Que believes in one-stop shopping. One book is all you need for Windows XP Professional.
Install, configure, tweak, and troubleshoot Microsoft XP Professional. It’s all here. There’s even a small reference to XP on the tablet PC.

Security settings. I am moving from Windows 98 to XP on my work computer. Lately, I have been getting alerts that my security settings in Outlook and Word are set pretty high and that all macros would be disabled in my working files. I don’t believe I have macros it complains about, but I wanted to see what this was all about.
The security settings could be either in Office or in XP Pro. I started with the possibility the settings might be in the operating system.
Go to the index and you’ll find 72 subtopics under “security.” I searched eight areas that looked promising. Lot’s of interesting reading, but no closer to sorting out the alerts. I think it in Office XP.

Auto update recommended. While reading about security, I learned that the authors favor activating the automatic update feature. This contradicts what Woody Leonard (in his newsletters) preaches. I wanted to learn more.
So, I found the section on automatic updating. Our authors laud the ease with which XP Pro maintains itself. They also acknowledge that an update “. . .could damage your system” (p. 923).
They explain: “. . .you can always roll back your system to its state before the update, or use the system restore feature, so using automatic updates is not necessarily a poor choice” (p. 913).
As a control, they suggest you ask to be notified before downloading and installing updates. I followed their advice.

To do lists. At the front of the book there are two lists. One list covers the eight things to do before installing Windows XP. Too late for me.
The other list suggests nine things to do after installing Windows XP. I did those.

CD tutorial. It’s the same CD that ships with Que’s XP Home reference. Still very effective. It covers a lot of what is new in the program – the interface, customizing how it looks and behaves, and setting up a network. We reviewed the Home version of the book in the Nov./Dec. 2002 issue.

Style. You will find some instances where checklists are used, but the dominant approach is narrative. Screen captures and diagrams are plentiful, but don’t define the approach.
This is a reference book for intermediate to advanced users. You probably won’t read it cover to cover, but you’ll be comforted knowing it is near should you have questions about Windows Pro XP.

Special Edition Using Microsoft Windows XP Professional, Best Seller Edition by Robert Cowart and Brian Knittel. Que. 2003. 1196 pages plus index and CD. $50.