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Two Views - One Vista
by Alan German
O'Reilly
Media, Inc. have provided the club with two reference
texts on Windows Vista. These are Windows Vista - The
Definitive Guide by William R. Stanek, and Windows Vista
- The Missing Manual by David Pogue. Neither book is a
lightweight. The Missing Manual is an inch and a half
thick, with 827 pages, while The Definitive Guide is even
bigger, being two inches thick with 922 pages. Clearly,
one review cannot do complete justice to two such weighty
tomes, so here we will just take a peek into various
sections of the two books and see how they compare.
For new Vista users, i.e. those migrating from Windows
XP, the introduction of The Missing Manual describes the
new features in Vista (with an interesting section on
"Version Hell" - the different features offered
by the various versions of Vista). In addition, the final
section of the book is entitled "Where'd It
Go?" and indicates features of XP that are no longer
available in Vista, or aren't where XP users think they
should be. For example, XP's Clipbook Viewer is no longer
available, and to remove an installed program, previously
part of "Add and remove programs" on XP's
Control Panel, you now need to look under Start
Control Panel Programs Programs and
Features.
Apart from the above, both books essentially kick off
with descriptions of how to navigate through Vista's
menus and configure various options. One of the major new
features of Vista is the Aero (glass) user interface and
both books go into considerable detail on how to
customize the look and feel of the display. Even if you
have the horsepower to run Aero, there may be specific
features that you don't particularly like, so it's good
to know that the interface is highly customizable. For
example, I used the books' instructions to turn off the
transparent window edges (Control Panel
Appearances and Personalization Personalization -
Windows Color and Appearance), and to increase the font
size (Right-click on the desktop Personalize
Adjust font size (DPI) Custom DPI). Both
books have screenshots of the controls to modify the
colour and appearance of the on-screen windows. However,
The Missing Manual seems to more readily hit the
highlights of the things I want to do. For example, a
sidebar, entitled "Frequently Asked Questions"
(FAQ), outlines"The Solution to Tiny Type",
noting that with smaller pixels on modern displays, text
can be difficult to read, and providing the means to
access the DPI scaling box.
One of the features promoted in Vista is an enhanced
search capability. Both books devote about twenty pages
to search techniques, from entering text into the Search
Box on the Start menu, to using filters in Windows
Explorer. Once again, my preference is for the
descriptions and diagrams provided by The Missing Manual
as these are laid out such that the information can be
readily assimilated. In fact, when considering advanced
search filters to look for files over a certain size,The
Definitive Guide suggests the need to use "is
greater than" while The Missing Manual indicates
that the more intuitive, and much shorter, > symbol is
valid.
In discussing Internet Explorer 7 (IE7), the version of
Microsoft's browser distributed with Vista, both books
provide the basics of things like tabbed browsing and
custom printing of web pages. But, the larger size of The
Definitive Guide allows this text to shine when it comes
to details of IE7's security settings. By default, the
browser will prevent you accessing certain sites, for
example because of pop-ups, and may even stop you from
accessing files on your local hard drive or CD's due to
included "active content". The Definitive Guide
provides lots of help in navigating through the browser's
various security levels to customize the program to work
in the way that you desire.
Now that we almost all possess digital cameras, Vista
includes Photo Gallery, a combined image management and
image editing package. Both books devote about thirty-six
pages to describing the various features of Photo Gallery
such as importing pictures from a camera; including files
in disk directories other than the default
"Pictures"; adjusting brightness, contrast and
colour levels; cropping, fixing red eye; using image
tags; and the slideshow controls. The Missing Manual, in
an FAQ sidebar, points out one of the program's
shortcomings in that Photo Gallery doesn't allow you to
drag images around to create a customized sort order, a
feature offered by many other image management programs.
One of the changes made in Vista is that Disk
Defragmenter is set to run automatically but, as The
Definitive Guide points out, the default start time is
4:00 am on Sunday morning, which may not be terribly
appropriate if your machine is normally powered off at
this time. Both books provide instructions on how to
modify the defragger's schedule, and how to run the
program manually. However, neither indicates that,
because the process is supposed to be undertaken in the
background, the program no longer provides any feedback
on its progress. Fortunately, there are free, third-party
solutions that are both fast and informative (e.g. http://opcug.ca/Reviews/auslogics.htm).
One of Vista's most contentious features is User Account
Control (UAC). This has been widely described as an
exceedingly intrusive security system, popping up
warnings and confirmation requests almost incessantly.
The Definitive Guide discusses this system in three
pages, while The Missing Manual condenses the information
into a single table. The bottom line is that the extra
security is well worth the effort. UAC only kicks in when
you try to perform an "administrative task",
such as installing new software, or trying to modify a
system file. The UAC dialogue box pops up, and the
surrounding screen is dimmed, to indicate that Vista has
entered a secure desktop mode. Pressing return, if you
are logged on as an Administrator, or entering the
Administrator's password for normal users, allows the
process to continue. In practice, such warnings are very
infrequent and little effort is required to comply with
the security requirements. Since the process is designed
to prevent rogue software from being able to load without
your direct intervention, the additional effort is well
worth it.
At the beginning of this review, I noted that The Missing
Manual contained a couple of sections (new Vista features
and Where'd It Go?) that are not present in The
Definitive Guide. Of course, the same is true in reverse.
One unique section contained in the latter book is
"Exploring the Windows Boot Environment". Many
users may not be aware that Vista now uses a boot
configuration data (BCD) store to specify how the machine
may be bootstrapped, and provides a BCD editor by which
you may manage the boot process. Well, that is if you can
deal with contents such as "default
{d7909ee9-7166-11dd-9349-98516989298b}" . Obviously,
this is not a system for the faint hearted!
But, if you are so inclined, you will be pleased to learn
that The Definitive Guide devotes fourteen pages to the
intricacies of BCD.
In general, both books contain very similar information,
covering the same major topics, with lots of details, as
might be expected in books of several hundred pages. My
preference is for The Missing Manual. I like the many
sidebar items that provide insights into various
features, tips on how to efficiently use the operating
system, and general information about different aspects
of computers and computing. In particular, I think that
the figures are sharper and better defined in this book,
which makes it much easier to assimilate the information
being provided. Anyway, that's my view!
Bottom Line:
Windows Vista: The Definitive Guide
Book US $ 49.99, PDF US $39.99
William R. Stanek
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
February2007
ISBN 10: 0-596-52800-0 | ISBN 13:9780596528003
http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596528003
Windows Vista: The Missing Manual
Book US $ 34.99, PDF US $27.99
David Pogue
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
December 2006
ISBN 10: 0-596-52827-2 | ISBN 13:9780596528270
http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596528270
Originally published: October, 2008
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