Special Edition Using Windows XP Professional - Softcover

Cowart, Robert; Knittel, Brian

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0789726289 ISBN 13: 9780789726285

Publisher: Que Pub, 2001

Synopsis

Special Edition Using Microsoft Windows XP Professional is the de facto Windows XP Pro reference and one you shouldn't fire up your Windows XP computer without! Get the book that PC World magazine reviewer Steve Bass says if he had to choose just one book to help him master Windows XP, "this would be the one."

• Windows Peace Finally, longtime Windows NT/2000 users who have pined for a more usable operating system - such as Windows 95/98/Me - without sacrificing the stability and networking features they've come to expect in NT/2000 can pine no more. Windows XP Professional unites the two operating system camps.
• Your NT upgrade has finally arrived - Looking to upgrade from your aging Windows NT environment? Many corporations eschewed Windows 2000 as it was well known that 2000 (NT 5, for all intents and purposes) was a brief stop for Microsoft, which was already hard at work on XP. If you are viewing 2000 as the XP beta, you can be assured that it's now time-tested and ready to rock!
• Written for humans by humans! While many authors spend time trying to overwhelm you with their technical expertise, Bob and Brian drive right to the point with the clear, natural language that you have come to love and expect.
• Hands on, roll-up-your-shirtsleeves advice! Bob and Brian don't just tell you how to use the Windows features and point you elsewhere for networking or hardware advice. Instead, the help you choose, install and configure hardware and software that work in concert with Windows.
• CD-ROM Includes: 45 minutes of video from Brainsville.com. This unique video package is a new, innovative feature in computer books and video courseware, which brings Bob and Brian right to your desktop. This personal seminar flattens your learning curve, introduces you to Windows XP and demonstrates how to use it while you watch. Topics covered range from mastering the new XP user interface to setting up and fine-tuning your local area network.

About this title

About the Author

Robert Cowart's Windows books have sold more than 1 million copies worldwide. He has written features and reviews for PC Week, PC World, MacWorld, A+ and Microsoft Systems Journal and more than 35 books, most of them about Windows. His titles include Special Edition Using Microsoft Windows 2000 Home Edition, Special Edition Using Microsoft Windows XP Professional, and Mastering Windows from Sybex.

Brian Knittel is Bob's longtime writing partner and co-author of Special Edition Using Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional and Special Edition Using Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition. He is a software developer, consultant and writer. He specializes in document conversion and networking. After finishing graduate studies at the University of California at Berkeley (where he studied nuclear medicine), he established a technical consulting firm in Berkeley.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

In this introduction

• Welcome
• Why This Book?
• How Our Book Is Organized
• What's on the CD?
• Conventions Used in This Book

Welcome

Thank you for purchasing or considering the purchase of Special Edition Using Microsoft Windows XP Professional, Third Edition. It's amazing the changes that nearly 20 years can bring to a computer product such as Windows. When we wrote our first Windows book back in the mid-'80s, our publisher didn't even think the book would sell well enough to print more than 5,000 copies. Microsoft stock wasn't even a blip on most investors' radar screens. Boy, were they wrong! Who could have imagined that a little more than a decade later, anyone who hoped to get hired for even a temp job in a small office would need to know how to use Microsoft Windows, Office, and a PC. Eighteen or so Windows books later, we're still finding new and exciting stuff to tell our readers.

Some people (including the U.S. Department of Justice) claim Microsoft's predominance on the PC operating system arena was won unethically through monopolistic practices. Whether or not this is true (we try, almost successfully, to stay out of the politics in this book), we believe that Windows has earned its position today through reasons other than having a stranglehold on the market. Consider that Windows NT 3.1 had 5 million lines of code. Windows XP weighs in with more than 30 million. This represents a lot of work, by anyone's accounting. Who could have imagined in 1985 that any decent operating system a decade and half later must have support for so many technologies that didn't even exist at the time: CD-ROM, DVD, CD-R and CD-RW, Internet and intranet, MP3, MPEG, DV, USB, FireWire, APM, ACPI, RAID, UPS, PPOE, 802.11g, Bluetooth, fault tolerance, disk encryption and compression...? The list goes on. And could we have imagined that a Microsoft Certified System Engineer certificate (MCSE) could prove as lucrative as a medical or law degree?

