Microsofta Windowsa XP Professional Administrator's Pocket Consultant

Out of 5 Windows XP Prof. books this is the one I use the most. This book is packed with useful information, well written, excellent details. By the way, contrary to many other publications that claim to be up-to-date with the latest software version, this book was REALLY written about Windows XP Service Pack 2.

William Stanek is the leading authority on the Microsoft Windows operating system, especially when it comes to administration. Whenever I need a Windows book on a topic I check to see if he''s written a book on the subject. I've been reading his books for more than 5 years. His books have never steered me wrong. In "Windows XP Professional Administrator's Pocket Consultant" he documents Windows XP Professional essentials for experienced Windows users and administrators.Unlike a lot of other books this isn't a "throw everything in" book. It is focused precisely on what matters and because Stanek an administrator he knows what really matters. The book does everything it promises. It is the only day to day book I use. Altough not designed to be a study guide for certification it is helpful for that too.I would rate this as the definitive text on Windows XP Professional. It's got what you need. Pair this with Stanek's Windows 2000 Administrators Pocket Consultant and you''ve got everything you need to manage a Windows network. It is well worth the money and a great resource. TK

As an enterprise admin, I have to really dig in to the operating system when I work on tasks and this book has been a great help every step of the way. No other book I've found goes as deep into Group Policy, and this is the only book I've found that has proper procedures for setting up auditing, disk quotas, offline files in the enterprise. The detailed advice no customizing Internet options was something I've been looking for for a long long time. Thank you Mr. Stanek for that info and lots more in this great book. Finding someone who isn't afraid to share tips and advice they are obviously getting paid hundreds of dollars on an hourly consulting basis to provide is truly wonderful--and extremely rare.Yet the thing I like best about this book is the focussed material for managing mobile users. Our laptop users are the most high maintenance in the organization. Hey, there's more to go wrong when users can unplug and take their computers home (where they connect them to their own networks and do who knows what else to the system). There's a complete chapter on configuring laptops and another chapter on configuring mobile networking. Again, I searched other books but couldn't find this level of detail. For a compact book for 400 pages, this one certainly packs in the information with great clarity and organization. And again, I have to say thank you for sharing information other writers have been afraid to provide because it might cut into their consulting earnings.As a high-level admin, I particularly liked the chapters that focus on customization of the operating system. Chapters 4 and 5 in particular, are awesome and its the tips/real world advice within these sections of the chapters that make them so.I was also pleased to find the book repleat with troubleshooting information. Most books have 1 troubleshooting chapter where they stick all the troubleshooting information as an after thought. While this book does have a troubleshooting chapter, it's not an afterthought. It's a careful follow up to the troubleshooting advice that is throughout the book!Lastly, I want to say that I highly recommend this book to any serious administrator. I think power users will also find the book useful. I also recommend Stanek's Windows 2000 Server Pocket Consultant, which has never let me down.

As an NT4/2000 admin, this has been all I needed to get myself up to speed with XP. This book focuses on key aspects of day to day XP use and administration--you won't find coverage of hardware requirements and installation procedures, nor will you find exhaustive white papers masquerading as psuedo-documentation. I used to hate MS Press offerings, but the pocket consultant series has allowed me leave the 'bibles' and resource kits at home. I keep the OS and Exhange consultants on my desk and have actually started re-reading some of them for pleaure just to keep from forgetting some of the stuff I don't utilize daily on the job. I've even gotten some of my early adopting power users to buy and use this book.If you're studying for certs or need in depth info for design research/general reference, buy a bible book, resource kit, or cert guide for the minutia and specific testing guidelines. But buy this book too because it's small and lightweight and is like set of XP Cliff notes.

Being new to Windows XP Professional I need to find books that will allow me to be able to get answers quickly and I don't want to spend a great deal of time looking for them. The pocket consultant is a blessing for me and for those just starting out with XP this may be a book you'll want to keep right by your side. Being only 300 pages, don't be fooled into thinking this book can't possibly coverage every aspect of XP professional, it's not design for that. The content of the book is to give you coverage of the topics and areas within XP and answers questions from the foundation level. Covering areas like administration, networking, setup and configuration, troubleshooting, monitoring devices, desktop support, toolbar configuration, laptop users, remote access connections, policies, the internet and VPNs, you'll have a very well rounded reference manual to work with. Not written to be a Exam Prep type of book it does make a good source of information for the XP Professional exam, but you will need other material to fill in the details. Overall the book is easy to follow and does answer most of the basic to some intermediate questions. The only change I would make is making this book portable to the palm device.