Book review

Windows Server Administration
Self Paced Training Kit
by Ian McLean and Orin Thomas

I am a Linux Systems guy sitting at a Windows Systems guy's desk. Or something like that. At the beginning of the year, I started working on our Windows systems here at work. I must have been sick the day I made that decision, or something. (And it hasn't stopped me from continuing to work on Linux machines when I can...) My laptop is Linux, I haven't booted into Windows on it in over two years, I think since me, my Dad, and my brothers stopped playing Age of Empires on Saturday mornings...

Anyway, I picked up some Windows books online earlier in the year, and have been reading through them when I have some time. I recently finished this book. It's a training book to get the reader ready to take the MCITP Exam #70-646, the first in a string to become a "Microsoft Certified IT Professional". I'm not sure I am interested in taking the Microsoft certification exams, but this book was good for gaining a broad knowledge of Windows server administration, of all things...

The chapters of the book flow from topic to topic, and at the end of each chapter they include "Labs" of a sort, where they talk you through practising the lesson topic on development machines they have you build early in the book. I didn't do any of the labs. I suppose I would want to go back and do them if I decided to take the exam. The end of the chapters also have multiple choice (sometimes in the form of 'choose all that apply') questions related to the chapter topics, to see if you were paying attention. The questions are also supposed to be of the type you would get asked in the certification exam. In going through the book, I was able to pay attention, I guess, and did fairly well in answering.

The book was good for giving a good overview of the differing types of things you might have to do with a Windows server. I feel like I at least have a good foundational knowledge of what is going on at this point, even if I might not have the in depth knowledge.

The book also comes with a practice exam CD, which I tried installing on a VM I installed on my laptop after I finished the book. I couldn't get the practice exam to come up properly, and didn't bother taking the time to figure out why.