Great Book, lots of solid information.
This is a well written book. There is a ton of good information regarding group policy that you will not find anywhere else. The book comes with a resource CD which contains the book in PDF format, which is nice to have. I would recommend this as a must for any windows admin.
Just what I needed
I have found this book to be a great resource as I customize our network/station access. It is well written.
number one book I now use
After visiting Darren's website and exchanging emails, I bought the book. Sure I've got other GPO books on the shelf (and the table and the floor) but this book as quickly became "THE" number one book I use. Just in the first few days with this book, I was able to resolve 4 of those annoying non-critical items that mean nothing to end-users but annoyed me every time I saw it occur. And in the days after that, I was not only able to get many other backlogged GP items resolved, but even threw in some razzle as well. I especially found their discussion of the GPMC and RSOP modeling very helpful - I've been struggling to master both (and with those other books) and with the short time with the book, I've picked up both quickly. I'm by no means a master on this (yet) but getting there quickly and this book has and will help. Writing style is short, crisp and to the point - the kind I like. The only negative is that my co-workers keep stealing it! :)
Thanks
I made a great purchase in Amazon, the books are brilliant and delivery was very fast.
EVERYTHING you'd ever want to know about group policy
I got this because it was recommended to me. Plus I couldn't live without Stanek's Windows Server 2003 Inside Out and he's a coauthor of this so I was fairly certain it would be worthwhile. Initially, I spent most of my time in the first few chapters as will most admins. The first chapter covers how group policy works with solid depiction of default policy and what it should/shouldn't be used for. The next chapter drills into everything you need to know about GPO creation, linking, delegation, RSoP, and GPMC. Chapter 3 is where I finally learned how GP processing and refresh work from low to high - something even Moskowitz's book doesn't do a good job of detailing. There's also detailed discussion on copy, import, backup, and restore - again something not covered well in Moskowitz's book. Chapter 4 is about deploying Group Policy with design considerations, best practices, and migration details. Chapter 5 is about hardening clients and servers using policy. I would have paid the cover price for these 5 chapters (200+ pages) alone. The rest of the book drills chapter by chapter into nearly every area of policy, policy optimization, policy customization (550+ pages).
(8 reviews)
