Fails to achieve its purpose
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I've used a number of MS Press books to help me study for my Server 2003 MCSA and this is by far the worst. The worst of all worlds, this book is long and wordy without being instructive. It tends to repeat basic information several times before taking you through various options on the screens relating to configuring whatever option its talking about. There is no background explanation for things, no context, just confusion. Study books should either be detailed and in-depth or short and snappy, this is neither.
I haven't the funds to buy all of the books going, but I've borrowed a copy of the Syngress book for this exam and it explains things a lot better.
As for those people complaining that the workshop exercises are too involved, that's the nature of the subject. How can you practice network configuration and troubleshooting without a network?
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good content if you have a couple of spare computers and isp acounts
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Content of the book is good and really in depth and comes with a 180 day evaluation version of Server 2003 but to complete some of the exercises and Labs in the book, you could do with a couple of spare pc's, phone lines, and isp accounts. Some of these exercise can be replicated using Virtual PC software (with a few minor adjustments), but the Routing & Remote Access and NAT sections are a bit more difficult to complete unless you have the necessary resources.
For example the start of Chapter 10...
" Before you begin
to complete this chapter, you must have
- networked two computers, named Computer 1 & Computer2, each running server 2003...
- a separate phone line available to each computer (recommended)
- two internet service provider accounts, or one account that can be legally be used to connect two separate computers to the Internet simultaneously..."
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Inaccuracies in the book
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I will expand further un the review below and add that its pretty obvious to me that they did not actually do some of their practice sessions themselves.
Example: They have an entire section of one chapter on creating a service account for Exchange 2003 and a practice on how to change the Exchange services to log on using this. When you follow their instructions, you get errors logged and teh services refuse to start this is because since Exchange 2000 you have not been able to use anything but the local system account to log on. That is by design.
There are many more completely glaring omissions and inaccuracuies in this book.
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Incorrect information within book
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Many parts of the book proved useful. However some topic's within this book are incorrect, i have since researched on Microsoft's website and on more than one occasion the book conflicts with answers from the website! with the website ultimately being correct.
If you are aiming to take the 70-284 exam i would not recommend this book
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No use for exam
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I have passed several MS exams and have used ms books every time and always passed exams first time except this one. This is a good book but did not get me through the exam so would not reccomend it if you are buying for the purpose of passing the 70-284 exam.
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