Get a FREE fully-working copy of Steganos Security Suite 7 (worth £49.99) when you sign up to the Practical PC Newsletter. Review: Windows Vista Beyond The Manual
Iain Laskey says this book on Vista is a good starting point in learning the deeper stuff.
| Product | Windows Vista Beyond The Manual |
|---|---|
| Company | Apress |
| Web | www.apress.com |
| Price | £27.99 |
| We like | Security tips, easy reading style |
| We don't like | Greater depth of coverage needed. |
| Rating | 9/10 |
| Requirements |
After the initial rash of Vista books that tried to give a flavour of everything but often lacked more in depth material, we are now starting to see books that are starting to specialise and expand upon the initial levels of coverage. Windows Vista Beyond the Manual is still fairly general but is a step beyond most of the other manuals inasmuch as it focuses on some key areas in a little more depth.
We've not come across Apress's Beyond The Manual series before so were interested to see how this one fared. The series is aimed at experienced computer users who want to go a bit deeper into Vista and much of the content is suitable for those looking at it from a more professional angle, perhaps from the support or installation perspective. The authors, Jonathan Hassell and Tony Campbell have many years of experience with some specialisations in security, networking and disaster recovery so should have some useful gems to pass on.
The first couple of chapters are fairly throwaway - hardware requirements and a Vista overview. Chapter 3 is where things get much more interesting and covers installation and set up. Of particular note here is some discussion on the various licensing and upgrade options before delving in to automated deployment and configuration using various Microsoft tools such as WinPE and ImageX.
Chapter 5 covers customisation and gets down and dirty with the registry and touches on issues like local policy versus domain policy although we felt this was more of a indication of options than anything really useful.
Slightly more useful was the chapter on Vista's command line options although again, this was more of a taster. We were also pleased to see a chapter on BitLocker which is effectively a sector level encryption of your drive's contents. This feature only appears in the more expensive Vista variants so often gets missed in other books.
Other chapters cover IE7, Windows Mail, Wireless networking, TCP/IP, Media Player & Movie Maker. Each gets a page or two per feature making them feel somewhat lightweight although they are generous with screen shots making it all very easy to follow.
The last few chapters are all security related - Windows Firewall, Windows Defender and general Vista security. Of these, by far the best was a chapter covering six steps to better security. This goes beyond the facilities offered by Vista and is more about the mindset you need to adopt to stay in control of your PC and its data. The book finishes off with troubleshooting and recovery options.
This is a difficult book to sum up. The writing style is very good with clear and concise prose that is mercifully free of fluff. Windows Vista Beyond The Manual also manages to cover some important areas in more depth than other titles and focuses on key areas such as security. However, at the end of almost every chapter we were left with questions - What if? Why does it work that way? As such, the book is very good at making you aware of features but never provides quite enough information to use any of them in anything other than their most basic ways.
If you're an experienced Windows user and are happy treating this book as a starting point on your Vista journey, it's a worthwhile purchase. It's an easy read and will give you plenty of 'Interesting, I want to know more about that' moments. However, be prepared to do further research yourself in most cases, either online or in Vista books.
