Rating: 
Summary: I don't really see the point of this book
Review: A "pocket" book should be pocket size. This book is too big to be a pocket reference, but too small/thin to be a truly useful Windows book. It just doesn't seem "right." The writing was geared more for beginners, so I don't understand why "administrator" is in the title. But, that's Microsoft for you...
Rating:
Summary: I don't really see the point of this book
Review: A "pocket" book should be pocket size. This book is too big to be a pocket reference, but too small/thin to be a truly useful Windows book. It just doesn't seem "right." The writing was geared more for beginners, so I don't understand why "administrator" is in the title. But, that's Microsoft for you...
Rating: 
Summary: Handy to have on hand
Review: Another excellent book from William Stanek. This a wonderful resource; especially for people like me, who are always on the go. From page one to the last, book offers tips and trick at every page. This book has been close on hand since I bought it and will remain for the forseeable future. Mr. Stanek has once again written a valuable book that is easy to use and understand.
Rating:
Summary: Handy to have on hand
Review: Another excellent book from William Stanek. This a wonderful resource; especially for people like me, who are always on the go. From page one to the last, book offers tips and trick at every page. This book has been close on hand since I bought it and will remain for the forseeable future. Mr. Stanek has once again written a valuable book that is easy to use and understand.
Rating:
Summary: Phenominal! Great for serious administrators!
Review: As an enterprise admin, I have to really dig in to the operating system when I work on tasks and this book has been a great help every step of the way. No other book I've found goes as deep into Group Policy, and this is the only book I've found that has proper procedures for setting up auditing, disk quotas, offline files in the enterprise. The detailed advice no customizing Internet options was something I've been looking for for a long long time. Thank you Mr. Stanek for that info and lots more in this great book. Finding someone who isn't afraid to share tips and advice they are obviously getting paid hundreds of dollars on an hourly consulting basis to provide is truly wonderful--and extremely rare. Yet the thing I like best about this book is the focussed material for managing mobile users. Our laptop users are the most high maintenance in the organization. Hey, there's more to go wrong when users can unplug and take their computers home (where they connect them to their own networks and do who knows what else to the system). There's a complete chapter on configuring laptops and another chapter on configuring mobile networking. Again, I searched other books but couldn't find this level of detail. For a compact book for 400 pages, this one certainly packs in the information with great clarity and organization. And again, I have to say thank you for sharing information other writers have been afraid to provide because it might cut into their consulting earnings. As a high-level admin, I particularly liked the chapters that focus on customization of the operating system. Chapters 4 and 5 in particular, are awesome and its the tips/real world advice within these sections of the chapters that make them so. I was also pleased to find the book repleat with troubleshooting information. Most books have 1 troubleshooting chapter where they stick all the troubleshooting information as an after thought. While this book does have a troubleshooting chapter, it's not an afterthought. It's a careful follow up to the troubleshooting advice that is throughout the book! Lastly, I want to say that I highly recommend this book to any serious administrator. I think power users will also find the book useful. I also recommend Stanek's Windows 2000 Server Pocket Consultant, which has never let me down.
Rating:
Summary: Small in size, but bursting with information.
Review: As an NT4/2000 admin, this has been all I needed to get myself up to speed with XP. This book focuses on key aspects of day to day XP use and administration--you won't find coverage of hardware requirements and installation procedures, nor will you find exhaustive white papers masquerading as psuedo-documentation. I used to hate MS Press offerings, but the pocket consultant series has allowed me leave the 'bibles' and resource kits at home. I keep the OS and Exhange consultants on my desk and have actually started re-reading some of them for pleaure just to keep from forgetting some of the stuff I don't utilize daily on the job. I've even gotten some of my early adopting power users to buy and use this book. If you're studying for certs or need in depth info for design research/general reference, buy a bible book, resource kit, or cert guide for the minutia and specific testing guidelines. But buy this book too because it's small and lightweight and is like set of XP Cliff notes.
Rating:
Summary: Giving me a greater and better understanding of the XP .
Review: Being new to Windows XP Professional I need to find books that will allow me to be able to get answers quickly and I don't want to spend a great deal of time looking for them. The pocket consultant is a blessing for me and for those just starting out with XP this may be a book you'll want to keep right by your side. Being only 300 pages, don't be fooled into thinking this book can't possibly coverage every aspect of XP professional, it's not design for that. The content of the book is to give you coverage of the topics and areas within XP and answers questions from the foundation level. Covering areas like administration, networking, setup and configuration, troubleshooting, monitoring devices, desktop support, toolbar configuration, laptop users, remote access connections, policies, the internet and VPNs, you'll have a very well rounded reference manual to work with. Not written to be a Exam Prep type of book it does make a good source of information for the XP Professional exam, but you will need other material to fill in the details. Overall the book is easy to follow and does answer most of the basic to some intermediate questions. The only change I would make is making this book portable to the palm device.
Rating: 
Summary: Basic desktop consultant.....not administrator
Review: Book has alot of basic information most people who have tinkered with previous windows versions could have figured out. Doesn't go in depth into any topics. Useful book as a desktop reference for a beginner to intermediate user. Don't see much value for an administrator with any experience. Book does have a well organized layout.
Rating:
Summary: 5 stars and then some!
Review: I bought William Stanek's XP Pocket consultant when it first came out. When I saw the second edition, I grabbed it right away too and I am very glad I did. It is the only XP book I use now and it gets borrowed out so much I had my manager get a second copy for the office.
What's so good about it? For starters, there's over 200 pages of new material and it is the only book I've found that details every change from Service Pack 1 and Service Pack 2. Turn to page 55 and 56 for an example of how deep Stanek gets into the details. This covers Data Execution Protection, No execute page protection, and Physical Address Extension mode.
Like Stanek's Windows Server 2003 Pocket Consultant, I don't think you can find a better book for beginners and advanced. Plus there's details consultants and experts will find invaluable.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book!
Review: I finally picked up Windows XP Professional Pocket Consultant. I've been meaning to grab it since I first heard that William Stanek wrote a book on xp. I remember reading his stuff in PC Magazine and Dr. Dobbs and generally it was great. Windows XP Professional Pocket Consultant is exactly what you'd expect if you've read any of Stanek's other books or columns. It's clear, straightforward, concise. It's written for administrators but any one use it as its a very readable technical book. That's not to say it's without substance, though - within the first chapter I already had insights into Win XP I didn't get from anywhere else and after a few chapters over a dozen of my exisiting questions were answered as well as plenty I hadn't even thought to wonder about. Despite being less than 400 pages, this is by far the best Win XP book I've seen yet, especially if you use it with one of his server books as someone else recommended. Definitely recommended.
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