windows 7: the missing manual a valuable reference to the many offerings in Microsoft's latest incarnation of Windows. While the writing style varies from simple reference to the occasional attempt at light-hearted guidance, it is a comprehensive, informative and (most importantly) useful manual of the ins and outs of using Windows 7 in all its flavors.
You can purchase Windows 7: The Missing Manual from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
This is just what I need. (Score:5, Funny)
It will accompany my copy of "Windows 7, the missing operating system" nicely.
Re:This is just what I need. (Score:5, Insightful)
Or my netbook's copy of "Windows 7 starter edition, most of which is missing" operating system.
It's a damned shame that books like this are needed. Too bad "help" is so fuXXored.
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It's a damned shame that books like this are needed. Too bad "help" is so fuXXored.
Video games build the tutorial into the game with speech, motion, graphics, the works. I never understood why this sort of thing isn't baked into productivity software or operating systems. I'm guessing it's not worth the effort when that sort of thing would just be another cost for the developers and customers who want that sort of thing are already paying money for someone else to write dead tree manuals.
Re:This is just what I need. (Score:4, Funny)
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Clippit...there I said he name....now his fellow Help Assistant Death Eaters will find me: "I see you are composing a Slashdot post, do you need some help with that."
Noooooo.
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There's a much better version:
A guy is lost, floating in a hot air balloon. He sees someone on the ground and yells out, "hey, do you know where I am?"
The man on the ground responds, "yes, you're about 40 feet off the ground, riding a hot air balloon."
The ballooner responds, "you must be in IT."
"Why yes, I am. How did you know?"
"Well, the information you gave me is technically correct, but useless, and now I'm lost in a hot air balloon."
The man on the ground says, "oh, that's too bad. You must be in mana
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Coming from an avid Linux advocate I agree, Linux "help files" are sorely lacking. I submit though that "Linux Help" is much more available than what you might think.
There are also tons of free publications out there of high quality i.e.: Full Circle Mag (Ubuntu Centric) http://fullcirclemagazine.org/ [fullcirclemagazine.org] ; PCLinuxOS has their own magazine http://pclosmag.com/ [pclosmag.com] ; there is the Ubuntu Pocket Guide if you are so inclined www.ubuntupocketguide.com/
If you dig a bit you will get the Ubuntu user guide and a google sear
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Does it tell you how to solve the "700MB per 6 hours" speed limit win7 suffers when trying to copy files across a wireless network?
Probably because there isn't one. While the first thing I did after buying a Windows-7 laptop was to configure it to dual-boot into Linux for anything other than games, I've had no problems with wireless performance, including downloading tens of gigabytes of games from Steam.
That's not to say that you couldn't have a crappy driver or some misconfiguration, but there's no such fundamental limit in the OS.
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I convinced her to ditch windows for Linux
Now her wireless card doesn't work at all. Problem solved!
Strangely enough, I transfer large amounts of files wirelessly all the time at work on several Windows 7 machines. never seen the problem you are referring to. maybe it is your setup, and not Windows.
Re:This is just what I need. (Score:4, Informative)
Now her wireless card doesn't work at all. Problem solved!
I've seen plenty of hardware stop working after upgrading from one version of Windows to another. In the recent past, I've had a scanner and a graphics card that didn't have Windows 7 drivers and the lady just had me put XP back on the box.
Linux may not work with everything but, when it does, it tends to work very well and continue to work. The only real problems are with hardware that just flat has to be reverse engineered to even work at all. If the manufacturer won't make a driver and won't release the specs, what are you going to do? Imagine the reverse, what if hardware just wasn't released with a Windows driver? Is that Windows' or Microsoft's fault?
I'll sum this up with a couple of anecdotes. I have some hardware on my desktop that work much better under Linux. The USB720 wireless data card that I got from Verizon, for example, was a mess under Windows. 30 or more seconds to connect, shutting itself down after 2 hours or so requiring me to pull it out and reinsert it. Hideous and clunky software that came with it. On Ubuntu 10.04, it works flawlessly. Connects in less than 5 seconds, integrated perfectly with the network manager, never randomly shuts itself off. Also, my PVR350 USB TV tuner. Runs like crap in Windows, in Linux, it works perfectly. Very little CPU usage, no tearing, easy to record, etc. So, there really are 2 sides to the hardware Windows/Linux coin. than Windows.
