Mastering Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2

I purchased this book mainly because I neede a resource that included Server 2008 R2. I'm studying for the MCTS Applications Infrastructure 70-643 exam.This book has proved to be an excellent resource for this.Some things that the authors missed in the book though. This is probably due to the timing of their publication and such. MS now has Sharepoint Foundation 2010 and they only cover Sharepoint 3.0. They also totally neglected to cover media services. Overall they did an excellent jobThe chapters written by coauthor Darril Gibson I found to be concise, informative, and covered the material very well. I would have liked if he had covered Remote Desktop Virtualization Host more as that is one area in RDS where I have a lot of interest. I perused the other areas he wrote and found those chapters to be an easy read.Overall a good book for those with real world server experience who need to learn Server 2008 R2. For me personally, I also got the Server 2008 R2 Unleashed book to help fill in the gray areas.

This book is very well written and highly readable. A great way to learn about Windows 2008 R2. Mark Minasi and his co-authors have a great writing style making it much more readable than the Microsoft books. This is the last book in a series of books that has run since the days of Windows NT 3.51. Windows has grown over that time and it is a struggle to get compressive coverage into a single book so it ends up being a bit light on many topics.Advanced Systems Engineers will need more specialist books but I highly recommend this to Intermediate level administrators or Desktop support people wanting to move to Level 3 server support.

My first review of this book was very high, that was after I'd read through it and before I'd actually implemented many of the suggestions. To be fair the book focuses on 2008 R2 and Vista, our environment is 2008 R2 and Windows 7, so *maybe* some of the issues I uncovered, discrepancies between what Minasi instructs and how things actually work, has to do with Windows 7 vs. Vista... but I seriously doubt it, since W7 is built on Vista.That said, things that don't work as profiled in the book:Folder redirection with DFS and Offline files. This created a nightmare for us with the 'redirected folders' really only living ina a hidden cache file on the user's local machine and the actual files never getting copied to the targeted folder on the server.DFS replication/ Multimaster DFS Replication: If you look through the Microsoft documentation, limited to folders that are "not dynamic on this you realize it has a *very limited* implementation limited to folder that are *not dynamic*... meaning anything that changes with any reasonable frequency, like, say Roaming Profile folders, or shared network drives.Bottom line, the book is good at explaining some of the theory and definitions behind the topics, but actual implementation may lead you down a road you really don't want to travel.

Anything written by Mark Minasi is golden. This book is no exception. Minasi anticipates your questions. He knows when subjects need fleshing out. He's a master explainer. I've gained so much from his writing I can't bring myself to throw away or even give away his older books. I keep them as reminders of how far I was able to get, in the world of technology, with the help of his books and conferences. If you think you know it all you can still get much from this book. If you are like I was, many years ago, and hope to get a job in IT Mark Minasi is the foundation builder you've been looking. You can't go wrong with this book. It will become part of your permanent collection.Timmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmx7c00

When I purchased this book I had already installed Windows Server 2008 R2, so I cannot honestly comment on the Chapter 2 of this book which covers installation. As for the rest of this book it is a wealth of information on the subject. I would not recommend this book to beginners or novices. It is written in a style that assumes you are on an advanced level of understanding and that may be purposely done and that's ok. But I had a problem with all the figures/illustrations in this book, they are so small that one needs a magnifying glass in order to see them clearly. I would recommend this book for it's content, but make sure you keep a magnifying glass next to you while you read.

I bought the Server 2003 flavor of this book and it was fantastic. It provided almost everything I needed to get my networks up and running in a consistantly reliable manner and then keep them up and running. I was able to install new features on-the-fly without major down-time and my customers have been very happy with the results. I'm glad the basic networking chapters were moved to other books, as it seemed unnecesary in a book of this level. It also allowed them to streamline this book and better deliver the most important features for Server 2008. I'm not done reading yet, but am very happy with my purchase even now.

As with his Mastering Windows NT Server 4.0 books, Mastering Windows 2000 Server, Mastering Windows Server 2003, and pretty much any other book Mark has written, Mastering Windows Server 2008 R2 comes in with the technical detail you need to truly Master Microsoft's new flagship OS but not bore you to death as many of the MS Press books will.This book is a MUST HAVE for your IT library.James Summerlin

I've worked as a Systems Administrator for many years, and I found this book to be very worthwhile. Anyone who is looking for an overview on the subject that also goes into great practical detail will find this book useful. It's a much better source for relavent information than technet or google.

Excellent reference book, everything you need to know about Server 2008 R2. This is really useful as a reference at work if you work in the IT industry and good additional reading if you are preparing for the Microsoft Server 2008 exams. It is well written, full of useful technical information yet an entertaining read with useful examples and humour too. Thanks Mark, keep up the great work!

Great book with some comedy aspects, but helps very well. Excellent Book, highly recommend

Brought as a present but was told it was helpful.

Was hoping to find more info given the author's reputation, but overall a good book. A good reading for the windows admin.

Great book.