Rating: 
Summary: Troubleshooter
Review: A great resource for anyone that has to resolve problems occasionally or regularly on XP operating systems. Broken into sections to make it easy to pinpoint the symptoms and resolution you are looking for to solve your problem.
Anyone in the business of troubleshooting PCs and networks will find it well worth the price. No helpdesk should be without it. System Administrators will definitely want this in their library. Once again I find mine getting borrowed regularly.
Rating: 
Summary: IT LIVES UPTO ITS BILLING
Review: A lot has been said concerning this David Karp's book, "Windows XP Annoyances". And, I will add that it lived upto my expectations. Just as its name suggests that there are annoying things about Windows XP, its job was to insulate (as precisely as possible), those irritating XP issues.
This book is a pleasure to read. It defines and executes its chores with impressive precision. Very few problem-solving texts are as forthright. It highlights each problem, and then goes about the solving procedure without any complaint or criticism. Its business-like approach is nice. I valued it so much!
Rating:
Summary: Nice for its size
Review: Any quick search for XP customization books and you quickly see that there are several around the 1000 page mark and with high user markings. Given this, there is only so much you can expect from a book half that size. However, despite other people's opinion on the information covered in this book, if you are looking for a fun and faster read which does actually target the portions of the operating system that most home users would like to cover, this is a perfect choice. The biggest appreciations I have for this title is that the word "hack" never appears, the customizations are not 100% dependent on shareware or freeware downloads, the user is not sheltered from the realities of configuring the OS, and the range of configuration varies from novice to advanced - keeping the reader from stagnating at a particular level. To weigh in on the decision to purchase this title, consider that not only does the title give you the ability to alter your environment, the author has dedicated space to educate the reader on how to identify and troubleshoot problems - a skill really needed and a topic quite often skipped by other titles. The book also ties in with the authors web site, which makes mentioned downloads easily accessible to the user, adding value to the static text with dynamic content. Although this title differs slightly in overall feel from previous "Annoyances" titles (advancements in the OS are bound to reduce the need), this stands on it's own and is a very good addition to your XP library.
Rating:
Summary: Nice for its size
Review: Any quick search for XP customization books and you quickly see that there are several around the 1000 page mark and with high user markings. Given this, there is only so much you can expect from a book half that size. However, despite other people's opinion on the information covered in this book, if you are looking for a fun and faster read which does actually target the portions of the operating system that most home users would like to cover, this is a perfect choice. The biggest appreciations I have for this title is that the word "hack" never appears, the customizations are not 100% dependent on shareware or freeware downloads, the user is not sheltered from the realities of configuring the OS, and the range of configuration varies from novice to advanced - keeping the reader from stagnating at a particular level. To weigh in on the decision to purchase this title, consider that not only does the title give you the ability to alter your environment, the author has dedicated space to educate the reader on how to identify and troubleshoot problems - a skill really needed and a topic quite often skipped by other titles. The book also ties in with the authors web site, which makes mentioned downloads easily accessible to the user, adding value to the static text with dynamic content. Although this title differs slightly in overall feel from previous "Annoyances" titles (advancements in the OS are bound to reduce the need), this stands on it's own and is a very good addition to your XP library.
Rating: 
Summary: Not very helpful or organized
Review: I bought this book with more expectation than what I got when I received it in the mail. I needed to fix the slow bootup of Windows XP and there is hardly anything mentioned in this book about it. The negative tone of voice and his opinon of how to do things in XP do not help the book either. He seems to not like Microsoft products very well so he critizes how they made Windows XP with extra effects, just for marketing purposes when they are quite interesting to me and I'm sure others too. The spelling errors aren't too good either and it shows how little time he put into proof reading it before it was published, thus showing how little he cared. His knowledge is questionable now too since he is careless on the spelling mistakes and grammar errors too. I knew I should have bought the Microsoft Windows XP Inside/Out. I recommend that over this lousy book which is of not much help for people who know a lot about computers.
Rating:
Summary: Not very helpful or organized
Review: I bought this book with more expectation than what I got when I received it in the mail. I needed to fix the slow bootup of Windows XP and there is hardly anything mentioned in this book about it. The negative tone of voice and his opinon of how to do things in XP do not help the book either. He seems to not like Microsoft products very well so he critizes how they made Windows XP with extra effects, just for marketing purposes when they are quite interesting to me and I'm sure others too. The spelling errors aren't too good either and it shows how little time he put into proof reading it before it was published, thus showing how little he cared. His knowledge is questionable now too since he is careless on the spelling mistakes and grammar errors too. I knew I should have bought the Microsoft Windows XP Inside/Out. I recommend that over this lousy book which is of not much help for people who know a lot about computers.
Rating:
Summary: Very Useful
Review: I had so many questions and Windows XP Annoyances miraculously had the answer to so many. I found the book well organized and indexed with no nonsense explanations.
Rating:
Summary: Great Timesaver
Review: I've put off using Windows XP as long as possible. I recently decided that I wanted to use it for the screen shots of my next book since it's in color and the palettes in XP look so much nicer. But it's driving me nuts! I hate the cutesy icons and the dumbed down feel. I have a copy of Windows XP Annoyances sitting right on my desk to help me overcome the many things that really do annoy me. I don't have time to read a tome on using Windows XP, so when I run into something I want to do I just grab this book. As most O'Reilly book, it's easy to use because of its great indexing. I can normally find a topic within seconds, read it, fix it, and get back to work. I've been able to get rid of most of the cutesy stuff but not all of it. This book doesn't just cover the easy things either, it gets into networking and internetworking issues, working with and repairing the registry, lots of troubleshooting topics and scripting and automation. Every Windows XP owner should also own this book.
Rating:
Summary: The one esential XP manual, heads above the rest
Review: If you are an experienced Windows user and are about to move to, or have just moved to XP, this is the one essential book on the subject and probably the only one you will ever need. I have found it invaluable, and heads above Microsoft's "Windows XP Inside Out". Don't let the term annoyances fool you into thinking that this is just a book about problems encountered with XP, it also contains all the information you will need to make XP work the way you want, including: How to avoid some serious problems with installation;
Differences from other Windows versions;
Ways to customize Windows not found in Microsoft's book;
And yes, all the quirks and pitfalls that make XP "annoying" compared to previous systems, and how to work around these annoyances.
Rating:
Summary: OK
Review: It is an OK book but after reading one of the larger books "WindowsXP Inside/Out" there wasn't much here that I didn't already know. He had a lot more tips in his Windows95/98 books but I think Microsoft has fixed a lot of those annoyances in XP. He does try to give you what they don't and I did get a couple tips that the other's didn't cover. Mostly registry tweeks which I didn't mess with much, unless it would make a substantial difference. His approach is more like "how making this change will effect you" rather than just "you can make this change" that the other books use. It goes into a lot of troubleshooting problems so I will keep it around and dig it out when (or if) I ever do get the "Blue Screen of Death".
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