Customer Reviews

Windows 2000 System Administrator's Black Book: The Systems Administrator's Essential Guide to Installing, Configuring, Operating, and Troubleshooting a Windows 2000 Network

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I purchased this book based on the author's reputation. I have mixed feelings about the book.

Yes, there are some technical inaccuracies. However, none (so far) are fatal and most seem to been due to oversights in the editing process.

Each of the chapters starts with an "In-depth" section that reviews the chapter's contents. While I hesitate to describe much of the material as "in depth"; this section of each chapter does a reasonably good job of overviewing the material. More than wading, but not deep either. More like waist deep.

The rest of each chapter provides step by step instructions to tasks related to the chapters material. Most of these "solutions" provide a step by step instuction to complete some task.

This book is not meant to be a MCSE test prep tool. For a beginning to intermediate level network administrator or for a recent NT 4 to Windows 2000 convertee, there is a lot of useful "get the job done" information.

It really looks like the authors took the help screens available in Windows 2000 and simply reorganized the material. Very little analysis or depth is provided. While not bad, it is very weak in comparision with other available books. If you are going to spend the money on a valuable resource, then look at some other alternatives. For a basic admin overview, get "Windows 2000 Administration for Dummies." My clear recommendation for the best immediate to advanced reference is "The Ultimate Windows 2000 System Administrator's Guide." The Microsoft Windows 2000 Resource Kit is also a good but expensive alternative. DO NOT WASTE YOU MONEY ON THIS BOOK ... look at the superior alternatives.

I purchased this book based on the authors promotion as user group gurus. Within the first hundred pages I found numerous incorrect statements. This is not a book to purchase if you want an accurate reflection. I am disappointed and angry.

I find this book exeptional and user friendly for those who can not afford Microsoft Certification examination fee especially in the developing world who are working as computer technicians, systems administrators and microsoft based network Operating Systems administrators. Its contents are straight foward from juniors and senior computer systems administrators who are familiar with Windows NT and who wants to migrate to windows 2000.It is a user friendly book that systems administrator need to have it. It is a must have Windows 2000 Systems Administrator's book.

This is really a good book. It is note quite a reference manual. Its more of a teaching/insturction book. I have been working with NT since 3.51. The jump from 3.51 to 4.0 was pretty easy because you were using Windwos 95 for a year already and 4.0 "looked" just like 95 and it still worked a lot like 3.51. With 2000 its all new.

This book gives an explanation of what its covering in the chapter - good stuff - a lot like a manual, then it gives step-by-step instructions on how to do things that you wouldn't even need to think about how to do in NT4. Its worth it - you might not need it as much 8 months from now - but it should be on the self for those 1st 8 months. I would recomend this book to newbies and pros alike.

The only thing that could be better was if Stu could have hooked us up with licensed versions of the software included with the CD ;)

This book is great! I found that it went into great detail on issues that have been coming up on a daily basis in the office. Overall it was very educational as well as easy to read and provided great techniques to help with installation and management for my network. Using the information in this book has increased my production ten fold in such a sort time I can suggest that all 2000 administrators should pick up a copy.

I found this book to be a fantastic tool and resource for the indidvidual who cannot afford to take the MSCE exam! This book covers topics for everyone from a junior/intermediate to a high level senior technical position in the industry. Can't get by without it!

Love the layout. Made it easy to find what I was looking for.

I also have the Microsoft Press 2000 ResKit... found the black book a lot easier to use...

I found this book very user friendly and would higly recommend this book to anyone already working with Win2k or facing a Win2k migration in the near future (that will be most of us!). It covers a variety of migration and network integration issues and deals with all aspects of the o/s in a very straight-forward manner. In my opinion, this black book is definitely going to be of use for anyone who's involved in the "wonderful world" of Windows.

This book might be useful if you just can't remember how to perform some administrative tasks - but it is very short on telling you why you would want to do them. I want more of the why, and I will figure out the how.
I also want technical accuracy. I was surprised to learn (on page 439) that disk striping (RAID 0) provides protection from a single disk failure. This kind of error should not appear in a book of this nature - and there are many other similar examples.
The book was written by 3 people, and at times it seems as if each one wrote one sentence of each paragraph. It sometimes jsut doesn't flow very well, which makes it harder to concentrate on what is being said.
The book is not totally useless, but I have seen many other books that are, in my opionion, much more worth your time and money.