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Windows Vista - The Pocket Guide

By Rich Robinson

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Windows Vista - The Pocket Guide book cover

Book cover reproduced with kind permission of Rich Robinson

Windows Vista, like all Windows operating systems before it, isn’t perfect and it doesn’t take long before the average user starts looking for tweaks and hacks to make ‘their’ copy that more personal. We all want a faster, smoother performing PC, but even when we’ve achieved this aim we still insist upon looking for those further elusive improvements and enhancement.

While there are many hundreds, if not thousands, of tweaks that can be applied to the Windows operating system, finding them can become a chore. Okay Googling for tips and tweaks will readily throw up a plethora of websites that can furnish you with step by step guides on how to achieve various improvements, but that means wading through dozens of websites, saving relevant web pages, and hoping you have the right solution when you come to apply the tweak/fix.

In his e-book, Windows Vista – The Pocket Guide, Rich Robinson has painstakingly gathered some of the most popular tweaks and fixes and set them out in an easy to read format.

The Windows Vista – The Pocket Guide e-book comprises of 9 basic chapters as follows:

  1. Introduction.
  2. Getting Started.
  3. Backing Up Early and Often.
  4. Security.
  5. System Maintenance & Management.
  6. Increasing Performance.
  7. Working Efficiently.
  8. Personalizing Vista.
  9. Taking Control of Your Files.

The early chapters cover such important points as: Choosing your version of Windows, whether this be 32 Bit or 64 Bit; Creating a dual boot system; Backing up; Recovering lost data and, for those users’ who only have access to their PC Manufacturer’s recovery media, how to get your hands on a Windows Vista Recovery Disc, which enables you to access the Windows Vista Repair Options.

Later chapters contain easy to understand tips and tweaks for disabling such things as the User Account Control; Encrypting your USB or Hard Drive; Disabling Shutdown; Cleaning Windows; Enhancing Performance, and generally personalising your copy of Windows Vista.

In many instances the author also provides handy downloadable scripts to take the drudgery out of making changes to the Windows registry when applying certain registry hacks. The author also explains in simple, down to earth, terms the much misunderstood process of defragmentation.

The book is only available as a PDF file, so make sure you also have a copy of Adobe Reader (www.adobe.com) installed on your system. The e-book and can be downloaded from the following link: Windows Vista - The Pocket Guide

The book is totally free; however, you are required to subscribe to the Windows Guides daily updates newsletter. This newsletter contains further tweaks and fixes and is well worth having. Before downloading the book you will need the password. This you will find at the bottom of your first daily updates newsletter; just look for the ‘Get Windows Vista – The Pocket Guide (Password) link. Click on this link, type in the password and wait for the download to start.

Verdict

The e-book is basically a selection of useful tweaks and hacks enabling the reader to improve, amongst other things, performance and security on their system. While the novice user will find the downloadable scripts a God send the e-book is primarily aimed at the intermediate to advanced user who has a working knowledge not only of the Windows registry but also the Windows Group Policy module.

They say that the best things in life are free and this little gem of a book is no exception. For those users who enjoying tweaking their system this is a must have book. It is one of those books that you constantly want to keep dipping into as you further gain experience in the Windows environment and your appetite for tweaking your system grows. In short it is a book no Windows Vista user should be without!

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