SuperSite Blog : Book: Windows Vista Secrets

Fourth ‘Windows Vista Secrets SP1 Edition’ give-away is over

pthurrott — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 18:40:13 GMT

Thanks to the several hundred people who participated in my fourth give-away for my latest book, Windows Vista Secrets SP1 Edition. I’ve already notified the winners, so if you haven’t received an email from me, sorry, but there’s always next time. I will have the next give-away before the end of November and, no, international folks, I haven’t forgotten you. The winners names are available on the give-away page.

Windows Vista SP1 Secrets Give-Away Update

pthurrott — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 01:18:45 GMT

Just a quick update on the book give-away. It's going slower than I had hoped, but now the books are all signed and ready to roll, so my wife will be handling the shipping over the next few days while I’m away. I'm not sure yet how we're going to ship them, but if it's inexpensive enough, we'll shoot for first class. Otherwise, they may have to go out book rate, which will take a bit longer. (I think they literally use a horse to deliver them.)

Also, Wiley tells me that it is sending another 30 books to give away, so I'll be doing that when I get back from PDC. Thanks for your patience,

Paul

Windows Vista Secrets SP1 Edition on the way…

pthurrott — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 18:54:40 GMT

My wife and I are getting ready to ship out copies of Windows Vista Secrets SP1 Edition to the people who won the giveaways I’ve had so far here on the site, on Twitter, and via the Windows Weekly podcast. I have 30 copies on hand currently. (Well, 29. I gave one to my mom.) But I’m expecting another 30 soon, so when I get from PDC I can start giving away another 25 or so.

Here’s what 29 copies of Windows Vista Secrets SP1 Edition looks like.

Windows Vista tip of the week: Use the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor

pthurrott — Sun, 25 May 2008 16:12:05 GMT

From Windows Vista Secrets 2nd edition Chapter 3 (Hardware and Software Compatibility):

To help you determine whether your current PC has the performance characteristics and hardware and software compatibility needed to avoid issues before upgrading or migrating to Windows Vista, Microsoft provides a handy tool called the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor.

The Upgrade Advisor performs an analysis of your PC, and is partly designed as a marketing tool, as it will "recommend" which version of Vista is right for your system. (Humorously, it almost always recommends one of the more expensive, premium versions.) But the Upgrade Advisor also provides real-world benefit outside of Microsoft's needs: It will tell you which hardware devices and software applications will need updates before they can work with Vista. And because the backend of the Upgrade Advisor application runs up on Microsoft's servers, it always provides up-to-date information.

While the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor is primarily designed to help users of previous Windows versions discover whether their PC can be upgraded successfully to Windows Vista, it also has a secret second use: It can also be run on Windows Vista and used to determine whether your PC is capable of running a more capable and expensive version of Vista.

The Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor can be downloaded from the Microsoft Web site.

In the can

pthurrott — Sat, 24 May 2008 17:08:09 GMT

At approximately 12:49 pm this afternoon, about 12 hours later than anticipated, I finally finished the initial writing phase of Windows Vista Secrets 2nd Edition and FTP'd the final chapter to the publisher, while uploading a backup copy to Skydrive. I'm not sure what the writing experience is like for others, but I find writing books to be very difficult and painful, and though I've been involved in the creation of at least 20 books since 1994 (my first was Microsoft Visual Basic 3 with Gary Brent and Jim Elam), I've never really gotten good at scheduling these things. That is, I'm always way behind schedule.

Way behind. In this case, the book was original due on April 18, about seven weeks after the first content was delivered (I finished the first six chapters back around March 3. So I missed the original schedule by 5 weeks. Put another way, I needed about 170 percent of the time I had originally scheduled to complete this book. I'm a freaking genius.

But there's good news, too. If I weren't so tired, I'd tally up a rough page count of new content, but I know it's dramatic. This book will be much longer and much better, I feel, than the first edition. I've added chapters on new topics like Zune, Microsoft LIVE, and Windows Home Server, and have dramatically bulked up existing chapters were necessary. I've also removed some of the silliness from the first edition that I had nothing to do with, like the Fonts chapter.

Anyway, I'm not done, not really. I need to go over each edited chapter now. But I'll wait until after the weekend. I need to nap. :)

Here's a rough table of contents:

Windows Vista Secrets 2E
0. Read This First
1. Selecting the Right Windows Vista Edition
2. Installing and Upgrading to Windows Vista
3. Hardware and Software Compatibility
4. What's New in the Windows Vista User Interface
5. Where's My Stuff? Finding and Organizing Files
6. Using Windows Sidebar
7. Personalizing and Configuring Windows Vista
8. Windows Vista Security Features
9. Users, Accounts, and UAC
10. Windows Vista Networking
11. Windows Media Player
12. Microsoft Zune: A Digital Media Alternative
13. Digital Photos
14. Digital Videos and DVD Movies
15. Digital Media in the Living Room: Windows Media Center
16. Having Fun: Games and Vista
17. Vista to Go: Windows Vista Mobility Features
18. Using Tablet PCs and Ultra-Mobile PCs
19. Browsing the Web
20. Managing Email and Contacts
21. Turning it Up a Notch with Microsoft's LIVE Services
22. Managing Your Schedule with Window Calendar
23. Keeping Your Data Safe
24. Automating Windows Vista with Windows Power Shell
25. Beyond Vista: Managing Vista PCs