Rating: 
Summary: Degunking Windows
Review: Another great book by Joli Ballew- This book, along with her past efforts is easy to follow and full of hints for both I.T. professionals and home users alike.
The 'plain English' approach used in this work makes for an easy read and an easier fix for many of the aliments caused by simply using the internet. A copy of this book along with good anti-virus software may breed new life into your seemingly old and worn out computer.
Rating: 
Summary: An easy-to-follow guide
Review: Degunking Windows is a straightforward instructional and reference guide to treating with the common problems all to endemic to Windows users. As time passes, PCS inevitably begin to run slower, while applications crash more and more frequently. Degunking Windows is the perfect, user-friendly antidote, co-written by Windows experts Joli Ballew and Jeff Duntemann so as to especially be accessible to computer users of all backgrounds and degrees of experience. An easy-to-follow guide to quickly and effectively optimizing one's computer and saving time and headaches, Degunking Windows will prove to be an invaluable addition to any personal or professional Windows reference collection.
Rating:
Summary: Spring cleaning--no mop required!
Review: I have to admit that computers are similar to cars to my way of thinking--I can drive them competently enough, but I have no idea what goes on under the hood and don't really care. My son, the computer geek of the family, always untangles the problems and fixes whatever program I manage to crash. He gave me a copy of Degunking Windows last weekend with a not very subtle hint that it would teach me to fix my own problems, and maybe even keep out of trouble. He also mentioned that most of the things in the book could be done in a few minutes and wouldn't require taking the back off or rewiring anything. Never having read a computer book before, I wasn't very eager to start with this one. I was pleasantly surprised. At the very front of the book it goes through a list of things you can do based on how much time you have. I tried the ones you could do in ten minutes. When I managed those without breaking anything, I looked for other things that I could clean up. I started really reading the book and found that the instructions were very easy to understand. There were also plenty of pictures and diagrams so I was sure that I was doing everything correctly. The writer also puts in warnings of things to watch out for--so it's pretty foolproof. The email section was particularly helpful--I was guilty of almost every problem in that chapter, but now I proudly sport a clean mailbox! I haven't done everything in the book yet, and some things seem a lttle beyond me, but overall I think it's great for anyone that wants to clean things up and be able to find things easier. Thanks to the authors for finally writing a computer book that anyone can understand!
Rating:
Summary: Degunking Windows Saved my Butt!
Review: I have to the authors Jeff Duntemann and Joli Ballew to thank for saving my PC! Sunday morning as I went to check email, I found that my system had had a full-out meltdown. Not just a crash, a REGISTRY crash with nothing but an error message that said something like "try installing your disk to restart." This is Microsoft's nice way of saying "you might as well shoot yourself, your computer is toast." I had Degunking Windows and had cleaned up my computer pretty well (I thought), but never dared to get back to the back of the book discussing registry problems hoping it would never happen to me. Since it did, I figured I had decided to try to save nothing left to lose and decided to try to save 3 years of data, personal information and a few critical items from work. I followed the instructions in the book sweating blood all the while, backed up the registry, was able to make the repair and was able to walk away from the crash shaken but with data intact and a revived PC. This is something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy and hope never to have to attempt again, but I have to say the information in the book worked and calmed my panic a little. I Thank you Degunking Windows for helping out of a terrible situation.
Rating:
Summary: If you're not a dummy, try Degunking Windows
Review: I've been wrestling with Windows for a while now - I get a lot of spam, my system's running slower than ever, and I get a ton of pop-up ads. Then I saw this book and bought it. It's one of the best investment I've made after buying my computer. It puts you on a maintenance plan for your PC - regardless of whether you have 10 minutes, an hour, or all day. The best thing about this book is that it gives you a priority list on how to get your Windows system running quickly and efficiently and without crashing every day. The book tells you what you need to do first, what you do next, and then if you have more time you can follow the 12-step degunking program, which is a complete routine that teaches you how to manage your desktop, organize your folders, clean up your e-mail, and keep a good security system on your PC. This book should be included in every PC sold today. I think this would be a great reference for IT managers as well, for their support staff, to help them manage the tons of idiotic things their users do with their computers to gunk them up. And if you're not a dummy, this is the book for you. It's written in an intelligent, humorous style - but the authors have managed to boil down about 1,000 pages of Microsoft documentation into a very readable, affordable book.
Rating:
Summary: Use this to "degunk" your computer
Review: I've read countless numbers of books about computers. Virtually all of them were quite informative and I learned a lot, but at times I found the information to be a bit "over my head." This book is one of the few I've read that combines a little bit of humor, technical information, and an informal writing style into a truly enjoyable book. Each chapter focuses on a different "degunking" task and offers great step by step explanations of tasks and terms.Downloadable programs designed to help you "degunk" (I love that term!) your computer are also mentioned. I've downloaded a couple already and have found them quite useful. Some of the suggestions the book offers were ones I already do, like keeping your email in and out boxes nice and empty. But there are those who forget about emptying them and discover a couple hundred sent emails sitting in their out box! Another helpful idea is getting rid of desktop icons for programs you rarely or never use, as well as uninstalling them. I noticed I had a handful of those which I've now gotten rid of. Most of the steps in the book apply to Windows XP users, but there are some steps that can also be helpful to "dinosaurs" like me, still using 98. Each chapter as well as the book's Appendices I thought were wonderful. The Appendices cover topics like doing a clean Windows install, recovering from a corrupted registry and even a troubleshooting section. The book manages to explain technical terms from a layperson's perspective, something which I really liked. It's quite an enjoyable read, one that if you read it cover to cover will only take a couple hours. And even if you intend to use this book solely as a "quick reference" to solve a specific problem you will generally find a solution quickly. Kudos to the authors for writing a book that is both fun and answers a lot of questions quickly.
