I love this book. It is filled with lots of great tips and information. Every other page I find I'm saying to myself, "This is such a great book." I have been reading many technical books and I have no patience for books with inaccurate information that all read alike; this book stands well above the rest due to accurate and well-written content.

I have been thinking all day about how I can adequately praise this book and still keep my review believable. The book is amazing... Well, the best way that I could put it is that I have spent hundreds of dollars on technical books in the last couple of years (about Win NT, TCP/IP, Cisco, etc.) and this book is easily in the top 5, maybe top 2.

Okay, why is it so great? Most books about Windows NT and 2000 are aimed at the person who has never used the software before and spend 3/4 of the pages describing mundane things like how to add programs to the start menu, how to set up printers, etc. - the stuff you can easily figure out on your own. Then there are the high level books that talk about the strategy of setting up your multi-domain network or rolling out Active Directory across your global corporation. It is usually YEARS after a product ships before books come out that just deal with the nuts and bolts of the operating system for the IT Professional who already understands the GUI - how to REALLY troubleshoot problems, what warts there are in the OS, etc. It has only been during the past year that decent books have started coming out about Windows NT Server 4.

This book has all of that info and more. For example: It has a list (in Chapter 27) of all of the common Blue Screen of Death error messages and likely sources of these problems. How cool is that? That section alone is worth the price of the book.

If you are sick of books that you have skip the first 10 chapters or that don't really tell you how to actually configure things, get this book. Not coincidentally, you should also get this book if you are preparing for the MS Win 2K Pro test (070-210). You can skip the expensive (boring) training that you would pay hundreds of dollars for and just read the book.

BTW I did pass the test (I got 840) and the only real studying I did was reading this book - although I have been using Win 2K Pro since it came out. That reminds me of something else: If you do buy the book, study chapters 23-25 about Automated Installation well. The test I took had almost 10 questions (out of 50) on this subject alone.

Hope this helps...

Having read the authors other book on Windows 2000 Active Directory, I immediately bought this tome. The author has a pleasant, easy to understand style of writing that is a welcome surprise - versus the standard dry recital of facts.

Written in late 99' the book is based on the RC versions. Sections include; Security, GUI interface changes, Networking, Registry, Utilities, Scripting, Users and groups, Disaster recovery, Performance monitoring, group policies, silent scripted installations, automated OS installations, and how to properly craft a Windows 2000 deployment project.

In addition to covering the 2000 professional product, the author points out what additional features and functionality occur on the client in a Windows 2000 active directory environment.

It is a clear, well written overview of the entire Windows 2000 Professional client. It is the best such book I have read to date...

It's good because it's like a lab works.. Contents are very good.. To read this I felt like I am hearing a story .... For those who wanna live in NT world should read this one.. I am Suhas DBA/SA .. Wish U best of luck..

Although based on beta 1 code, the book takes the right approach of providing breadth rather than depth coverage. This provides an excellent rounded view of Windows 2000 and doesn't really suffer from the fact that now it is nearly a year old. If you were going to nit-pick, then yes some of the detail is now no longer correct....but this really is totally outweighed by the books "complete" approach to the subject.

This book is a well-written and accurate overview of Windows 2000 and its significance. Many people will find that it tells them all they will ever need to know about the features of Windows 2000. For the more technically inclined it is a superb overview and introduction to Windows 2000. It was written before the second beta release became available, so it is based entirely on beta 1. This in no way diminishes its effectiveness or value, but does mean that certain later developments are not included, including the name change from Windows NT 5.0 to Windows 2000 and details of the different varieties of Windows 2000 (Professional, Server, Advanced Server, etc). I highly recommend this book to anyone seeking an understanding of Windows 2000 from either a business or a technical perspective.

We call this one "The Red Book" around our parts. From top to bottom, this book covers the theory behind Active Directory and gave me what I feel is a very solid footing on the beast that is AD. This is not easy stuff, but this book gave me a much better understanding of how best to plan an AD implementation.

I think that I've been looking through all of the current books on directory service architecture and planning. And I'm confident that this is the best book there is at present. While two of the 20 chapters in the book do include a few examples that may seem a bit dated due to them being based on RC1, this really doesn't mean anything to anyone, but the people that might be under the false impression that this book also will tell them how to configure and install Windows 2000 Server. Anyway, whatever way you may see things, the 670 pages (which by the way is far more than what you'll find elsewhere) is just what you'll need to understand and plan for Active Directory. So until a better book might come along, I'll keep this one handy.

Mr. Nielsen's book is excellent. I needed a quick and complete intro to Active Directory and its implementation and this definitely fills the bill. For 30 bucks, it is a real bargain. He seems to have really gone over the Microsoft Official Curriculum and broken some fingernails getting a Win2000 network up and running. Where MS gives you a paragraph, Mr. Nielsen may give you two pages. This is good. There is not much here on Win2000 Professional or mundane stuff like printing, but that is fine.