Ive noticed that books focusing on Windows 2000 tend to be huge, usually more than 1,000 pages, and theres a reason for that. A vast amount of knowledge is required to set up a large, distributed, and secure installation of Windows 2000 Server. So unless you plan to focus on one specific aspect of Windows 2000, you can expect to break your back as you haul one of these books home with you -- or you can take the smart option and have one of the online booksellers deliver it to your door.
Ive had a number of Windows 2000 titles delivered to me and for this review Ill focus on Inside Windows 2000 Server by William Boswell, which weighs in at around 1,400 pages. In a short review, its hard to give you a good overview of something this big, and believe me there is a lot to cover in anything to do with W2K Server, but here goes.
Boswell has written a good book and you should note that it is not written for someone who wishes to take the MCP/MCSE exams, but rather for the administrator who is responsible for managing a W2K installation. In fact, the book contains no references at all to the certifications. It is also important to know that this book is not necessarily a good starting point for someone who does not have some experience with NT4. Although Boswell generally uses a clear and conversational tone, he has written a lot of sections under the assumption that you are not coming at W2K without the historical perspective that NT4 would give you. Boswell covers most of the issues you will need to know to upgrade and maintain a reasonable enterprise-level installation of W2K Server. Although Boswell does not dwell on the particulars where no change occurred between NT4 and W2K, where change does occur, he provides a sound explanation of the differences.
The book touches on most aspects of W2K Server in some way -- from installation or upgrade to remote management. Boswell's style is lucid and informative, with as much structure as anyone can put into place for something this substantial.
A considerable section (more than 200 pages) on file systems offers everything you could want to know about how theyre put together, permissions, management, encryption, remote file systems, and the new Distributed File System (DFS). The same depth can be seen in Boswells coverage of remote access, which, at more than 120 pages, I personally think was overkill. Boswell obviously knows a great deal about these topics, but I wish he had spent as much time going into the core details of Active Directory (AD). Not to say that the coverage of AD is bad, just that it seems to me that AD -- as the newest thing to most people -- deserved a little more attention. I think this book in combination with another book focused specifically on AD (such as Building an Enterprise Active Directory: Notes from the Field by Microsoft Press) would suit most users planning to implement W2K in their enterprise, large or small.
Boswell deals with specific security issues as they arise throughout the course of the book, but does not deal with securing W2K for the enterprise. Because of this, I am still looking for a security book that discusses specifically how to fully secure W2K in heterogeneous environments, including locking it down for Internet use. But I have not found such a book yet.
In a related area, the book provides excellent coverage of the Domain Name Service (DNS) and related services. Good descriptions of the tools available to work with and resolve DNS configurations -- from the simple tracert.exe to DDNS management and including analysis of data they consume and provide -- make this book very useful as you work with W2K and TCP/IP. However, as stated earlier, do not rely on this book for good security coverage, especially if you are going to expose your server, or servers, to the Internet.
Two useful aspects of the book are the clear and progressive explanations of basic administrative tasks and the insights the author provides regarding common problems -- problems that can be annoying because they often take a long time to fix, even if you consult Microsofts TechNet and QA articles.
One minor issue remains, however. Boswell may have been working with early builds of W2K, because a number of times he presents incorrect information. For example, although the book references specific options on some screens in AD management, when you get there they are not to be seen. This problem seems common among books that came out before, or just as, W2K was delivered to the public. However, it is generally easy to determine what is going on if you look at the specific application or UI component on the server.
To put together the ultimate W2K reference library, I am looking at other W2K books. I think Inside Windows 2000 Server will be part of that collection. As such, I class this book as a mid-level book, not for the absolute beginner, generally useful as a reference for the extreme expert, and an excellent reference for the rest of us.
Inside Windows 2000 Server
Author: William Boswell
Publisher: New Riders
Published: December 1999
ISBN: 1-56205-929-7
$49.99
1,478 pages