Great book if you know a little about Windows but want more detail than that offered in the 'Dummies' series. Takes you into and behind many of the key features common to Windows (registry, the start menu, right click context menus, speeding up startup and shutdown, backups, to name a few) and shows you not to be afraid, that it's not all that complicated and that you can really improve the how you use XP with loads of little tweaks.
I especially liked how it went into detail over many individual quirks, walking you through the changes required in a straightforward list-style manner. It also points out many shortcomings and, helpfully, lists measures necessary to work around them. Just off the top of my head, some really handy tips are listed with Explorer, backing bits of the registry before making changes, closing holes in XP security. The book is just packed with ways that you can adapt and adjust XP.
If you're at all a bit of a control freak who wants to know what all the 'secret rules' are for Windows XP and where they are hidden, then this book is probably for you.
Watch out for all the typos in the first edition though.