It's not... (Score:2, Funny)
Jokes aside, I'm pleased with Windows 7. Granted, I only use it for games (I dual-boot Ubuntu and Windows 7).
not to be an asshole... (Score:2, Insightful)
but windows just isn't that hard to use.
Maybe if you're from a 3rd world country and this is your first exposure to a microsoft product, I'd understand... or maybe if it was 1996 and you're finally purchasing your first PC, but I don't think there are too many people left in developed countries who've reached adulthood who have escaped using some version of windows at least occasionally.
And if there is anybody who has somehow managed to do the task of never having worked with windows... I doubt it going loo
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Agreed, it isn't hard to use at all for anyone with any real exposure to the OS.
But...if you really want to UNDERSTAND why things are the way they are, then manuals like these are very good for the noob to intermediate level person.
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Not only that, but books like this are good for pointing out useful things that otherwise would be hard to find out about just from using it. The Windows-key shortcuts are a good example, I don't know how many years I was using XP before I found out about various shortcuts that could save me several seconds of using the mouse.
Re:not to be an asshole... (Score:4, Insightful)
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That's not even to mention that there are a thousand and one "windows tips and tricks!" websites out there to tell you things.
Now, I had a "dos for dummies" book, and I found certain things highly helpful... but that was also 1992. Things were a bit different then.
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But you don't need a book to learn the keyboard shortcuts of your operating system.
Like I pointed out, it was just an example. I'm sure that Windows 7 includes several new tools and utilities that one wouldn't run across with normal usage, but would still be helpful to know about.
Not only are they probably explained in the user interface
Not that I'm aware of, I don't know where I would see a tooltip to indicate that I can press Windows-E to open Explorer, or Windows-R to open the Run dialog, or Windows-M to minimize/restore all applications.
they're also listed in the manual that came with the OS and placed in the support section on the developer's website
Like most other users, I assume, I only check the manual or support website when I'm having a problem. I
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I totally understand you don't look in manuals or support documents when you're not having problems. I guess that's true for most people. But what I don't understand, is that you would spend your money on a book such as this, instead of just looking for exactly the same information available from botht the supplier or your software, or various other sources on the web.
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People who have shit to do.
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Re:not to be an asshole... (Score:4, Informative)
Hate to break it to you, but MS products have done the same thing for ages. Except the menuless "ribbon" in Office, which uses tooltips instead.
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No, you aren't "breaking" anything to me. The inconsistency in the Windows environment is well-known. One app will have "Ctrl + S" in the menu, yet another will use an underlined letter in a word under a menu list without listing the modifier key.
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So I've discovered....15 years late evidently.
Re:not to be an asshole... (Score:5, Informative)
Your complaints are invalid and stem entirely from your unwillingness to make the slightest effort to understand how the system works.
In most Windows programs with a menu bar, there are two ways to use keyboard commands. One way uses CTRL as a modifier and does not involve the menus at all, though they are discoverable through the menu by using the tooltips. E.g., CTRL+S to save, CTRL+O to open. If you don't know or can't be bothered to remember these keyboard commands, you can alternately navigate the menu system by pressing the ALT key. Pressing ALT underlines the letters in the menu options to press to activate that menu option, so if you can't remember CTRL+O to open a file, you can press ALT, then F to activate the file menu, then O to select the open option. And incidentally, the CTRL keys are unchanged in Office 2007, the tool tips still tell you the CTRL keys, and pressing ALT still causes key commands to appear on the ribbon options, so if you've ever used keyboard shortcuts in office ever, they still work basically the same way.
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Your complaints are invalid and stem entirely from your unwillingness to make the slightest effort to understand how the system works.
No they are not. I'm a tech writer and the Microsoft tech writing manual is my lifeline. I know how the stuff is SUPPOSED to work. It is not for lack of effort on my part that the WinOS keyshortcuts are horribly documented and not intuitive.
One way uses CTRL as a modifier and does not involve the menus at all, though they are discoverable through the menu by using the tooltips.
I no longer have old Office versions so I can't verify, but I don't remember a tooltip for Office 2003. Keyboard shortcuts are defined nicely in 2007, but unless you KNOW to hover and wait, you might never discover this feature.
E.g., CTRL+S to save, CTRL+O to open. If you don't know or can't be bothered to remember these keyboard commands, you can alternately navigate the menu system by pressing the ALT key.
