Great book discussing all sorts of AD related features you may not use every day. I read this one cover to cover and I continue to reference it at least once or twice a week. I've owned each edition and each one has been better than the previous. Very up to date! Waiting for 4th edition with all the 2008 stuff to come out now.

Not much to say, other than I finished this gem with a wealth of knowledge. You can really just jump around to interesting chapters, or read it cover to cover. This book covers everything from policies, to ADSI, to scripting.

Hi, I got this book because I could not make heads nor tails of LDAP System Administration by Gerald arter. I read this book, and studied this book, and learned from this book. The authors of this book make their living from the Active Directory. Thus you can be sure that they are not going to make fools of themselfs by publishing

a whole lot of garbage. I used this book to learn about LDAP and then I successfully implemented LDAP at work.



Highly recommended!

Hi, I got this book because I could not make heads nor tails of LDAP System Administration by Gerald arter. I read this book, and studied this book, and learned from this book. The authors of this book make their living from the Active Directory. Thus you can be sure that they are not going to make fools of themselfs by publishing
a whole lot of garbage. I used this book to learn about LDAP and then I successfully implemented LDAP at work.

Highly recommended!

Not recommended for native speakers of the English language.
When trees == forests and top-level directories are instead 'naming contexts' .... The desirable format would be "This feature, which MS call 'X', is 'Y' plain english", but instead the Y feature will only ever be called X.
This is not a helpful book.

Joe Richards, Robbie Allen and Alistair G. Lowe-Norris' Active Directory, 3rd Edition is also for Windows administrators who may know all to well about the problems it's brought to prior versions of windows. This edition considers the Directory for Windows 2000, 2003 and its updates, considering the overall pros and cons of Active Directory, common tips and traps, and more. Yes, you can use Microsoft's documentation for many similar answers; but here they are arranged in a more logical manner and provide more candid assessments to help users upgrade or understand options.

Joe Richards, Robbie Allen and Alistair G. Lowe-Norris' Active Directory, 3rd Edition is also for Windows administrators who may know all to well about the problems it's brought to prior versions of windows. This edition considers the Directory for Windows 2000, 2003 and its updates, considering the overall pros and cons of Active Directory, common tips and traps, and more. Yes, you can use Microsoft's documentation for many similar answers; but here they are arranged in a more logical manner and provide more candid assessments to help users upgrade or understand options.

This is the leading reference for Active Directory but it has been updated to a third edition, so you should get that one.

'Active Directory' by Joe Richards is an awesome resource for IT Professionals who need to learn more about the ins and outs of Active Directory and how to get around to make the most of and improve their IT infrastructure. At over 800 pages and 31 chapters, and this being a 3rd Edition, this is a tried and true reference manual that is well-written and a pleasure to follow.

BUT...

As I perused through this book and read the contents, I was amazed at how lacking the # of screenshots and images there were throughout. While there are screenshots, for something like IT management and configuration, I would expect SO much more to be present. Some pages there are page after page with screenshots present to drive home points, then the reader will go dozens and dozens of pages with just nothing. Providing screenshots doesn't just make things easier to understand, it also helps make such a large book that much more readable. This may sound like a minor point, but for such a poor layout I would have expected this to be a programming cookbook or SQL text full of stored procedures, table design, and triggers. With other O'Reilly lines that have such outstanding design under the cover, this really takes the book down a notch or 2 from where it could have been.

**** RECOMMENDED

I have all three editions of this book. It was the first book on the subject I picked up back in 2000 when Active Directory was still a baby in diapers. It was an honor to be the author of this latest edition.

Over the years the book has grown and matured considerably right alongside of Active Directory. In this most recent revision I corrected several aspects of the book that others previously had issue with and add some great new content especially within the ADAM chapter and the Exchange Basic Tasks chapter. I spent considerable time revamping the security and schema chapters and they are, IMO, some of the best references available on the topics yet remaining quite readable.

While the book isn't perfect, it certainly fixes a lot more than it breaks and remember.... the odd Service Packs are the good ones in the Microsoft world. ;o)

I have all three editions of this book. It was the first book on the subject I picked up back in 2000 when Active Directory was still a baby in diapers. It was an honor to be the author of this latest edition.

Over the years the book has grown and matured considerably right alongside of Active Directory. In this most recent revision I corrected several aspects of the book that others previously had issue with and add some great new content especially within the ADAM chapter and the Exchange Basic Tasks chapter. I spent considerable time revamping the security and schema chapters and they are, IMO, some of the best references available on the topics yet remaining quite readable.

