Not terribly exciting, but it gets the job done.
5/12/2007
If you plan to obtain a low-level A+ Certification, or simply wish to posses the knowledge necessary to do so, then this book is pretty much sufficient. Combined with it's sibling book, A+ Guide to Software, this book could allow one to become a relatively intermediate Windows-based PC technician. Then again, don't expect to walk away from these books an expert. A lot of technical details about troubleshooting are chucked up to common sense. The author often says things such as, "Ask questions and test for obvious errors." That's a given. But intense registry manipulation, command prompt maneuvering, and other areas of troubleshooting are barely explored. The book spends a lot of time explaining the fundamentals and technical stats of hardware. It doesn't spend a lot of time really diving into the realm of troubleshooting them.
The simplicity of the books makes them accessible to individuals who are not already very familiar with computer concepts. However, the simplicity makes them somewhat boring and unexciting to individuals with a considerable amount of computer experience. I found them useful for filling in small gaps that lingered due to many years of self-teaching.
The content of these books may not be advanced Systems Architecture, but it's still surprisingly beyond what the average user knows. I highly recommend these books for beginners who wish to break the barrier between being computer "noobs" and being fairly confident Windows-PC users and builders.