Almost off to the printer

Uncategorized 2 Minutes

We just signed off on the cover of Windows 7 Inside Out. Coincidentally, I got an e-mail from a reader a few minutes later, who made his wishes known in very, um, forceful fashion:

Do you know when your book will be for sale? I HOPE IT IS BASED ON THE RTM NOT THE RC.

Actually, I think his Caps Lock key just got stuck, but I got the message. It should be off to the printer this week and in stores on September 30.

And as for the RC-versus-RTM question, we had the same goal (felt just as strongly) when we were planning this book. We set aside several weeks in the schedule for a full review of page proofs (final count is 1056 pages) to take place after we received the RTM code. We finished the review on August 14, which gave us nearly a month of hands-on testing with the RTM build. During that process, we found dozens of little changes that we incorporated into the book. (One picky example: the default headings used for Details view in the Pictures library changed based on usability feedback.) We also had the opportunity to look at the release candidate of Windows XP Mode and completely rewrote that section at the last minute.

We’re very happy with the way the book turned out. Given its size and scope, a project like this is always exhausting, but it seemed somewhat less stressful this time around. Of course we did much of our original research and writing using the Beta and RC releases, but we deliberately chose to be later than the competition in order to make sure we got everything right. We’ll still be on bookstore shelves a few weeks ahead of the GA release of Windows 7 on October 22.

If you’re interested in pre-ordering Windows 7 Inside Out, you can do so at Amazon.com right now, where the current price is $31.49 with a pre-order price guarantee. I’ll let you know when my first copies arrive.

Judy and I are heading out for a week’s vacation in Ireland tomorrow, where I’ll have a notebook mostly so we can look at each day’s digital pictures and share them with friends and family. I’ll be back to a more normal work (and posting) schedule after Labor Day.

(Oh, and before any bad guys get any bright ideas, I should warn you our house sitters have a Great Dane and a pit bull who will be here with our two Springer spaniels. Seriously.)

Talk to you in September!

Published by Ed Bott

Published

11 thoughts on “Almost off to the printer”

  1. You have bad guys in New Mexico? I hear that 40% of the labor force gets medicaid or other government assistance. True?

  5. I was suprized by the changes in the XP mode between the RC and RTM. Some things I was able to get to work (finally) in the RC, I’ve yet to get to work in the RTM. Overall I think they dumbified XP mode a little too much. I still prefer the older Virtual PC methodologies in most cases. The additions are nice, but confusing too. My biggest problem is supporting an old web based .NET application. It requires a browser plugin, and I.E. 7. It really is a pain to get this to work in the application only mode of XP mode. Just getting an I.E. 7 icon on the Windows 7 start menu/desktop is difficult.

  6. Is Amazon the best place (for you) for us to order a copy? Or should we wait till you get copies and purchase them from you directly?

    Thanks.

  7. Aaron, I will not be selling copies directly. Traditionally, Amazon has the best price and I recommend them (full disclosure: I also get a buck or two from each sale made via a link here).

  8. “It should be off to the printer this week and in stores on September 30.”

    Hi Ed

    Can you ask the publisher or printer to expedite?

    Windows 7 Unleashed is already out. But we want your book … but we need it as soon as possible …. many users in our company have been holding off buying new PCs because they all want Windows 7 (they don’t want to by now and do the upgrade later) … and we need to support them.

    Thank you!

  9. Congrats Ed… I like your striving for ‘quality of content’… the books I already see on the shelves of my local Barnes and Noble… reading the sections about Movie Maker… shows them written with the goal of being the first book on the shelf regardless of quality.

    Wishing you the best with it…

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