Ed Bott

Senior Contributing Editor

Ed Bott is an award-winning technology writer with more than two decades' experience writing for mainstream media outlets and online publications. He has served as editor of the U.S. edition of PC Computing and managing editor of PC World; …both publications had monthly paid circulation in excess of 1 million during his tenure. He is the author of more than 25 books, including Windows 10 Inside Out (now in its 4th edition) and Windows 11 Inside Out (scheduled for publication in 2022).

Ed Bott is a freelance technology journalist and book author. All work that Ed does is on a contractual basis. Since 1994, Ed has written more than 25 books about Microsoft Windows and Office. Along with various co-authors, Ed is completely responsible for the content of the books he writes. As a key part of his contractual relationship with publishers, he gives them permission to print and distribute the content he writes and to pay him a royalty based on the actual sales of those books. Ed's books are currently distributed by Pearson Education under the Microsoft Press imprint. On occasion, Ed accepts consulting assignments. In recent years, he has worked as an expert witness in cases where his experience and his knowledge of Microsoft technology and licensing have been useful. In each such case, his compensation is on an hourly basis, and he is hired as a witness, not an advocate. Ed sometimes receives fees and/or travel expenses for live speeches and webinars from companies and organizations. Acceptance of these fees does not constitute an endorsement of the company's products. Ed does not own stock or have any financial interest in any technology company. Ed does not accept gifts from companies he covers. All hardware products he writes about are purchased with his own funds or are review units covered under formal loan agreements and are returned after the review is complete.

Latest from Ed Bott

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Who owns your digital downloads? (Hint: it's not you)

Who owns your digital downloads? (Hint: it's not you)

Steve Jobs once said, "People want to own their music." Someone better tell the folks who run the iTunes Store and its competitors. When you pay for a digital music track or album from an online service, you get a limited set of rights and you most assuredly don't own those downloads. Here's why that matters.

January 3, 2011 by in Mobility

Phone scammers target PC users with phony virus reports

Phone scammers target PC users with phony virus reports

Online con artists are targeting PC users worldwide in a brazen scam. It starts with a phone call from a "tech support specialist" who warns that your computer is infected with a virus. To fix things, all you have to do is give the caller remote access to your PC. Here's what happens next.

November 3, 2011 by in Mobility

Apple, not Gear, deserves the blame for iTunes crashes

Apple, not Gear, deserves the blame for iTunes crashes

It’s now been a week since Apple’s botched release of iTunes 8, which caused a tidal wave of Vista crashes before it was hastily rolled back. Judging from traffic on Apple’s support forum, pulling the new Apple USB driver and replacing it with the file from iTunes 7.7 succeeded in quieting most of the complaints from most Windows users, although a handful of customers report that they’re still having problems. After looking more closely at the other driver, from Gear Software, I've concluded that it was unrelated to these crashes and might even be an innocent bystander in another iTunes support headache involving missing CD and DVD drive letters.

September 17, 2008 by in Mobility