Errata

Bad URL link. Trying to go to wwww.microsoft.com
One to many w

Link on the Missing CD page for "Making Cortana Omit Web Results from Searches (PDF appendix)" is broken.

Note from the Author or Editor:
this appendix was removed from the latest edition; website and a reprint of the book will remove the reference.

I have recently acquired a new laptop with Windows 10 Pro. Previously I used a laptop with Windows 7. I have only thoroughly investigated the two matters I discuss here with regard to The Missing Manual, May 2019 Update. They concern an email client and the Bitlocker encryption feature.

Windows 10 comes with an email client called Mail, which Mr Pogue discusses in Chapter 10. Mail is unsatisfactory to me, foremost because with it one cannot save an email to any folder whatsoever. In a boxed note on page 389, Mr Pogue states there are alternatives, naming in particular, Windows Live Mail. I had used this with Windows 7 and had understood that it was no longer available for a new, fresh, use on a new computer. It seems that this has been so for a significant time prior to the publication of the May 2019 Update. I am now using Thunderbird, which receives no mention from Mr Pogue.

Bitlocker was not available to me on my version of Windows 7. Mr Pogue speaks briefly about Bitlocker at page 529 and refers to a downloadable PDF for a fuller description.

He could be more precise about the extent of protection Bitlocker affords as he writes ambiguously and the question, which supposedly authoritative sources have answered differently, is whether it protects against an online hacker penetrating one’s computer and reading the data it contains. I believe it just protects a drive which cannot be accessed by its ordinary operation through use of its computer. But I’ve yet to see a plainly written full explanation of the nature and extent of the protection afforded.

My understanding, reenforced by Mr Pogue’s PDF, was that I needed to turn Bitlocker on if I wished to use it. Accordingly, I studied his instructions in his PDF, but when I turned to applying them, I found that the Bitlocker page of the control panel indicated it was already on.

It turns out that Bitlocker now ships turned on, and that it has been doing so for some time, prior, I believe, to the publication of the May 2019 Update. There is now no password, and the recovery key is necessarily recorded in one’s Microsoft account and can no longer be in the form of a flash drive. So the May 2019 Update is not up to date.
I have not made sufficient use of other parts of the May 2019 Update to observe whether there are other substantive areas whose information has been superseded by events preceding the publication of this version of The Missing Manual. I would guess from what I’ve seen so far that this would be the case. These are not “errata” matters as ordinarily understood. Rather, these defects reflect Mr Pogue’s inattention to the task at hand. Seems unfair.