Title: Windows 7 For Dummies
Author: Andy Rathbone
Publisher: Wiley
ISBN: 978-0-470-49743-2
“Chances are good that you've heard about Windows. Its been around for more than 20 years.”
That's a pretty safe bet. Anyone of at least grade school age has heard of Windows, whether they use a computer or not.
This book maintains the Dummies™ method of explaining concepts with a conversational rather than educational style. Although the book does not give any indication of the target reading audience, it is geared toward the beginner, or possibly advanced beginner, level. Twenty year veterans of the Windows wars will not get much from this book that they could not figure out on their own.
A nice feature of this book are two special icons that appear in the left margin. The New in Windows 7 icon highlights those items which are new and/or changed from Windows Vista. The XP icon highlights the items that are significantly from Windows XP. A Vista user could skim through the book relatively quickly. It would take an XP user longer because XP is so unlike either Vista or Windows 7.
The book is organized in 22 chapters plus an appendix.
- What is Windows 7
- The Desktop, Start Menu, Taskbar, Gadgets, and Other Windows 7 Mysteries
- Basic Windows Mechanics
- Flipping Through Files, Folders, Flash Drives, Libraries, and CDs
- Playing with Programs and Documents
- Briefly Lost, but Quickly Found
- Printing Your Work
- Cruising the Web
- Sending and Receiving E-Mail
- Safe Computing
- Customizing Windows with the Control Panel
- Keeping Windows from Breaking
- Sharing One Computer with Several People
- Connecting Computers with a Network
- Playing and Copying Music in Media Player
- Fiddling with Photos and Movies
- The Case of the Broken Window
- Strange Messages: What You Did Does Not Compute
- Moving from an Old Computer to a New Windows 7 PC
- Help on the Windows 7 Help System
- Ten or so Things You Hate About Windows 7 (and How to Fix Them)
- Ten or So Tips for Laptop Owners
- Appendix A: Upgrading to Windows 7
The chapter on networking contains twenty-eight pages of step-by-step instructions on how to setup both a wired and wireless home network, including how to network XP and Vista machines with Windows 7. Reading this chapter will not give someone the skills to become a network administrator for a corporation, but a home user that has never setup a network would find this chapter informative.
The internet chapter is written for a reader that has never used the internet. It covers topics such as: what is the internet, browsers, favorites, history, clicking links, internet service providers (ISPs), et cetera. Likewise, the email chapter would not be of much interest to anyone that has experience with an email program. This chapter only discusses the capabilities of Windows Live Mail, part of Microsoft's Windows Live Essentials.
The Safe Computing chapter is split basically in half: how to keep your computer secure and how to safely browse the internet. The computer half discusses Windows' User Account Control (UAC), Windows Update, firewalls, spy-ware, virus protection, and hard drive encryption. Internet safety covers Internet Explorer's security zones, SmartScreen filter, phishing scams, pop-up blockers, and parental controls.
As the introduction to the book states,
“Instead of becoming a Windows 7 expert, you'll know just enough to get by quickly, cleanly, and with a minimum of pain so that you can move on to the more pleasant things of life.”
You may purchase this book from Amazon
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