November 18, 2009

A New Edition of PCs For Dummies is Born

Filed under: Main — Dan Gookin @ 12:01 am

pcs12

Say hello to the 12th Edition of PCs For Dummies, which landed in my office the other day.

Yes, it’s the 12th Edition, though the publisher has now opted to call it the “Windows 7 Edition.” That’s because the book’s release is timed around Windows 7, the latest unimpressive operating system from Microsoft.

Yeah, okay: I like Windows 7. But given the advances made by Apple with Mac OS X, Windows 7 is a decade-old operating system that you can buy for your PC today! I mean, where is the innovation, Microsoft?

Then again, that’s a question I’ve been asking Microsoft for decades now. Meanwhile, back to my book:

The 12th Edition of PCs for Dummies is not all about Windows 7. It covers Windows 7 as the primary PC operating system, but I have lots of information in there about Windows Vista and even some Windows XP stuff. That’s because PCs For Dummies is, first and foremost, a computer hardware book.

I also cover a bit about computer science in the book because, honestly, the more you know about your computer, the happier you’ll be using it.

As I do with all my books, the new edition of PCs For Dummies is a good re-write of the previous edition. I’ve added new information, reorganized, and updated everything. That’s just on the off-chance that someone out there actually buys every dang doodle edition of my book. It gives them something to look forward to.

More appropriately, if someone has, say, the 8th Edition of PCs For Dummies and they go out and buy this new edition, they’ll be getting a whole new book several times over.

For example, I cover floppy disks pretty well in the 8th Edition, but I think floppy disks might be a sidebar in the Windows 7 edition of PCs For Dummies.

I’m doing other book updates now, and have a new book planned for this winter. Should be fun. And, naturally, I look forward to updating PCs For Dummies again, this time for whatever-the-heck they’ll be calling Windows 8. (I hope it’s not “Windows 8.”)

5 Comments

  1. i hope it’s not Windows 8 too.
    I’m starting to think that it’s about time for MS to rip apart the NT kernel and write a whole new one, though keeping some of the NT kernel for backwards comaptability.

    12 editions strong! now i just have to wait for it to show up in the library 😀

    Comment by linuxlove — November 18, 2009 @ 8:02 am

  2. At some time, Microsoft will have to show some cajones and pull out all the old DOS stuff from the Windows kernel. There are compatibility modules in there for just about every version of Windows. That’s ridiculous.

    If I were running the Windows group at Microsoft, I’d have a parallel development on Super Windows (or something equally silly-sounding). I would direct the programmers to write that version of Windows only for hardware that’s been available for the past 3 years or so and forget about any notion of backward compatibility with XP or earlier. I’m sure that, politically, that would be a non-starter for Microsoft, but it would help propel Windows into the 21st Century, just like OS X.

    Oh, I can dream . . .

    Comment by admin — November 18, 2009 @ 8:14 am

  3. Ha! I’m pretty sure the 8th edition is the one that I have. Maybe it’s time to update!

    Comment by Mel — November 18, 2009 @ 9:01 pm

  4. Oh, golly! Were you the person who wrote me asking a question? Could have been. There are a lot of old editions floating out there.

    Comment by admin — November 18, 2009 @ 9:06 pm

  5. No, I don’t think so. (At least I don’t remember doing that!) I’ve been following your website and many forums since I got on the internet soon after getting the 8th edition.

    Comment by Mel — November 18, 2009 @ 9:11 pm

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