And therein lies the problem..multiple way
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Wait, what? I didn't get a manual with Win7 (came bundled with my computer).
Start ->Help.
Windows keyboard shortcuts are an abomination, mostly because they are not defined anywhere, or they aren't very logical. Alt+F4? Huh? What's wrong with something like Alt+Q for quit?
Alt+F4 is a hangover from Windows _3.1_ (more accurately, OS/2). It still works in modern Windows, for legacy reasons, but it's not the "standard".
At least that way a user can GUESS what a shortcut might be. But then you run into
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Not only that, but books like this are good for pointing out useful things that otherwise would be hard to find out about just from using it.
Hence the "Missing Manual" part of the title. Pogue has made a career off of this technique. I, for one, am a fan.
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Re:not to be an asshole... (Score:5, Interesting)
I've heard this several times from tech friends who 'support' clueless users in one way or another: the common user is actually getting significantly more use out of W7 than they did with 8 years of XP. They're frequently saying "ah, I always wondered how to do that!"
Ironically, from what I've heard, one of the biggest boons allowing this to happen is the contextual run/search bar. People find out what it can do and they use it - for everything. Sure, it's similar to Spotlight and Beagle and a dozen other things that came before it - so what? It works, and the way it's built into the system, it works well. (The irony comes from the fact that the 'click-it-it's-easy-to-use Windows GUI' gets actual functionality from a CLI interface that invariably leads to increased productivity.)
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I haven't switched to Win7 yet, but the computer I've barely started buying parts for will have it. The context menu impressed me from the standpoint of lowering the barrier to accomplishing frequently used tasks. The fact that the taskbar defaults to unlabeled icons, however, I find bizarre, and I'm sure I'll change that the first day. I find it as bizarre as XP's default of hiding the status bar from the user in Windows Explorer. The Win7 Windows Explorer I find utterly godawful, but that won't affect
Re:not to be an asshole... (Score:4, Informative)
You get used to the text-less icons pretty quickly. Particularly since most of the modern apps use high-resolution icons and are quite visible at the default icon size. Visually the Word, Explorer, IE/Chrome/Firefox buttons are all immediately identifiable, in a way that text just isn't.
Also, since you can order the buttons, and pin them, you essentially get Win-1 through Win-9 or so to launch/access them. Adding shift to make it Shift-Win-1 will launch a new copy. Alt-Win-1 launches the context menu. It becomes far more quick to use, and can become muscle memory reasonably quickly.
Beats the pants off the quick-launch bar that any app could poison with its own icons during install for. That kind of stuff used to piss me off.
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Maybe you should have tried clicking on the icon and the popup instead? Why did you wait? :P
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I have to agree, if anything Windows 7 is easier than any MSFT OS that came before it.
Not networking. That high-level "helper" interface they've interposed between the user and the network details? It's meaningless...I still haven't figured out why I would want to make an interface "public" or "private." Not to mention it now takes 3 or 4 properly placed mouse clicks to get to the network setup dialog. I'm sure there's a direct route, but if there is, I've yet to find it.
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They're firewall rules.
At home, i use "Home", and my homegroup stuff is immediately visible. At work, it gets automatically assigned "Work/Domain" by group policy. At a wifi hotspot, i use "Public" and none of my filesharing stuff is visible. Works great on a laptop. Less useful on a desktop, of course, but then you only have to click "Home" once and things tend to just work.
Out of Curiosity, what kind of "Network Setup" are we talking? IP/DNS assignment? Or something else? I could see you needing to select
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I do. And so does anybody else who needs their Windows box to accept outside connections.
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Uh. Not me? Static assignment via DHCP. Not all routers support that kind of thing, but many certainly do.
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You say that because you are experienced in setting up a network in WinOS. For somebody who has never configured their cable modem and wireless router, this sort of interface is better. It's still not as good as the OSX network setup "wizard" (shudder...I hate that term, based on how bad MS wizards have been in the past), but it is far better than anything they've tried in the past with new users and networking.
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While Vista was crap, and XP took until SP2 to get really usable
The "Vista is crap" mentality that still pervades is rather baffling to me. Especially in the context of interface and ease of use. Vista is just as easy to use as Win7. The only real interface difference is the updated taskbar to be more like the dock. The "start" menu, control panel, and keyboard shortcuts are all basically the same as Vista. To say one is crap while another is near perfection seems rather silly and ignorant.
