CD-MOM: The Mother of All Windows Books CD-ROM Version (for Windows 3.1) ventures where no Windows book and companion disk have gone before: into the heart of the beast, to reveal the hard Windows facts of life. Read the book and learn how Windows really works-not how its designers thought it should work- and find hundreds of ways to make it work better for you. On your computer. Day in and day out.

Run the CD-ROM's software and find out which Windows products will let you work better and faster, and make it more fun. The CD-ROM contains the WinSleuth Gold Windows system snooper, CompuServe's WinCIM and a free sign-up worth $25, working models of major Windows applications-Ami Pro, ClarisWorks, Freelance Graphics, Quark XPress, IntelliDraw, PhotoStyler, and many more--in addition to:

The latest Windows printer and video drivers

Hundreds of megabytes of video clips and video viewing software

Dozens of newsletters

The new "safe" SmartDrive

The top 100 shareware Windows programs

A hundred fonts, thousands of icons, games, utilities, and much more.

CD-MOM includes detailed, step-by-step instructions on accessing and using the CD-ROM's software, even if you don't own a CD-ROM drive. As long as you can beg, borrow or steal a CD-ROM drive for just a few minutes you can put this incredible collection to work.

Mystified by the "Use Fast Access" check box? Or why your machine locks up unexpectedly? Can't get your sound card to work? Does your modem hate you? Want to make Windows run faster? Want to make Windows run, Period? Need some new hardware? Is it time to get a CD-ROM drive? MOM steps you through it all, with insight and wit.

It's all here in plain English: the concepts, the practicalities, gotchas and glitches, tricks and advice, plus hundreds of previously undocumented, or worse, incorrectly documented, settings. If you want the straight scoop on Windows-no pulled punches, no warmed-over user's manuals-just ask MOM.

Woody Leonhard is a contributing editor at PC/Computing, author of Windows 3.1 Programming for Mere Mortals, coauthor of the Hacker's Guide to Word for Windows (both from Addison-Wesley), and a Tibetan human rights activist.

Barry Simon is a contributing editor at PC Magazine and Windows Sources, and coauthor, with Michael Reed, of Methods of Modern Mathematical Physics.