Windows Server® 2008 Bible

Introduction

Welcome to Windows Server 2008, the long awaited OS once known only as "Longhorne."

Gone are the days when the Windows Server operating systems could be covered in a single book or a week's crash course at a training center. If I told you that this is the only book that you need about Windows Server 2008, I would be lying. Many of the features that I cover warrant advanced treatment under separate cover. In fact many features and roles of Windows Server 2008 need to be presented in specialized publications, hands-on seminars, and highly detailed, narrow focus, technical manuals.

But I have attempted to build as complete a hands-on reference as possible, while still providing a broad scope of coverage of the most important aspects and implications of the Windows Server 2008 platform.

This version builds on the solid foundation of an already released and widely used and tested operating system; namely Windows Vista. In this regard the server and client code share a common code base. In fact, Windows Server 2008 is the first release to manufacturing (RTM) of an operating system that already incorporates fixes and changes that would in the past need to be applied incrementally over time after shipping, or in one wallop as a giant service pack. Service Pack 1, which was applied to Vista, was "folded" into Windows Server 2008. The title of the book could actually have been "Windows Server 2008 SP1" but there is now no such thing as SP1. That might be a great marketing trick ...