Rating: 
Summary: I degunked and lived!
Review: Looking at the photo on the cover, as I stood in Stacey's Bookstore on Market Street in San Francisco, I knew that even I, who knows little about computers, could do a better job of containing my fear and panic than the cover model, who seems to have stepped out of a 50s horror flick.
As other reviewers have noticed, this book makes you feel pretty good about yourself, and it isn't called "Degunking for Dummies" which makes a person feel about ten inches tall, again like one of the cheap ersatz horror films of the 50s.
If you don't know much about Windows, don't worry, the authors have adopted a no-nonsense vocabulary for explaining everything for you right down to the very button they want you to press. You see it in the book, you'll see it on your keyboard (or on your screen, or in the worst case scenario, it's part of the hardware on your drive).
Ha ha, so now if you have that embarrassing porn "someone else" must have downloaded onto your computer, here's one way to wash that man right out of your hair, as it were. And no one will be the wiser. I degunked and lived, and if I can, so can you.
Rating:
Summary: Common sense advice
Review: Many Microsoft users have noticed how over time, their spiffy new machines seem to get slower and slower. But the sheer complexity of the operating system defies many users' abilities to understand or fix this. Therefore the authors wrote this book. To help those who are not systems administrators or gurus. They specialise to the XP operating systems, but point out that the tips given here typically also apply to earlier Microsoft operating systems, like NT, 98 and 2000. The most useful hint is really the lowest tech of all. Manually rummage through and delete files that you no longer need. Granted, it's dangerous to do this in an arbitrary system directory. But under normal usage, users tend to put files into only a few standard directories. The authors recommend you spend some time there to remove the unneeded stuff. Basically just general housekeeping. But like real housekeeping, many of us just put this off. Of course the book has other hints, and these are more technical. If the above hint sounds like it might be useful, then consider getting this book for the others.
Rating:
Summary: Just what I needed -- and in the nick of time!
Review: Prompted by my brother the computer (and Mac) expert to "Get a self-help book about Windows and stop bugging me every other month when something goes wrong!" I decided to start simple, and found "Degunking Windows" in my search for computer self-help. What a godsend! Not only are the processes in this book well-organized and straightforward, the fix-its are easy and enlightening. Did you know that when you download some programs (like screensavers or free games) from the Internet, they include "spyware" that bugs your computer and lets people see what you're doing and look into your life? This book not only told me about spyware, it led me through the steps to get rid of it. Guess what? It found four or five spy programs I didn't even know I had. Thank you!!! As a former layout editor, I found the format and design of the book to be clear, engaging, and easy to work with. The introductory pages have several "degunking" options for the time-pressed that allow you to choose your own level of cleanup based on how much time you can afford to spend at any particular sitting. I started, ambitiously, with the half-day degunking, but computers give me hives, so I had to walk away for a while. But each day I picked up where I left off and was able to get through the degunking process in a very short while. The processes in this book are, done in order, a great way to do a major overhaul on your system. They also provide you with useful tricks for daily, weekly, or monthly maintenance on your computer to keep the gunk from reaccumulating. Kind of like those shower sprays: first you clean the tub like a madman, then just mist every day after your shower, and Voila! no more mildew. "Degunking Windows" was my first computer self-help book, and what a good choice for a self-admitted technophobe. Appealing to my compulsive side, getting my system organized was easy, exhilirating, and, dare I say fun? (I did say I was compulsive...) Buy this book. You will be happy you did. Or you can just talk to the fungus that grows out of the cracks of your grout... Whatever turns you on.
Rating:
Summary: Just what I needed -- and in the nick of time!
Review: Prompted by my brother the computer (and Mac) expert to "Get a self-help book about Windows and stop bugging me every other month when something goes wrong!" I decided to start simple, and found "Degunking Windows" in my search for computer self-help. What a godsend! Not only are the processes in this book well-organized and straightforward, the fix-its are easy and enlightening. Did you know that when you download some programs (like screensavers or free games) from the Internet, they include "spyware" that bugs your computer and lets people see what you're doing and look into your life? This book not only told me about spyware, it led me through the steps to get rid of it. Guess what? It found four or five spy programs I didn't even know I had. Thank you!!! As a former layout editor, I found the format and design of the book to be clear, engaging, and easy to work with. The introductory pages have several "degunking" options for the time-pressed that allow you to choose your own level of cleanup based on how much time you can afford to spend at any particular sitting. I started, ambitiously, with the half-day degunking, but computers give me hives, so I had to walk away for a while. But each day I picked up where I left off and was able to get through the degunking process in a very short while. The processes in this book are, done in order, a great way to do a major overhaul on your system. They also provide you with useful tricks for daily, weekly, or monthly maintenance on your computer to keep the gunk from reaccumulating. Kind of like those shower sprays: first you clean the tub like a madman, then just mist every day after your shower, and Voila! no more mildew. "Degunking Windows" was my first computer self-help book, and what a good choice for a self-admitted technophobe. Appealing to my compulsive side, getting my system organized was easy, exhilirating, and, dare I say fun? (I did say I was compulsive...) Buy this book. You will be happy you did. Or you can just talk to the fungus that grows out of the cracks of your grout... Whatever turns you on.
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