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Summary: Microsoft Visual C++ Step by Step
Review: Poorly written and not text book quality. Many code errors incorporated into text. If this is the best that Microsoft has to offer, it will seriously impeed their marketing efforts of .Net to academic institutions and student population.
Rating: 
Summary: I hate it.
Review: The book wades through managed C++ code, and it is very good. However, the author doesn't do a good job of maintaining consistency and explaining the code. I will credit the author for having very good OOP style, but the writing is far from satisfactory. Another thing to note is that the author does a good job of explaining Exception Handling, but in the early parts of the book, any reader can get easily confused.
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Summary: It's a decent try, at least
Review: The book wades through managed C++ code, and it is very good. However, the author doesn't do a good job of maintaining consistency and explaining the code. I will credit the author for having very good OOP style, but the writing is far from satisfactory. Another thing to note is that the author does a good job of explaining Exception Handling, but in the early parts of the book, any reader can get easily confused.
Rating: 
Summary: Pretty good, but many errors...
Review: This is a good book if you are looking to take a step up from Console programming to more advanced stuff. It teaches you the new .NET features in a pretty effective manner. There are a lot of errors however. I read this book and did the actual step by step follow-along. I had the errata webpage open the whole time because there were dozens of cases where in the actual code examples they would leave out a keyword that was critical to your program. It also came with code for everything in the book on CD so if I got to a point where my code didn't work or their instructions were too vague, I was able to open their code and compare. Interesting enough, the code on the CD frequently strayed from the instructions in the book. It was almost like they wrote the book and when they read through it to actually do the coding the book talks about, they said, "Hey, that doesn't work!" But then they never changed it in the text. I would not recommend it to complete beginners for that reason. For those who aren't complete beginners, keep your eyes open and check out the errata site.
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Summary: Good for beginner but too many errors
Review: This is a great book for beginner even if I feel it's poor at my first glance. It covers essential materials that you should know about Managed C++ and .NET Framework. I think that you should spend a little time to surf this book when you're considering whether to buy it or not in the bookstore. If you want to get some information about VC.NET as quickly as possible, then you may need this one.
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Summary: I hate it.
Review: To summarize, I hate this book because you can't use it without reading it through from page one. I use this book for a class I am enrolled in. One of our projects is to build a simple windows game. So, I look up how to display a bitmap. Displayed are two lines of code along with the instructions "find the Form_1Paint function that handles Paint events". Where should I look? The instructions do not hint at where it is and certainly the function can't be found by searching the code. The only way to understand what they are talking about is to actually go through every tutorial in baby-step fashion because every page on the book tells you something such as "Continue with the CPPDraw application from the previous excersise" (p.365). Well I don't want to read the whole )@$#%ing book to find out how to draw a bitmap. When I finally do figure it out I am guessing I could show someone how to do it in 10 lines of code so they wouldn't have to read 100 pages of baby-step drivel. If you want to find out how to do any one thing in .Net with this book expect to have to spend several hours reading the previous 100 pages from where it is supposedly explained. Microsoft Press should consider making encryption a core of their business. They are really good at it.
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Summary: Not appropriate for any level
Review: When my library got this book, I just had to grab it to catch up on the new Visual C++ .net. As an intermediate C++ student, I thought that this would get me up to speed on the new Microsoft .Net and was willing to wade through what appears to be material for beginners. Unfortunately, it seems that many topics are too lightly treated for any beginner. And most intermediate programmers have to skim through a lot of material to find what makes .Net so different from ANSI C++.It seems to me that the authors can't decide which audience level to address. Again, most beginners are going to be frustrated with the much too light treatment of many topics. Intermediate and (certainly) Advanced programmers will prefer something else that presents a nice compact discussion and examples of the new .Net material. In short, buy something else.
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