Essential Windows Xp Commands Reference

Rating:
Summary: Limited information, poorly presented
Review: I bought this reference because I liked Stanek's book "Windows XP Professional Administrator's Pocket Consultant." I was disappointed. It is 275 pages, but the information could be printed in half that if weren't all double-spaced and in large type. It is also cheaply printed--the titles seem to use a drop shadow effect that might have looked good on-screen, but looks more like a bug when printed.

Only basic command-prompt stuff is presented. I don't see anything about file name completion, for example, and newer tools like fc (File Compare) are not included.

There are six pages on scheduling tasks with the "at" command, but it never mentions the newer XP command, schtasks, which is better integrated with the GUI version.

Finally, there is no index in the book. There is a chapter that has commands sorted by function rather than name, but it isn't a substitute for a real index.