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Most books for everyday users of Windows 98 take one of two approaches: either they dumb everything down to the level of comic-book simplicity and leave you unable to deal with exceptions, or they overwhelm you with details about even the most obscure situations and leave you bewildered. Windows 98 for Busy People occupies a well-chosen middle ground. Authors Ron Mansfield and Peter Weverka explain how things should work with an easy-to-follow combination of annotated illustrations and clear stepped procedures. They provide you with the information you need to deal with more obscure situations in clear prose, bulleted lists of potential problems, and well-thought-out tips.

Their explanation of how to establish a connection with an Internet Service Provider (ISP) illustrates the authors' approach to important Windows 98 procedures. All books about Windows 98 explain the Internet Connection Wizard, but Windows 98 for Busy People goes to the trouble of providing you with a script to use as you ask for account details from a new ISP. You're almost sure to hang up with the information you need to dial in for Web surfing and e-mail access. To be sure you enter it into your computer properly, the authors correlate the interview questions with the steps involved in using the Internet Connection Wizard. While the other Windows 98 procedures in this book don't involve grilling somebody for information, they're given equally careful coverage.

Windows 98 for Busy People does a great job of explaining the core capabilities of Windows 98, but would be more useful if it discussed popular applications further--programs like RealAudio Player and the Microsoft Office components. What's here will answer all your questions about getting going with Windows 98 itself, though. --David Wall

Topics covered: Installation, file management, installing and uninstalling software, adding a printer, customizing the Start menu, connecting to the Internet, and using Internet Explorer and Outlook Express.

"Automation for its own sake" ranks high on the list of Bad Things, and one goal for information technology experts should be to avoid needless resource deployment. Windows 2000 Reducing TCO Little Black Book explains how up- front expenses are just one part of information system costs. Continuing maintenance and administration work can contribute more to Windows networks' Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), and this book has some ideas about how to use good design and some administrative tools to keep TCO down. Specifically, the text discusses Microsoft's Zero Administration initiative for Windows--the company's plan for minimizing ongoing expenses associated with the upkeep of Windows networks.

Most administrators agree that minimizing TCO is important in designing networks, and Little Black Book does a fine job of explaining TCO-minded design of enterprise-spanning networks. It also aptly discusses some of Microsoft's tools for reducing administrative overhead. Still, this book is largely just another Windows 2000 administration book, albeit a good one. It presents procedures to follow and backs them up with reference material and text explaining concepts. TCO-minded administrators will like the chapters on WinINSTALL LE (a tool for deploying packages across a network) but probably will wish for more on Systems Management Server (SMS). For coverage of that product, look at Rod Trent's Microsoft SMS Installer. --David Wall

Topics covered: Windows 2000 network administration, with some emphasis on minimizing Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), designing Active Directory systems for maximum efficiency, setting up organizational units for easy management in the future, and using WinINSTALL LE.

This book contains much of the information you need in order to develop Windows applications with lots of snazzy database-related features. North explains far more than ODBC (Open Database Connectivity), detailing dozens of Windows technologies that you can use to communicate with Database Management Systems (DBMSs) of various kinds.

Opening with a discussion of how programmers can structure databases and their interfaces in Windows, Windows Multi-DBMS Programming goes on to explain general database concepts, such as table structure and optimization. Then, the book delves into SQL (structured query language) and some of its many implementations, including Watcom SQL, Quadbase-SQL, Microrim R:BASE and R:BASE SQL, Raima, Gupta, and others. Windows Multi-DBMS Programming then highlights ODBC 2.0, the most popular SQL tool under Windows. Subsequently, the book details QELib, Access, FoxPro, and goes into some detail on programming databases under Visual Basic and C++. There's even some attention paid to writing database applications for palmtop computers.

As you might expect, a book that covers so much data sacrifices depth for breadth. The tradeoff is worthwhile, considering how few other resources give attention to some of the tools this reference covers. Once you develop a general plan for solving your problem, you can look into more specific tutorials and API (application programming interface) references.

To the book's detriment, all the examples are done in Windows 3.x and Windows NT 3.5x, even though this book came out in 1995. Much of the material will transfer to newer operating environments, but an update is badly needed. Furthermore, the author sometimes lapses into oversimplicity, providing glossary-like definitions of basic terms such as "SDK" (software developer's kit). Though these lapses sometimes grow annoying, it's better that the book errs on the side of simplicity rather than on the side of complexity.