Microsoft Windows XP

Purchased for a friend and his first time use of a computer. I really like the Maran books - a mixture of pictures and short descriptions are much more helpful than any other "help" books I have purchased.

For me this book is a total ABC for beginners or people who know a little but don't really understand all the jargon in most manuals. Easy to follow steps to upgrade your skills.

I love the "Maran series" books. They are very helpful for people who are no computer geniuses, since give you step by step instructions.

The Maran Illustrated books are unquestionably the most heavily illustrated books available. In this book, as you just might guess from the title, covers Windows XP. It's a new book and up to date to include Service Pack 2 which brought in some fairly significant changes over the original release. This is probably the best book I've ever seen for the complete beginner. If you've just turned a computer on for the first time, this book will get you started very well. One of the tests I use for the depth of information contained in a book on Windows is checking to see if the book talks about how to get into a system where you're forgotten the password. This is an interesting test, because the procedure in the Home and the Professional versions of XP are different. This book didn't cover this area at all. So the level of this book is pretty basic. It's not what the help desk needs, it's for the beginner. At the same time, it is complete enough that the user is not likely to have any trouble getting useful work out of the computer. Highly recommended.