Customer Reviews

Windows 2000 Registry Little Black Book

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

First off, the book starts with "This book is not for amateurs." I fully agree, as modifying the Windows registry can have a huge effect (good or bad) on your server. However, I would venture a guess that most users already know how to launch Regedt32. And for those that don't, you would only need to explain it once or twice in the entire text. From then on, "Launch Regedt32" would suffice in the text... But in this case, almost EVERY page in the text has detailed explanations on HOW to launch Regedt32, such that it accounts for about 25% of every page! Overall, that's about 25% of about 440 pages filled with redundant information!

Second, I would estimate that 30-50% of the registry tweaks described can be accomplished without modifying the registry directly. Any NT or Windows 2000 administrator worth his / her salt will probably know this, and would prefer to accomplish the "tweak" without modifying the registry directly.

So overall, 55-75% (25% + 30-50%) of the text is not going to be useful to the typical reader! Disappointing.

There are several aspects of the text that I do like... If you have a specific problem (like how to implement automatic logons without user input), the book has a very simple step-by-step approach to solving these effectively. It also explains the registry layout a bit, and what some of the subkeys are used for.

This is an excellent reference book with a detachable quick reference card on the WIN98 registry. The format makes it easy to find exactly what you're looking for without reading the entire chapter. It gives step by step instructions on how to accomplish a given task. Also, tips are given in each chapter.

This was the first book that I read concerning the Windows 98 Registry and could have stopped after finishing this book. The other books lacked the concise detail provided by this book.

This book provides what every computer reference book should but doesn't. Readable informative prose combined with detailed instructions clearly outlining how to accomplish any type of editing possible.

I am the caretaker for a computer lab at work and used this book on a daily basis at work and home. I finally purchased a second copy to cut down on wear and tear of the original. The book is a valuable tool and anyone working with Windows 98 on a daily basis should include this book in their library.

This book is written in such a way to give the reader maximum amount of useful information in a minimum amount of time. Each tip is included in a self contained section which lists all of the steps necessary to implement the tip. The reader is spared unnecessary information about underlying concepts and developmental theory. One tip that I utilized immediately was to disable that annoying animation everytime a window is minimized or restored. Another was speeding up the menus so when the mouse is moved over a menu, the submenu would appear very quickly. This book is a must for anyone supporting a network or end users.

I feel I have to add my voice to this book, to reduce the average rating for this book, because it does not deserve 4 stars. The fact that every single entry for a registry change has a 6 line entry that is IDENTICAL for each entry and the rest of the explanation is only useful if you are the village simpleton, takes away all merits this book may have in its coverage of the subject. There is no reason for the obvious contempt that both the Author and the publisher obviously hold any possible reader in. If there was a way to return this book to the shop as unfit for the purpose it was sold, I would return it. This book does not deserve to sell anymore copies.

You will find it hard to pass up this little gem of a book. Nathan and Anthony do a superb job of giving us the wealth of registry tweaks that would take us all a month of Sundays to find on the web. After searching for a particular tweak for 2 hours, I grabbed a copy of this book off a friends computer and found it in 5 seconds. This is definitely a "must have" in your library.

I dont have a lot to add to the reviews. I agree with : Jase T. Wolfe's review. He pretty much hit it on the head. I found good info in the book.. but the fluffy format drove me nuts. If you can get past this, you'll have a good resource in your hands.

I wanted to seriously manipulate the user interface of Windows 2000 using the Registry, as well as speed up TCP/IP over my DSL connection. This little reference book assembled all of the tweaks I needed in two simple chapters.

Then I started looking at all of the other chapters . . . needless to say - this book is well worth the price - it sure as hell beats surfing the Web for these tweaks.

P.S. Several of the tweaks learned from this book have saved my IT department countless headaches.

This is the most useful of five books I own for tweaking the registry. It helped me clean up improperly uninstalled registry entries and repair problems some workstations noticed in printer access. Many specific recipes for repairing or improving the registry, and also a good book to read for general knowledge in win/2000 problem solving.

Well, if you trust the opinion of one guy that issued a mere one star for the material, then you certainly aren't ready for the information in this book! However, if you're a genuine system administrator that needs to have easy access to detailed registry information without having to crawl the web, then this book is very well worth having. The whole point of the book is to delve deeper than GUI utilities like TweakUI and actually get to the meat of HOW things are done. Whether making registry changes from remote, via scripts, or locally, knowing where the right information is located is much more educational than shined up utilities.

While the book does go to some extremes in repeating some non-essential information, the overall value of the book is not badly diminished. I've been dealing with the Windows registry for years now, and I can't say that I have it all memorized. Grabbing a quick reference like this Little Black Book is a time saver... period.