BKEWNTSA.RVW   980306

"Essential Windows NT System Administration", Aeleen Frisch, 1998,
1-56592-274-3, U$34.95/C$49.95
%A   Aeleen Frisch
%C   103 Morris Street, Suite A, Sebastopol, CA   95472
%D   1998
%G   1-56592-274-3
%I   O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.
%O   U$34.95/C$49.95 800-998-9938 fax: 707-829-0104 nuts@ora.com
%P   486 p.
%T   "Essential Windows NT System Administration"

In the preface, Frisch states that this work is aimed at the NT user
or administrator: someone familiar with computer use, but wanting
practical direction rather than esoteric internals knowledge.  The
material is supposed to steer a middle ground between abandoning the
reader the first time a problem is encountered, and exhaustively
delving into each and every corner of the operating system.  The
author also intends to present a realistic and balanced view of NT,
neither promoting nor denigrating it.

Chapter one starts off with a brief description of the system
administrator's job.  Most of the unit, though, is a quick overview of
NT and its basic operations.  The fact that it is an overview should
not mean that users familiar with WinNT should neglect it, since this
section has some very helpful tips and shortcuts.  Startup, shutdown,
and the boot process are the subject of chapter two, and begin to show
the necessary level of detail.  It may be thought that the book delves
too deeply into the system given this consumption of an entire
chapter, but, in fact, the contents reflect an appropriate (and very
useful) degree of information for an intermediate user with
responsibility for the system.  Chapter three covers users and groups. 
The text does mention elements often glossed over in other NT books,
but I was somewhat surprised the specific directions for disabling the
Administrator account were not included, nor is the system ID
associated with each account mentioned.  The commands and utilities
associated with processes are listed in chapter four.  The tasks of
managing disks and filesystems are a major part of the workload of
system administration and chapter five reflects this.  Third party
software is included as well as the specific NT tools.  Chapter six
describes files and directories, with file ownership being a major
emphasis.  Backup, in chapter seven, is unremarkable as to the
operation itself, but does provide valuable direction in terms of
policy and procedure.  Networking, particularly with NT Server, is a
large issue.  Chapter eight covers a lot of ground, but does it as
well as some full books I have seen on the topic.  Printer management
is handled as routine in chapter nine.  The advice on security, in
chapter ten, comprises both policy suggestions and the operation of
provided utilities.  While the notes are not extensive, they are
better than the mere acknowledgements of the concept that are part of
too many books.  The section on viruses is not bad, although none of
the recommended antiviral programs are among the best of breed. 
Everyone always wants to "optimize" performance so that every aspect
of the system is faster, bigger, and better.  Chapter eleven takes the
interesting tack of starting out by suggesting that the administrator
define the optimization to be achieved, rather than simply flailing
about with the various tools.  Chapter twelve finishes off with the
various options for automating administration.

Appendix A gives a quick guide to the basic starter tasks of
administration.  NT resources, in print, online information, and
software, are listed in appendix B.  A final section summarizes the NT
scripting language.

While it has some areas of weakness, this book is probably the best
single source I've found to date for the NT administrator.  The volume
is also recommended to individual users at the intermediate level and
wanting more information generally about the system.

copyright Robert M. Slade, 1998   BKEWNTSA.RVW   980306