Windows Vista Inside Out Deluxe Edition is now available

Ed noticed this morning that our latest book, Windows Vista Inside Out Deluxe Edition, is now in stock and available for delivery from Amazon.com. So, you might ask, what’s the difference between this book and the original edition of Windows Vista Inside Out?

Beyond the obvious — 1440 pages vs. 1132 pages; $60 SRP vs. $50 (currently $37.79 vs. $31.49 at Amazon) — just about everything.

The Deluxe Edition has five additional chapters and three additional appendixes, which include coverage of the following topics:

• Using nontraditional input methods, including Tablet PC and speech recognition
• Synchronizing files using Sync Center, Robocopy, and Offline Files
• Accessing your computer from remote locations using Remote Desktop Connection or a VPN connection
• Encrypting sensitive files using Encrypting File System or BitLocker Drive Encryption
• Using Group Policy, including how to configure and use Multiple Local Group Policy Objects, a feature (new in Windows Vista) that lets you apply different GP settings to different users, even on computers that are not part of an Active Directory domain
• Changes included in Service Pack 1 (this appendix is based on the “notable changes in SP1″ document available from Microsoft, but we’ve organized the list in logical groups by function and feature — so you can easily find the fixes that are likely to affect you)

This latest edition, of course, includes complete coverage of SP1, including the handful of visible changes and the scores of under-the-hood differences. Perhaps most important, Deluxe Edition, most of which was written in the first part of 2008, includes the knowledge, wisdom, and hard knocks acquired while using Windows Vista in the first year following its release. I daresay there isn’t a page in the book that hasn’t changed in some way since the original edition — an updated screen shot, a newly discovered tip, a correction to an earlier error.

We also recaptured many of the screens with an eye toward making the relevant part larger. Screen captures in Vista are problematical because it uses muted colors and lots of empty space within dialog boxes and windows; this combination translates poorly to black-and-white, especially when it’s reduced to fit on a printed page. I’m pleased to say that Microsoft Press does a better job than anyone in presenting such screens, and we worked with them to make the screen images even better in this Deluxe Edition.

I haven’t yet seen a printed copy myself — but based on the proofs we reviewed, we’re happy with it. We hope you will be too!