As for XP, other than the security center, firewall, and wireless interfaces ther
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The "Vista is crap" mentality that still pervades is rather baffling to me.
What's more entertaining is the people who rail on Vista being crap, praise Windows 7 for being "best evar", then turn around and call Windows 7 "Vista SP1".
There's some pretty serious mental gymnastics going on there. :)
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I Am Reminded Of One Of My Favorite Titles... (Score:2)
"AOL for Dummies."
When I first saw that on a shelf at B&N, I seriously thought it was a parody from The Onion.
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On the contrary, it seems to me to be very appropriate. Who else would want to use AOL?
Libraries (Score:3, Insightful)
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Trust me, libraries are one of those new features that if you just use them for a little while you'll start to wonder how you did without them.
This same revelation happened to me when I bought OSX back in the early 2000s. I know MS critics will just blame them for yet another copy of OSX, but if it makes Win7 better, then why not?
The problem is, many hard core XP types have learned the XP way and this new (well, old) paradigm is really foreign to them. I'm going to guess most people who are used to their old way won't bother learning the new, even if the new could be argued to be "better".
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Soft links are working transparent to every application, so I can use file managers or other applications. If I need to backup I just copy it over or I use tools like rsync.
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I just use folder shortcuts in XP. Works the same way, and takes the same amount of effort (just right-click drag and drop) but without taking up my valuable top-level directory view space in the file browser.
If they made a version of Win7 with the Win7 internals with the XP interface, I'd buy it in a second. Until then, I'll stick with XP. I hate breadcrumbs, the file browser, the taskbar (unless I have a lot of windows open, it's just costing me an extra click and hunt every time I switch windows), and th
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Is it me, or are the libraries in Windows 7 stupid?
I wouldn't say you are stupid...
However, once you 'grasp' the basic concept of the libraries and don't overthink them they are a handy feature, especially for the average home/office user.
Vista had featurs likes the Libraries, they were not something MS set up for the users. They are a variation of a 'Saved Search' or 'Search Folder' except they just return the contents of 'locations' based on the type you specify.
You can make your own libraries for things like Books, Presentations, etc.
You can also do li
Wait, what? (Score:3, Insightful)
People keep saying they don't want to switch to Mac OS X or Linux because they don't want to re-learn how to use their computer... But simply changing the Windows version is enough to warrant an article on a nerd website about a manual about Windows 7?
I'm betting some people would find the switch from Windows XP to either Mac OS X or any Linux distro to be easier than switching to Windows 7.
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Protip #1 for 7 Starter (Score:2, Interesting)
Additionally, while I'm a die-hard 2K and even kind-of XP supporter, I'm really not unhappy with Windows 7, now that I've had a chance to try it. 7 or 8 security/notifications to shut off, and I haven't had a problem with it for 2 months. I'm impressed. Only the 1 year mark will tell.
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Has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?
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My sig has an attempt at humor and irony about it, note that the link is to the FreeBSD handbook. It's kind of like, "FreeBSD Just Works for me -- now that I've RTFA!" Yes, I know -- very obscure humor, not likely to be appreciated by most people, etc. It's ok, I'm used to that sort of thing.
Thanks for being good-natured about my ribbing, BTW.
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See, I tried at least 6 different flavors.
That's a shame you're having such a hard time with your Linux VM's. Maybe if you went here [vmware.com] first and just downloaded Ubuntu or something that's already ready to go, you could get started on the right foot.
I find it interesting that I mirror your problems except in the reverse. I've had very positive experiences with Linux (primarily Debian and Ubuntu) and not so great experiences with Win7 vm's. I first tried 7 in vmware on a machine with an e8400 c2d and 1 GB of RAM allocated to the virtual machine b
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When I said "mission critical" I mean stuff that makes me money.
I'm right there with you. Mappoint and a certain business critical all-in-one invoicing, pricing, follow-up, you name it app precluded me from using Linux for a long time. Then I just got to thinking about it one day and said, screw this, I'm going to make this Linux thing happen one way or the other. Not saying it's necessarily that easy, because it isn't but it gets me to this other thing.
I happily, after getting all hardware and logistical issues sorted out, used Windows 2000 in a vm for a long time
Undoubtably... (Score:2)
Windows 7 is best when connected to a network, which makes it so puzzling why so many of its networking features only work with other Windows 7 machines.
I also like the fact this book explains regedit. That's one program that's seen a lot of change over the years.
