Customer Reviews

Building a Windows Nt 4 Internet Server

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If you need a book about building a real Internet server from a Windows NT box, this is the book. It will help you to build a site server which can rival some of the best UNIX servers. And you can spend a lot less.

This book covers every aspect of your server setup--from system and network hardware selection and installation, to network topologies, to software necessary to make it all run smoothly. When I say it covers everything, I mean everything-NT Workstation and NT Server differences, differences in the different CPUs and hardware NT supports, when to use Workstation or Server, when one selection is more appropriate than others, etc.

The fact that the author(s) took the time to explain all the aspects extremely thoroughly makes this book exceptionally useful. The advantages and disadvantages of each technology or component are explained analyzed clearly and in English, not in "Techno".

This book fills in all the gray areas of understanding you may have. If you kinda knew the difference between SDRAM and SRAM, WINS and DNS, DHCP and SNMP, but were not completely clear...you will have an excellent grasp of the issues and details, as well as when to use and when not to use after reading this book.

My only problem with this book is that the information is a bit dated. It does not even mention some of the newer developments, such as the Pentium II, newer licensing issues with Server versus Workstation, newer software available to aide in the setup of Internet services. A second edition of this book is needed. Even so, the current version of this book is invaluable to the IS Administrator tasked with getting the company up on the Internet. It will become required reading for my IS staff.

Readers should remember that when this book was published, there was no IIS3, no ASP, and no de facto web server standard for Windows NT; therefore none of this information is adequately covered. What is/was covered is a wealth of general info to help beginners set up an NT Web Server from the ground up. From the beginners perspective, it does that pretty well. With the release of IIS4, things have, of course, changed. I'd still consider this useful for beginners wanting to set up a small web server or Intranet, but urge them to use IIS4 and skip the chapters on the 3rd party stuff.

Also, the section on TCP/IP is a complete chapter.

The cover says "Everything you need to get Windows NT 4 connected to the internet", this is a very complex process for which the book doesn't give a single detail. It is a conceptual overview of the internet as a whole. To give you an example the entire section on configuring TCP/IP is less than 6 sentences. Don't waste your money!!!

This book fails to embrace and recognize new trends in the computer hardware industry in terms of future trends, the role of the internet and how it will have an infulence on any new developments