MCSE Installing, Configuring and Administering Windows 2000 Professional Study Guide (Exam 70-210) Book

An extremely good package for both the beginner and the NT-experienced admin, the MCSE Windows 2000 Professional Study Guide straddles that fine balance between real-world networking experience and the testing-room world of multiple-choice questions, where the official "Microsoft" answer reigns supreme. There are some minor problems with the book's organisation, a poorly written chapter or two, and some worries about the toughness of the book-given questions--but most of this book is superb and well worth your money. As opposed to many other MCSE guides, which throw pages and pages worth of dense writing at you, the guide breaks everything down into smaller sections. You can barely get through a page without noticing an exam tip shouted out to you in bold type, or finding an on-the-job aside that informs you of a frequent problem that fledgling Win2K users frequently make, or getting a full Win2K walkthrough, backed up with lots of screenshots that tells you how to accomplish the task at hand. The continual mix of experience, test objectives, hands-on experience and just plain learning make this book an easy read by MCSE standards. Short does not mean content-free, though; the book is packed with networking goodness. The writing is very dense and sometimes tough to get through, but one of the strengths of the book is the way that the various parts work together to provide a coherent whole. If you're stumped by an in-depth understanding of, say, what the difference between a "print device" and a "printer" is, the "On The Job" section will go on to explain the reasons why network admins need to create several different printers for a single device--and understanding blossoms. Likewise, frequently you might be tempted to skim over a paragraph or two because it doesn't seem critical, but the sidebar "Exam Watch" warns you that this section is a frequently misunderstood (and important) topic for prospective MCSEs. The book's individual parts may not be the best in their field, but as a gestalt you can rank them with anyone else. There are some difficulties, however. There are one or two chapters, most notably the chapter on unattended installations and RIS Servers, where the writing seems very scattered--giving you individual facts here and there but never, for example, really summing up the advantages and disadvantages of Windows 2000's various disk replication features. The section on TCP/IP subnetting is rushed as well, and while careful rereading might give you an idea of the math behind the binaries, you'd definitely have to read it more than a few times. Keep in mind that these chapters are notable because of their poor writing in a book that is distinguished by quality, so don't be misled. Exam questions are at the end of every chapter, and most of them are fairly tough--you won't find any easy "Who created the Internet?" questions here. But the questions don't go to the opposite end of the scale either, lacking the purposely baroque scenario questions that Microsoft has a new fondness for giving. There is also no final MCSE exam in the book. But the exam disk gives much better questions and a full exam simulation, so if you buy the book be sure to make use of the electronic exam. Overall, this book is a good start for a book-learner and a potential one-stop shop for someone with access to a test network. --William SteinmetzRead More