Mastering Windows 2000 Server - Christa Anderson, Mark Minasi > Reviews (1)

Mastering Windows 200 Server, something that a lot of network analysts such as myself would like to do! On the front of the book it claims that it is the ‘complete guide to enterprise networking with Windows 2000 Server’, this is a bold claim because as the Windows Server product grows increasing depth is required to investigate its features, whole books have been written just on TCP/IP. However, I can honestly say that this book does indeed cover all the aspects of Windows 2000 Server. I have now been using Widows 2000 for some time and I have not identified anything that the author has left out.

I would say this book is suitable for various levels of experience although it is easier to read if you at least know something about the Windows Server family. The more experienced reader may wish to brush over the section on TCP/IP as you will probably be familiar with this but for those who are not this provides a rounded introduction. Mark Minasi even covers many of the obscure but useful features such as the ability to use Remote Installation Serer (RIS) to role out Windows 2000 Professional and Server over a network; this proves invaluable when there are large quantities of PC’s in your organization.

This book covers all aspects of Windows networking in some depths (not just for Server but for enterprise networks in general). In addition to explaining how to automate backup processes it also explains how to successfully recover in worst-case scenarios. Unlike several other books covering Windows 2000 Server there are also further sections covering Internet Information Server (IIS).

This book is huge, it’s like a bible at 1830 pages. Although I read it straight through it is possibly more useful as a reference manual or reading the relevant chapter the day before you plan to carry out the task. I can highly recommend this, at £45 it can seem expensive but you have to considering the scale of this book. Please note that this book can be obtained from www.amazon.co.uk at a cheaper price.