According to Microsoft, Windows 2000 Pro combines the friendly interface of Windows 98 with the famous stability of Windows NT. Windows 2000, the successor to NT, introduces many technologies that weren't available in NT, including Plug-and-Play, support for USB devices, power management features, and more. It's 25% faster than Windows 98 and three times as stable. Unfortunately, despite all the enhancements, Microsoft forgot to address one of NT's most glaring omissions: Windows 2000 doesn't include a printed user's manual. In Windows 2000 Pro: The Missing Manual, bestselling Windows NT author Sharon Crawford provides the friendly, authoritative book that should have been in the box. It's the ideal (and desperately needed) users' guide for the world's most popular corporate operating system. The book begins at the beginning: with a guide to what's new (for former NT users), a tour of the Desktop, and logging into the network. (Virtually all Windows 2000 users are on a network.) A special focus: organizing files, folders, and windows for maximum efficiency and minimum clutter. Detailed guidance for installing, removing, and troubleshooting new software and hardware comes next.
More advanced chapters explore basic networking and Internet survival, including an excellent, step-by-step handbook for setting up a peer-to-peer network without having to hire a consultant, and chapters on configuring and using the Web (Internet Explorer), email (Outlook Express), and the built-in fax software. The final part of the book covers Windows 2000's local-management options: security, user profiles, backing up, and so on--all crowned by a beefy troubleshooting guidebook. Like the other books in the Missing Manual line, Windows 2000 Pro: The Missing Manual offers superb writing, special features for both absolute novices and power users, and offers authoritative, complete coverage of its subject. Windows 2000 Pro doesn't come with a manual-but if it did, Windows 2000 Pro: The Missing Manual would be it.