Bells and Whistles? (Score:3, Informative)
As I decided to change my work PC over to 7 last week I can testify. I had superficially played with vista and 7 up until now, but it is a different thing when your main machine moves completely. For example, in W7 MS have inexplicably removed the ability for auto arrange on files to be turned off in explorer - they now always "spring" to the grid - an annoying change. While day to day I didn't use this, it was used in xp now and then in sorting out a large folder full of files, as it is much more intuitive to spatially sort. Gone from W7, and no hack to get it back.
The picture viewer is also crap now, slow, with a initially loaded blurred preview, then 1/2 a second later the real preview loads. Also when you zoom in it doesn't interpolate as it did in xp, just pixellates.
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I was just doing a quick browse to find some moaning threads about it to show you when I discovered this:
http://www.winhelponline.com/blog/disable-full-row-select-explorer-windows-7/ [winhelponline.com]
an apparent hack to fix it which I didn't find last week despite hal
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P.S. it is not "align to grid", in XP that is unticked and yet if you try to drag files around you can't move them away from their siblings, only rearrange the stack. Untick "auto-arrange" and magically I can drag files wherever I like, creating whatever distributions I want, even having them virtually all on-top
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Shell context menu for folder you are in? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not using 7even (or Fista), but I do "have" a 2008 Server that I often RD into, and the one thing that irritates me incredibly (even more than UAC) is that I have no idea how to pop up the shell context menu for the folder I'm currently in.
In XP and earlier Windows, you'd just right-click on the folder icon on the top left of the window.
In Fista and above, that just pops up the standard useless menu with move/restore/minimize/maximize, just as when you right-click on the title bar.
Google is not helpful at all. The best I could get is an addition of "Open command prompt here" through shift+rightclick, but that's not what I want.
Please help me out here if you've figured it out... I often use that context menu to fire up 7-zip, or grep, or a duplicate copy of Win Explorer, or other things, and every time I have to do something on that server, I want to scream.
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Wow. I can honestly say I've never used that functionality and to be honest I don't even think I knew it was there.
I will try and use it and report back.
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Just right-clicking into the blank space of the folder you're in will give you the context menu for that folder.
Yes, it will, but it won't have the shell items that I need. That context menu is completely useless.
Right-click on a folder and notice what items the context menu has... Then right-click on an empty space inside the window and compare. They aren't even similar.
(And whoever modded my parent post troll - please die in a fire. Thanks.)
I'll install Windows 7... (Score:2)
I'll install Windows 7 when IT pries Windows 98SE from m'cold dead fingers!
Just kidding - send help, IT is in love with XP.
I've never really seen the appeal of these (Score:2)
"missing manual" books. They all seem far too shallow for even basic users, and insufficiently technical for advanced users. Maybe the two I've browsed through were just bad examples of the series. I'm not pre-disposed to dislike the idea; at least unlike the "Dummies" and "Complete Idiot's Guide" books, they're not blatantly insulting the intelligence of the novice user.
I ran a comparison (Score:3, Informative)
Interface wise Win7 is a lot better than XP in *some* areas, but is seriously beginning to trail behind popular Linux distros. I did a comparison of Win7, Ubuntu, PCLOS, Linux Mint, Kubuntu with 6 everyday tasks and found it wanting a bit.
(Warning shameless blog punt ahead, proceed with caution...)
http://g33q.co.za/2010/06/01/usability-comparison-five-pc-operating-systems-compared/ [g33q.co.za]
Given it's performance I think a book such as this will help out some users. I often buy books like these for the techs in our office to help them out, I use Ubuntu full-time myself since I am more involved with the servers atm, but given some confusing task layouts like checking connection info (in XP it used to be three clicks of a mouse, not it is a road-trip) it helps having something to refer to handy.
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Interface wise Win7 is a lot better than XP in *some* areas, but is seriously beginning to trail behind popular Linux distros. I did a comparison of Win7, Ubuntu, PCLOS, Linux Mint, Kubuntu with 6 everyday tasks and found it wanting a bit.
None of your tasks seem to be day to day events, and therefore worth being worried about when they take an extra click or two...
(To say nothing of the relevance of scoring by number of mouse clicks...)
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I think it has a lot to do with the layers between the user and what the user needs to do. One way of measuring the layers are the amount of clicks (steps) are needed to do a simple task.
Hence I believe my method is valid.
