Helpful but a bit outdated, but still a useful reference guide for those of us still using Windows XP.

If you never used XP before, or need to learn how to use something as elementary as Windows XP Disk Clean Up feature, then perhaps this book is for you.

There is far too much space wasted on overly simplistic and obvious elements of XP, things you already know if you have used XP for more than two weeks.

Some of the registry edits that are listed step by step, simply did not work on any of my three machines. Yes they are simple too..but they simply don't work. Deleted Key Values reappear next time you boot up, and this is not dealt with at all.

I can't believe a book that is such a waste of time can get so many rave reviews. I can understand someone taking the time and trouble to post a review if they are disappointed in a product, but how in the world could anyone find a reason to give this waste of time glowing reviews??

Let the buyer beware.

Contains some good information. Would work better as an online book. A lot of references to different programs and their locations; And they are correct.

Contains some good information. Would work better as an online book. A lot of references to different programs and their locations; And they are correct.

Some fix's were not explained in enought detail. Some solutions were very complicated

PC Magazine is always a great source for computer technical information, and this book is a good example. It is technical yet easy enough for lay people to read and understand. Each topic is independent of the others, so if you are looking for a specific solution, you can find it. I recommend it.

Simple, easy to understand steps to improve the performance of Windows XP.

Easy to use. Actually had me doing, and using my computer in many different ways. Having more fun now, just knowing how to tweak my unit.

easy to use,easy to understand and best of it's effective.several steps either preformed alone or as a step by step process have effectively streamlined my operating system.some things were obvious and are already done by most users as basic maintenance. other things brought to light actually amazed me.i could not believe that i was so in the dark and uninformed/misinformed in regards to xp operating system. speed an my faith in xp have been restored!!

Very fast service, recieved the books much faster than I expected.

On any computer, regardless of operating system, disks can relentless fill up. On unix machines, there may be sysadmins to combat this. But on XP PCs, especially in homes, the only sysadmin is you. And you are probably not a computer professional.

The topics here are sysadmin tasks that a user should periodically do. Not all of these necessarily pertain to speeding up your machine. For example, when Simmons talks about deleting adware/spyware and cleaning up cookies, any speed increase is surely slight. But those particular tasks are such good practice that you should not hold it against him for including them in this book.

Ah, but things like adjusting virtual memory can have dramatic effect on some machines that have tool little for their tasks. Though you may pay attention to most pertinent thing he says here. Which is that in some cases, adding virtual memory will not improve matters if you actually have too little RAM. Beef up the latter, perhaps?

And turn error logging off. The book correctly says that few of you need it. Will free up some clock cycles.