I spent the better part of a year delving into the all-too-numerous nooks and crannies of Windows Longhorn — the original codename of what is now officially called Windows Vista — to scope out what's new and interesting in Microsoft's designated successor to Windows XP. Along the way I suffered the inevitable glitches, gotchas, spontaneous reboots, and system crashes that are part of the day-to-day life of a beta tester. However, I also found lots of things worth writing about, and the result is Microsoft Windows Vista Unveiled, an advance look at what will probably be your operating system someday soon.

If you want to know what all the Vista fuss is about, what's truly innovative, what's unfortunately derivative, and what just plain stinks about Windows Vista, look no further than this book.