Customer Reviews

Windows Admin Scripting Little Black Book (Little Black Books (Paraglyph Press))

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book is a lot like a smorgasbord. You walk up to the counter, and before you are tons of dishes and you get to sample them all. It isn't long, however, before you realize that the items from each style of food are few and simple, and you wish they had a different type of this, or an expanded selection of that. This title has 14 chapters, 353 pages, more scripting languages than you can shake a stick at (most with code samples), plus many scattered references for command line switches on quite a few OS applications (from Defrag to Media Player) - and when all is said and done, you will be exposed to a lot, and wishing for more detail.

This book can open many doors and show you many great things. I don't think that anyone at any administrative level can read this book and not discover something new. The only problem is that this book was a monumental undertaking. You are introduced to a concept, given the general gist, and moved right along regardless if you get it or have questions. You are often left wondering how to get it to work on your computer and where to turn to get clarification.

When all is said and done, this book is a good buy. Read it with the expectation of being an introduction to many topics, but don't expect it to be your primary reference book, or to master any of the presented material without additional reading.

Summed in one sentence: YOU HAVE TO GET THIS BOOK!!! I have bought about 3 other over-priced scripting books, and they are so fluffed with fillers. Briefly: - Covers Windows Script Host, KiXtart, Shell Scripting, AutoIt, ScriptIt, and more. - First book to cover and actually explain WMI and ADSI scripting. - Packed with examples that administrators will use daily! - Great for begginers (both to administrating, Windows 2000, and scripting). - First book I actually read front to back! This book isn't filled with examples like 'writing HELLO WORLD', but with awesome ones like 'Automating installs, updating antivirus files, creating logon scripts'. I am gonna start using them at work and pass them off as my own. To the author: One sentence - YOU ROCK!

I've never seen a book like this! This guy must be an admin because everything here is what I do on a daily basis. Managing user/groups, inventory, imaging, messaging - you name it - its in here. And since my job is forcing Windows 2000 down my throat, its great that this book covers Windows 9x/ME/NT and 2000!!!

Also whats the other cool part is that I just bought it for Windows Scripting Host and know I can learn Kixstart and shell scripting all in the same shot!

Definately worth it!

I am mildly disappointed in this book. When I read the title and description, I thought it would be a discussion on the various topics presente. This instead turns out to be pre-cooked scripts that you can use out-of-the-book, or modify to suit your environment. I was looking for a meatier book that would help uncover the secrets of ADSI and the WinNT provider, explicity, without going thru the 100lbs of Windows 2000 Resource Kit. For example, the WinNT provider is covered in 75% of a single page.

I would recommend this for beginner admins who need quick answers to common problems. I would not consider this the first-line of answers for advanced admins who need to deal with customized solutions in a multi-domain or international environment.

This book is a great reference. Everything is right here, and you can easily modify or combine the scripts to perform the tasks needed to get done.

If you've ever bought a "little black book", you'll be comfortable with this book. This book is a concise refence and is intended for intermediate to advance admins/programmers/computer geeks (which explains the winers here who can't write batch files). It dives right into the task at hand, and shows you the results.

Definate buy. If you want the baby steps of scripting, this is not the book for you - but if you don't need someone to hold your hand and want to perform awesome scripting tasks, then I recommend this for you.

Two thumbs up!

For all of us who have to gather commands and keystrokes, and do them again some time, this is the book to get. Logically organized and presented, this book will give you the starting point for just about any automated scripting task you have to take on. Get it as a reference book to look up how to do specific scripting tasks, or just browse through it, and you're bound to come across something that you had never even considered automating.

Originally this book had all the scripts available for download from the author's website. The website is no longer available and the author says the scripts were lost. This is not a big deal for some of the smaller scripts but it is a deal breaker for some of the larger scripts. Since the book doesn't fully explain what the scripts do, it can be disheartening to try and type out a two page script and get error messages back with no explanation.

If the scripts were still available this would be a four star review for reference. As it stands now I can't recommended the book.

The third updated edition of Jesse M. Torres' WINDOWS ADMIN SCRIPTING LITTLE BLACK BOOK provides administrators with a guide to scripting Windows tasks and is a must for any who seek shortcuts to administrating Windows systems. Updated for the latest versions of Windows XP and Service Pack 2, WINDOWS ADMIN SCRIPTING LITTLE BLACK BOOK packs in script examples on all key topics, tools, and languages.

This was great! Ecellent information on Admin Scripting. You will only understand how good it is after you read it. Highly recommended!!

The book is well written, but to practically try the script codes you have to type it manually from the book.
The online code dump, as advertised by the author, does not exist.