Learning Windows Server 2003

Preface

Microsoft’s server-oriented Windows operating systems have grown by leaps and bounds in their capabilities, complexities, and sheer number of features since the release of Windows NT Server in the early 1990’s. With each release, system administrators have found themselves grappling with new concepts, from domains, directory services, and virtual private networks, to client quarantining, disk quota and universal groups. Just when you’ve mastered one set of changes, another comes along and suddenly you’re scrambling once again to get up to speed. A vicious cycle is this IT buiness.

One source of help for the beleaguered administrator has always been the technical book market and its communities of authors, publishers and user groups. Major releases of popular operating systems have always been accompanied by the publication of books written to support them, often encouraged by the software manufacturers. Some tout themselves as complete guides to their software compadres, while others approach their subject gingerly, as though their readers were a questionable intellectual capacity. But over the years, many of these books have become as complex and accumulated as much detritus as the operating systems they explain. You now see on the shelves of your friendly local bookstores 1,200-plus-page monstrosities that you might find useful, but only if you enjoy dealing with 30 pounds of paper in your lap or on your desk, and only if you find it productive to wade through references ...