A person using a Microsoft PC for the first time can face a formidable amount of documentation. Microsoft has produced heavy tomes, delineating all that is possible with its system. Her problem is worsened if the computer is for her home. Then there is no corporate IT staff to pester. But the prospects of reading several large volumes is daunting.
So Holzman has given her an alternative. His book is directed squarely at the new user. It covers both looking after the software and hardware. In the latter, to give you an idea of the level of expertise he is pitching to, he explains that "the motherboard is the largest circuit board in the PC". An experienced user may snigger, but there are millions of people out there (perhaps you?) for which this is new and nonobvious.
As for software, he has chosen an order of presentation which is a symptom of what Microsoft dreads. Holzman starts by describing how to connect to the Internet and then he discusses the browser, email and a firewall. Only after these does he go into outlining how to use the Microsoft operating system. Because what drives much uptake of computers these days is the web, as contrasted to a purely local interaction. Not that he is anti-Microsoft, but he is predicting that many readers have precisely these priorities for their computer usages.
