Mark Minasi is an excellent technical writer and a veteran of many high-quality projects. Mastering Windows 2000 Server, albeit based on a late beta version of its subject (release candidate 2), is the newest in his string of triumphs. With remarkable detail and with something approaching comprehensiveness, Minasi documents Windows 2000 Server capabilities with an eye toward the goals of real-world network administrators and the problems they're likely to encounter.

His style is fun in that it communicates procedures without descending into "choose this, click that" tedium, instead using narrative prose with illustrations to combine practical material with enough background information to promote truer understanding. Occasional tables and bulleted lists, ready for marking, hold commands, options, and other reference information.

Because Windows 2000 Server and Windows 2000 Advanced Server are largely the same (Advanced Server supports more memory and a greater number of processors than plain Server), this book ought to prove useful to administrators of both. Windows 2000 Datacenter Server admins have to worry about some additional capabilities (notably clustering and load balancing) that aren't covered here, but even they should benefit from this book's contents.

Though Minasi makes a point of saying that he didn't write with exams in mind, this book should also prove useful to people studying for Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) exams involving Windows 2000 technologies. Mastering Windows 2000 Server is an excellent value. --David Wall

Topics covered: Features of Windows 2000 Server (and similar products) from the administrator's perspective. The author (who based his research and writing on the Release Candidate 2 late-beta edition of Windows 2000 Server) gives particularly lavish attention to Active Directory, Remote Installation Services, Windows Terminal Services, and various aspects of network connectivity. Users who want to hook Macintoshes and NetWare networks to Windows 2000 systems will find useful material.


Book Description
-The complete guide to enterprise networking with Windows 2000! -Number-one Windows authority Mark Minasi teaches you the secrets for building trouble free Windows 2000 networks. -Covers through the third Service Pack.


Book Info
A text and CD-ROM offering a course for mastering Windows 2000 Server. Includes material on installing Windows 2000, tuning and monitoring a network, using and creating administrative tools, and more. The CD-ROM contains an e-copy of the text. For users at all levels of experience. System requirements not listed. Previous edition: c1999.


From the Back Cover
The ONLY Windows 2000 Resource You Need-Now With a New Emphasis on Security! The #1 choice of Windows administrators, Mastering Windows 2000 Server gives you all the conceptual and practical information you need to get the most out of Microsoft's flagship network operating system. This is the premier resource for configuring, administering, and tuning Windows 2000 Server as part of a corporate enterprise network. You can depend on it for clear, authoritative instruction in hundreds of techniques that will make your work easier and your job more secure. Coverage Includes: Installing Windows 2000 Configuring IP, DHCP, WINS, and DNS to achieve the right foundation for your network Building and managing domains with Active Directory Controlling hundreds, even thousands, of workstations with group policies Prebuilding and delivering complete workstation images with Remote Installation Services Deploying applications throughout the enterprise with Microsoft Installer Understanding advanced DNS design and troubleshooting to keep your domains secure and running Improving network resource accessibility with Dfs, Web folders, shared printers, and Web printing Using Windows 2000 to share Internet Connections Tuning and monitoring your network Securing your network with new coverage of IPSec, certificates, security templates, simplified hotfix installations, auditing, and more Offering Web content with Internet Information Services 5 Real Solutions to Real Challenges If improving the real-world performance of your network is the bottom line, this book delivers the goods. It shows you how to design and manage a multiple-platform network, build a Windows-based intranet, find the right data backup strategy, prevent and recover from disasters, and much more. There's no end to what you'll accomplish with practical, step-by-step instruction from the expert who has actually done it all on live networks! Featured on the CD On the enclosed CD, you'll find a fully searchable electronic copy of the book- complete, convenient, and easy-to-use.


About the Author
Mark Minasi, MCSE 2000, is recognized as one of the world's best teachers of NT/2000. He teaches NT/2000 classes in 15 countries and is a much sought-after speaker at conferences. Mark has taught tens of thousands of people to design and run NT/2000 networks. Among his 15 other Sybex books are Mastering TCP/IP for NT Server; Troubleshooting Windows, and The Complete PC Upgrade and Maintenance Guide, which has sold a million copies and has been translated into 12 languages.

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
Windows 2000 Server has now been through one ￯﾿ﾽsecurity rollup package,￯﾿ﾽ two large service packs, and three years of real-world production usage. Over the past few years, an awful lot has been learned about what it￯﾿ﾽs really like to run Win2K Server. What works. What doesn￯﾿ﾽt. How to streamline deployment and support. How to organize your enterprise network and maximize its performance. Above all, how to avoid problems (especially the security-related problems that￯﾿ﾽll land you on the front page of The Wall Street Journal).

