Windows® 7 Resource Kit [Paperback]

Mitch Tulloch (Author), Tony Northrup (Author), Jerry Honeycutt (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0735627002 | ISBN-13: 978-0735627000 | Publication Date: October 7, 2009 | Edition: 1 Pap/Cdr

In-depth and comprehensive, this RESOURCE KIT delivers the information you need to administer your Windows 7 system. You get authoritative technical guidance from those who know the technology best—Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs) and the Windows 7 product team—along with essential scripts and resources. In addition, “Direct from the Source” sidebars offer deep insights and troubleshooting tips from the Windows 7 team.

Get expert guidance on how to:

• Use Microsoft Deployment Toolkit best practices and tools.
• Plan user-state migration and test application compatibility.
• Exploit new Group Policy features, settings, and ADMX templates.
• Configure software updates and client-security technologies.
• Administer disks, file systems, file sharing, search, and Windows Internet Explorer® 8.
• Install and troubleshoot printers, devices, and services.
• Manage IPsec, IPv6, wireless, and remote connectivity.
• Use performance monitoring and diagnostic tools to manage desktop health.
• Resolve common startup, hardware, and networking issues.

CD features:

• Sample VBScript scripts and Windows PowerShell™ scripts
• Troubleshooting tools
• Links to toolkits, documentation, and white papers
• Fully searchable eBook of this guide
• Complete eBook of INTRODUCING WINDOWS SERVER® 2008
• Sample chapters from related Microsoft Press® books

A Note Regarding the CD or DVD

The print version of this book ships with a CD or DVD. For those customers purchasing one of the digital formats in which this book is available, we are pleased to offer the CD/DVD content as a free download via OReilly Medias Digital Distribution services. To download this content, please visit OReillys web site, search for the title of this book to find its catalog page, and click on the link below the cover image (Examples, Companion Content, or Practice Files). Note that while we provide as much of the media content as we are able via free download, we are sometimes limited by licensing restrictions. Please direct any questions or concerns to [e-mail].

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

This official Microsoft Resource Kit delivers in-depth technical guidance from those who know the technology best—Microsoft MVPs and the Windows 7 team. Covers new features, deployment, administration, security, and other essential topics.

Windows 7 Keyboard Shortcuts

Windows 7 Upgrade Paths:

PowerShell Comparison Operators: Windows PowerShell has special comparison operators. One thing that might help is to realize that main operators are two letters long. (Case-sensitive operators all begin with the letter c, such as ceq for case-sensitive equals. You can type Get-Help about operators for more information).

About the Author

Mitch Tulloch is a trainer, consultant, and author living in Winnipeg, Canada. In addition to his Nutshell books for O'Reilly listed below, Mitch is also the author of the Microsoft Encyclopedia of Networking and Microsoft Encyclopedia of Security, both from Microsoft Press, and a string of best-selling books on IIS from Osborne/McGraw-Hill. If you're interested you can find out more about Mitch on his website www.mtit.com. In addition to his O'Reilly weblog, Mitch also maintains a "techblog" at mitchtulloch.blogspot.com containing random thoughts, ideas, suggestions, tips, and resources for network and system administrators.

Tony Northrup, MVP, MCSE, MCTS, and CISSP, is a consultant and author living in New London, CT. Tony started programming before Windows® 1.0 was released, but has focused on Windows administration and development for the last 15 years. He has written about 25 books covering Windows development, networking, and security. Among other titles, Tony is coauthor of the Windows 7 Resource Kit and Windows Server 2008 Networking and NAP. You can view his animal photos, bird photos, and travel photos, read his Windows Help blog.

Jerry Honeycutt, MVP for Windows, is a popular author with more than 25 books to his credit, including Microsoft Windows Desktop Deployment Resource Kit. In addition, he is a columnist for Windows XP Expert Zone and Microsoft TechNet.

Product Details

• Paperback: 1712 pages
• Publisher: Microsoft Press; 1 Pap/Cdr edition (October 7, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0735627002
• ISBN-13: 978-0735627000
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.4 x 2.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #48,895 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #28 in Books > Computers & Technology > Certification > Microsoft
  • #64 in Books > Computers & Technology > Microsoft > Development > C & C++ Windows Programming
  • #70 in Books > Computers & Technology > Operating Systems > Windows OS

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

52 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent First Edition, December 24, 2009

By 

Jase T. Wolfe - See all my reviews

This review is from: Windows® 7 Resource Kit (Paperback)

For a first edition, this RSK shows great promise. Too much information for those who wish to only be power users of the OS, but for anyone who needs to master and administer Windows 7, you can't go wrong with this behemoth. You would be hard pressed to not find an answer to general question or administrative need therein.

Continuing the trend set forth in prior Windows RSKs, this RSK introduces a lot of topics, but requires you to purchase additional books or read additional (and most of the time lengthy) TechNet material to fully make use of the technology or to completely understand what information they did present. A good example of this is PowerShell. The RSK and CD make heavy use of PowerShell scripts to automate tasks, but you do need to follow their How-To link if you actually want to learn the language. Another good example is the section on automated deployment. Although an excellent overview, most of the information you will need to completely perform the task you must get from one of the 7 links they provide you for resource materials.

I have also been somewhat surprised at the amount of information which is just missing, items that any administrator opting to customize the environment might need. As an example, if you're looking to deploy Win7 using the WIM on the install DVD instead of capturing your own, you will probably want to configure the Default User profile - a topic you will find minimal information on beyond folder locations and establishing mandatory profiles. Something as simple as how to configure the default background image is nowhere to be found. There are also no references to OEM configurations, such as changing the stock background image displayed when at the logon screen. Countless web sites publicize the information, but not the RSK.

Yes, this RSK is well written and an invaluable addition to your administrative library, but it won't be the last book on Windows 7 you buy/read.

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Windows 7 Encyclopedia!, November 27, 2009

By 

Lee Sergei - See all my reviews

This review is from: Windows® 7 Resource Kit (Paperback)

This book is like an encyclopedia for Windows 7. I got this book, the administrators pocket consultant and the MCTS Windows 7 exam book to ramp up on Windows 7 which we will be introducing at work in the next few months. What I liked about this book is that it had material that was not easy to find on TechNet. This is a good book to keep at the office because of its size and depth. The deployment chapters and the chapter on direct access are both very useful.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars No index in the Kindle edition..., May 14, 2011

By 

PC (United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Windows® 7 Resource Kit (Kindle Edition)

The book follows in the Windows Resource Kit series, now well-established for the Windows operating systems.

One significant fault for the Kindle Edition, which I read in my iPad Kindle app, is that there is no index. To be of fully useful, such an index should be hyperlinked to the pages the index refers to. Without such an index of some sort, this book is very hard to use since searching such a large book takes forever on portable systems like the iPad or iPod Touch (or iPhone).

The least impractical way I have to find something in this ebook is to use Amazon's "Look Inside" web-based feature, scroll down to the index, and try to get some idea of where it is in the ebook. Since many ebooks, including this one, do not show print edition page numbers, this tactic is of limited utility. I understand that many future Kindle e-books will include print edition page numbers as well as location numbers.

The Table of Contents is hyperlinked, so that touching the TOC link takes you to the chapter, but this often doesn't help that much when you're searching for something very specific.

I may try to get my money back for the Kindle edition and buy the paper edition instead...but I would really prefer a fully featured Kindle Edition! At least the paper edition would have an index!!