Microsoft XP Professional Handbook (Administrator's Advantage Series) [Illustrated] [Paperback]

Louis Columbus (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 23, 2002 | ISBN-10: 1584502193 | ISBN-13: 978-1584502197 | Edition: 1st

Focusing on the needs of the advanced technical professional who is responsible for an entire series of Windows NT, Windows2000 and Windows XP Professional, The Windows XP Professional Handbook is designed to be both a handy desk reference in addition to a content review for MCSE courses. This book provides readers with insights into how Microsoft?s latest enterprise-based operating system solves the connectivity and development environment challenges that system administrators and advanced users face everyday. It also focuses on how to solve the tougher issues that arise in organizations running multiple operating systems. In addition to the expanded coverage of the most challenging aspects of keeping a workgroup going, this hands-on guide also includes short case studies as sidebars, illustrating key terms and concepts from the content covered in the chapter.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Columbus develops research methods for e-business product direction at Zland.com and is an adjunct instructor of networking courses at California State University-Fullerton.

Product Details

• Paperback: 323 pages
• Publisher: Charles River Media; 1st edition (April 23, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1584502193
• ISBN-13: 978-1584502197
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,721,214 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I have a passion for writing about how technologies can make people's lives easier and more enriching, while making businesses more efficient and profitable. My hope in writing books, e-books and blogs is to serve you, the reader, enriching you with what I've learned. That's my goal.

My work background includes marketing, product management, sales and industry analyst roles in the enterprise software and IT industries. I'm serving as Microsoft Enterprise Systems Senior Analyst & Marketing Manager at Cincom, where my responsibilities include new product introductions, messaging, marketing strategy, business development, and competitive strategy. Previous positions include senior analyst at AMR Research (now Gartner), marketing and business development at Cincom Systems, Ingram Micro, a SaaS start-up and at hardware companies.

My academic background includes an MBA from Pepperdine University and completion of the Strategic Marketing Management Program at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

I also teach MBA courses in international business, global competitive strategies, international market research, and capstone courses in strategic planning and market research. I've taught at California State University, Fullerton: University of California, Irvine; Marymount University, and Webster University.

Thanks for visiting my author page and if you purchase one of my books or e-books, thank you. I stand behind them and would love to get your feedback anytime via my blog's comment page at http://softwarestrategiesblog.com/about/

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not sure who it's aimed at, January 6, 2005

By 

avoraciousreader (Somewhere in the Space Time Continuum) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Microsoft XP Professional Handbook (Administrator's Advantage Series) (Paperback)

This is a strangely variable book. Some sections seem aimed at the veriest tyro, while others (befitting the series title "Administrator's Advantage") seem aimed at an administrator for a local network, though it doesn't seem it provides the gritty information needed to actually work with one. There is little to differentiate XP Professional from XP Home Edition, nor for that matter XP from earlier versions.

Even though this is a short book and cannot cover every topic or command, even those topics covered are done so sparsely, missing the details and nuances that are so important. Two simple examples, one I had to deal with and one I just ran across:

Columbus spends slightly over 2 pages, with 4 illustrations, describing how to add a shortcut to the desktop by invoking the shortcut wizard to browse to a program. (A) Once you know how to invoke the wizard, the detail is hardly necessary, especially for an administrator; or the details of following through a wizard, browsing, etc, could have been covered once at the beginning of the book. (B) Not only program (executable) files can have shortcuts; it's often very useful to have a shortcut to a document. Shortcuts do not have to be on the Desktop, but can be in any folder. (C) He doesn't mention the much more common and useful, in my experience, method of creating shortcuts by right-clicking on the target and dragging to where you want the shortcut created. (D) No mention of other useful stuff like what happens if you move the target.

He devotes slightly less than 2 pages to the operating system's virtual memory (a way of faking large RAM by making part of the hard disk look like RAM), giving a most basic and not very elucidative definition. The only suggestion for optimizing configuration is to change it to "system managed size". Now if it were that simple, why wouldn't that be the default and why would any manufacturer set something different? For a much more useful discussion and suggestions, by an MS-MVP, see aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.php

There is a fair amount of high-falutin' jargon substituting for operational discussion/definition. About what one would expect from someone who describes himself as "responsible for analyzing and reporting on key trends in the B2B order management area of sell-side e-commerce."

So, recommendations? Though sometimes jargon heavy, this book is simply written, and for a novice to intermediate user may have some useful tidbits. But don't operate under the assumption it discusses everything you'll want or need to know, nor that it is the last word, or even the intermediate word, on those topics it introduces. It may serve to introduce some concepts of networking and other advanced concepts, and has a useful discussion of email (Outlook Express). This may make a useful, non-intimidating intro book, but should not be your last or your only book. It might also be a useful book for the executive trying to understand what the computer department is talking about without wanting to gain the knowledge to actually administer the system.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Reference Book For every XP User!, December 27, 2003

By 

Mark Burns (Dallas, TX) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Microsoft XP Professional Handbook (Administrator's Advantage Series) (Paperback)

I've used this book for several classes at my computer school in Dallas and it's great for giving the student a quick overview of the fundamental overview of Windows XP including how to use networked resources. I've found that the chapter on troubleshooting TCP/IP connections was invaluable for teaching the fundamentals of networking technologies. The chapter on broadband technologies is also very valuable when teaching students about networking. I give this book two thumbs up!

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ideal for courses on XP, July 3, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Microsoft XP Professional Handbook (Administrator's Advantage Series) (Paperback)

I found the book to be very valuable for an Introduction to Windows XP Professional class I am teaching. Calling it just a compilation of help files is inaccurate; there are many hands-on exercises and insights the author has provided from speaking with actual XP early adopters. In addition the networking sections provide the level of detail necessary for teaching a course that touches on TCP/IP. In fact, the two chapters on TCP/IP are very useful in that they give not just Microsoft's stance on the technology but also the technical background of how standards evolved.

Very useful for training purposes, I give it five stars! Students love it too!