Ease of functionality is also important, hence if you read my follow on post you will see that I am going to include that as well.
Seriously win 2000/XP (Score:2)
Win7 vs... (Score:2)
When Win7 came out, to much praise, I sat down at home and did some thorough tests. I am a developer who uses some resource-intensive applications for 3D visualization, physics simulations and graphic design. Currently my OS of choice is XP 64-bit.
When I compared the two however, while Win 7 stood out as being superficially faster through caching everything and *appearing* to boot your OS and your applications in a split second, prolonged use of these applications under this OS just ground to a snails pac
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Maybe it just means Microsoft hasn't decided to optimize for your extraordinarily rare use-case. The caching changes you mention benefit the vast majority of Windows users.
While WinXP64 didn't boot as fast or launch applications as quickly, it never crashed (Win7 crashed multiple times),
If you literally mean Windows crashed (and not your application), then that is one of two things:
1) You have faulty hardware (perhaps overheating if it only happens after a long run?)
2) You have a faulty driver
Windows 7 is r
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Win7 has a whole new kernel over Vista. Not even close to the same.
Both Vista and 7 share the same higher level API, which is why drivers/etc are compatible, but 7handles memory better. 7 also has fewer locks, so it scales better with multi-IO and CPUs. 7 does have more overhead, but the overhead is mostly a fixed cost. It might run slower than XP/Vista in a few areas, but why care about running fast on single/dual cores with 8/16 cores coming out soon.
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No it doesn't. Non-trivial improvements - certainly. Completely new ? Not even close.
Missing Inaction (Score:2)
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I think you are misunderstanding how the MS software design process works.
I can put it in geek terms for you:
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Who needs a manual?? (Score:2)
If you need a manual for Windows (pretty much any version), you’re offically mentally disabled.
It may be that what disables you, is being used to Windows’s way too much dumbed-down interfaces (Clippy would be proud), though.
But sorry, if you can’t handle Windows 7, then maybe you should try switching your brain to ON for a change. ^^ ;)
(Yes, I know that that won’t help in understanding Windows, as people would instantly switch to Linux.
Too old-fashioned, I have one for iPad (Score:2)
It's called: iPad, the Missing Fingers.
Short Version (Score:2)
(1) Insert DVD in appropriate drive (no, the other one).
(2) If this is an upgrade edition, make sure you have an official upgrade license with Abraham Lincoln's original signature.
(3) Follow instructions on screen. If there is no screen, contact your hardware vendor.
(4) Don't call us, we'll call you.
(5) Send more money.
OMG! He's right, it IS missing!!! (Score:3, Funny)
user@computer:~$ man windows7
No manual entry for windows7
Oh No!
Industry users (Score:2)
This book seems to address the exact problem we have. From our perspective, Win7 is a bringer of pain. Developers seem to not realise any change to a UI can have dire and far reaching c
bleh (Score:3, Funny)
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I haven't ran across step 9 yet or for that matter step 5.
I tend to do step 4 prior to the install so its ready for when I do connect to the net then I do step 2.
I also don't go to the extend you do on step 4 considering that malware and spyware are the same damn thing and tend to be incorporated into the anti-virus now.
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Agreed. The past 20 years of obligatory Microsoft jokes are seemingly dying out.
However, my Win7 does not wake up consistently, which requires a reboot. But other than that, in four months, I have not had one crash or hangup from an app.
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Agreed. Win7 was remarkably stable even in the beta/RC period. My main problems came from the video drivers (I'm looking at you ATI, and at you to a lesser extent, NVidia). Fortunately, neither of these are instant-kill for the most part (Except ATI, I've had a few moments where video has been permanently hosed, but fortunately, the pwoer button still triggered a normal "turn off" process)
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What Slashdot were you reading?
Although it is true that the article is a lot more likely now to be positive towards Microsoft (or at least neutral) than previously, when it would never be posted unless it contained at least one accusation of baby-eating.
As an old school Mac OS user, I think the most amazing thing was how thoroughly Slashdot ignored Mac until OS X came out. Hell, I bet the Amiga got more stories during that era.
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Only a couple of years ago /. would never allow anything with "Windows" in the article title on a front page. Either times have changed, or /.
Say what ? Slashdot has fairly consistently had at least one "Windows sucks" article a week for over a decade now.
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Informative)
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I also heard that he posts on /. under the UID "dingen" :-P
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