Although rarely on the bleeding edge of technology, and often taking the role of the dictator, Bill Gates has at least been benevolent from the users' point of view. In 1981, when we were building our first computers, the operating system (CP/M) had to be modified in assembly language and recompiled, and hardware parts had to be soldered together to make almost any new addition (such as a video display terminal) work. Virtually nothing was standardized, with the end result being that computers remained out of reach for average folks.

Together, Microsoft, Intel, and IBM changed all that. Today, you can purchase a computer, printer, scanner, Zip drive, keyboard, modem, monitor, and video card over the Internet, plug them in, and install Windows, and they'll probably work together. The creation and adoption (and sometimes forcing) of hardware and software standards that have made the PC a household appliance the world over can largely be credited to Microsoft, like it or not. The unifying glue of this PC revolution has been Windows.

Yes, we all love to hate Windows, but it's here to stay. Linux is on the rise, but for most of us, at least for some time, Windows and Windows applications are "where it's at." And Windows XP ushers in truly significant changes to the landscape. That's why we were excited to write this book.

This book covers Windows XP as well as the latest upgrade to XP, which is called SP2, or Service Pack 2. Service Pack 2 adds significant new security features to Windows XP and its accessory programs such as Internet Explorer and Outlook Express.

Why This Book?

We all know this book will make an effective doorstop in a few years. You probably have a few already. (We've even written a few!) If you think it contains more information than you need, just remember how helpful a good reference can be when you need it at the 11th hour. And we all know that computer technology changes so fast that it's sometimes easier just to blink and ignore a phase than to study up on it. Windows XP definitely is a significant upgrade in Windows technology—one you're going to need to understand. Microsoft has folded all of its operating systems into the Windows XP product line, so rest assured it will be around for some time.

On the surface, Windows XP might provide much of the same functionality as Windows 98 and Windows Me, but it's a completely different animal, and the differences are more than skin deep. From the way users sign on, to the new Start menu, to its day-to-day management tools, XP bears little resemblance to its predecessors. Don't let that worry you: In all ways, it's superior to any operating system Microsoft has ever produced.

Is Windows XP so easy to use that books are unnecessary? Unfortunately, no. True, as with other releases of Windows, online help is available. As has been the case ever since Windows 95, however, no printed documentation is available (to save Microsoft the cost), and the Help files are written by the Microsoft cronies. You won't find criticisms, complaints, workarounds, or talk of third-party programs there, let alone explanations of why you have to do things a certain way. For that, you need this book!

You might know that Windows XP comes in two versions: Home Edition and Professional. Other publishers have produced single volumes to cover both operating systems, but we think that will only end up confusing readers. Instead, we've produced two books, because we wanted you to have a book that addresses your specific needs. This book covers Windows XP Professional's more advanced management and networking features, and, while it anticipates that some home users will choose the Professional version, it also addresses the business and/or power user. Still, we assume you probably are not an engineer, and we'll do our best to speak in plain English and not snow you with unexplained jargon.

In this book's many pages, we focus not just on the gee-whiz side of the technology, but why you should care, what you can get from it, and what you can forget about. The lead author on this book has previously written 15 books about Windows, all in plain English (several bestsellers), designed for everyone from rank beginners to full-on system administrators deploying NT Server domains. The co-author has designed software and networks for more than 25 years. We work with and write about various versions of Windows year in and year out. We have a clear understanding of what confuses users and system administrators about installing, configuring, or using Windows, as well as (we hope) how to best convey the solutions to our readers.

This book is now in its third edition, and builds on the experience we gained over the years since XP's initial release. We spent many months adding coverage of new Windows features, testing Windows XP service pack betas through numerous builds, participating in the Microsoft beta newsgroups, documenting and working through bugs, and installing and reinstalling Windows XP on a variety of networks and computers. The result is what you hold in your hands.

While writing this book, we tried to stay vigilant of four cardinal rules:

• Keep it practical.

• Keep it accurate.

• Keep it concise.

• Keep it interesting, and even crack a joke or two.

We believe that you will find this to be the best book available on Windows XP Professional for the intermediate to advanced user. While writing it, we targeted an audience ranging from the power user at home or the office to the support guru in a major corporation. Whether you use a Windows XP PC or support others who do, we firmly believe this book will address your questions and needs.

We're also willing to tell you what we don't cover. No book can do it all. As the title implies, this book is about Windows XP Professional. We don't cover setting up the various Windows Server operating systems called Windows Server 2003, Advanced Serv...

Edition details

• Publisher: Que Pub
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0789726289
• ISBN 13: 9780789726285
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 1000