Mark Minasi travels the country teaching enterprise professionals how to manage Windows 2000 -- and learning from them, as well. Mastering Windows 2000 Server, Fourth Edition offers more insights into making Windows 2000 Server-based networks work well than any other book we￯﾿ﾽve seen.

Let￯﾿ﾽs start by saying that at nearly 1,600 pages (and in this edition, they￯﾿ﾽve even shrunk the type a bit), this book covers every imaginable Windows 2000 Server nook and cranny. Managing and creating user accounts and shared folders. Running Windows Terminal Services. Connecting Macintoshes to Windows 2000 systems (Minasi offers a highly sympathetic view of Macs, plus detailed solutions for issues like AppleShare￯﾿ﾽs problematic clear-text authentication.)

There￯﾿ﾽs a full chapter on configuring and troubleshooting network print services (including a great section on web print services that first explains all the reasons they￯﾿ﾽre not as useful as you might expect, then shows you how to secure them, and finally offers a really creative tip for using them to streamline the printer setup process for clients -- something you probably wouldn￯﾿ﾽt have thought of in a million years.

But the heart of this book is what￯﾿ﾽs new for the first time in this Fourth Edition. And there￯﾿ﾽs a lot.

Once, Windows admins could get away without knowing DNS, but no longer. From edition to edition, Minasi￯﾿ﾽs gradually improved the book￯﾿ﾽs DNS coverage. In this edition, he takes a quantum leap forward. You￯﾿ﾽll not only learn how DNS works for once and for all: you￯﾿ﾽll master difficult stuff like primary/secondary replication, securing zone transfers between servers, subnet mask ordering, and blending mixed environments that combine Windows 2000-based DNS systems with legacy DNS servers.

There￯﾿ﾽs completely new and very thorough example, based on the widely-used ￯﾿ﾽsplit-brain DNS architecture,￯﾿ﾽ and using only a single routable address (more realistic than previous editions). There￯﾿ﾽs even a great example of using round-robin DNS to provide a sort of ￯﾿ﾽpoor man￯﾿ﾽs fault tolerance￯﾿ﾽ for Web sites -- not 100 percent foolproof, but a whole lot cheaper than true clustering.

In Windows 2000 Server, DNS is inextricably linked with Active Directory. Minasi has thoroughly revamped his AD coverage to include much more planning, installation, management, and troubleshooting coverage. (Those maddening domain controller and global catalog discovery problems you￯﾿ﾽve been coping with -- finally solved in Service Pack 2. Already know how to delegate control of an organizational unit? Here￯﾿ﾽs how to undelegate control.)

The book￯﾿ﾽs full of undocumented goodies. For example, most people only know Indexing Service as the home of the security hole that Code Red exploited, but it￯﾿ﾽs a great tool for building fast, flexible search engines for both the Web and your own network. If only it was documented well. Now it is. Want to use the free NTBackup for scheduled backups? Not easy, but Minasi￯﾿ﾽs plug-in batch files will do the job. Got one of those NT4 applications that demand their own system DLLs and just won￯﾿ﾽt run under Windows 2000? Minasi walks you through a breathtakingly obscure solution called ￯﾿ﾽDLL redirection.￯﾿ﾽ

Wherever there￯﾿ﾽs something new to say about Windows 2000 security, Minasi says it. There￯﾿ﾽs 16 pages of new coverage on securing web services. Extensive new explanations of Microsoft￯﾿ﾽs security templates and SECEDIT tool -- powerful stuff. A new 20-page section IPSec -- essential if you￯﾿ﾽre creating a VPN.

Last but not least, the book comes with a fully searchable electronic copy in Acrobat PDF format. That￯﾿ﾽs not just nice: it￯﾿ﾽs a necessity for support professionals who aren￯﾿ﾽt chained to a desk and can￯﾿ﾽt carry this book everywhere --- a book that, at 6-1/2 lbs., outweighs many newborn babies. (Bill Camarda)

Bill Camarda is a consultant, writer, and web/multimedia content developer. His 15 books include Special Edition Using Word 2000 and Upgrading & Fixing Networks For Dummies®, Second Edition.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Mark Minasi, the world's #1 Windows NT authority, updates his #1 bestselling book for Windows 2000. Every system administrator needs this book! This high-level, irreverent yet readable explanation of Windows 2000 Server provides the best discussion of the architecture, features, and new utilities of the new OS in print. You'll learn from the expert: the differences between NT and 2000, the advantages (and potential pitfalls) of the the new OS; scores of undocumented secrets, tips, tricks, and workarounds, practical, hand's-on advice for installing and using Windows 2000 in an enterprise environment, and hundreds of useful and essential nuggets of information that will save you hundreds or thousands of dollars in calls to Microsoft's help desk.

SYNOPSIS