While the book isn't perfect, it certainly fixes a lot more than it breaks and remember.... the odd Service Packs are the good ones in the Microsoft world. ;o)

This is a fine book on the Active Directory service. Confusing topics are decomposed using straightforward text and no nonsense illustrations in a classic O'Reilly style. Everything from architecture, through common uses cases, to using the API is covered here. Excellent book, heartily recommended.

Robbie Allen and Joe Richards are two of the best and most knowledgeable Microsoft MVP's on the planet. When you see these two teaming up on a book you know that a great book is going to be the outcome and they have come through here.

What I really like about this book is that they give a really great overview of AD and they cover things that you just don't see in other books. ADAM is covered here, R2 is covered here, a very extensive scripting section is included, MIIS is covered. You get my point; these are things that you don't see in other Active Directory books.

Those subjects are covered but the meat and potatoes are also in the book. GPO's, Sites, DNS, Backups, design, and security are all covered. So you really do get a nice overview here.

Another thing that is also not mentioned in most reviews is the accessibility of the authors. I have emailed Robbie about his other books and I emailed Joe about a question I had about the ADAM section. Each time they have answered the emails. They are always willing to help and that is a huge bonus because it just enhances my knowledge of the subject.

I do want to add some caveats about this book. If you are looking for a book with a screen shot of every admin task performed in AD then this shouldn't be your sole book on the subject. This book does have a fair amount of screen shots (particularly the ADAM chapter) but some people really like step by step screen shots for every task. If you are that kind of learner then I would pick up Mark Minasi's mastering Windows 2000/03 book along with this book. If you are looking for an MCSE study guide then this is a good start but testing simulations should also be on your list if you are going for your MCSE.

Some quick suggestions for version 4. In the cookbook series every recipe seems to have an additional reference section that points to Microsoft articles. Some chapters have that in this book, it would be nice to see more of that. It would also be nice if a PDF version was available on CD or available for download after the book was purchased. I know that may hurt the bottom line so I understand why that is not done.

Keep up the great work and thanks again for this great book. I also recommend Robbie's Windows and AD cookbooks.

Mike Kline

Are you an Active Directory Administrator? If you are, this book is for you. Authors Joe Richards, Robbie Allen and Alistair Lowe-Norris, have written an outstanding 3rd edition of a book that shows you how to deploy a scalable and reliable Active Directory (AD) infrastructure.

Richards, Allen and Lowe-Norris, begin by reviewing the evolution of the Microsoft NOS and some of the major features and benefits of AD. Then, they provide a high-level look at how objects are stored in AD and explain some of the internal structures and concepts that it relies on. The authors continue by reviewing the predefined Naming Contexts within AD, what it contained within each, and the purpose of Application Partitions. In addition, they give information on how the blueprints for each object and each object's attributes are stored in AD. The authors also detail how the actual replication process for data takes place between domain controllers. Then, the authors describe the importance of the Domain Name System and what it is used for within AD. Next, they give you a detailed introduction to the capabilities of both user profiles and Group Policy Objects. Next, the authors introduce the steps and techniques involved in properly preparing a design that reduces the number of domains and increases administrative control through the use of Organizational Units. Then, they show you how to design a representation of your physical infrastructure within AD to gain very fine-grained control over intrasite and intersite replication. The authors continue to explain how Group Policy Objects function in AD and how you can properly design an AD structure to make the most effective use of these functions. In addition, they describe how you can design effective security for all areas of your AD, in terms of both access to objects and their properties. In addition, they cover procedures for extending the classes and attributes in the AD schema. The authors also describe how you can back up and restore AD down to the object level or the entire directory. Then, the authors outline how you can upgrade your existing AD infrastructure to Windows Server 2003. Next, they outline the process to upgrade your existing AD to Windows Server 2003 R2. Then, they give you very basic guidelines on areas to think about when conducting a Windows NT 4.0 migration. The authors continue by covering some important AD--related issues when implementing Microsoft Exchange. In addition, they introduce AD Application Mode (ADAM), now included with Windows Server 2003 R2, along with information on some of the upgrades from the RTW version of ADAM. Finally, the authors start off by providing some background information on the .NET Framework and then dive into several examples using the System.DirectoryServices namespace with VB.NET.

As you can see from the preceding, this excellent book describes AD in depth. If you want a book that lays bare the design and management of an enterprise or departmental AD, you need look no further. This is the one!

What can I say, I learned more about Active Directory from a scripting book than I did this one. The author beat around the bush and never seemed to get to the point. Too much fluff and not enough "need-to-know" information. Currently reading the Thomson Learning MCSE Active Directory book, and its much better, although still not perfect.
Even if you are looking for a reference, this isn't it. Maybe the Active Directory Cookbook?

Very good nuts and bolts guide to Active Directory. I've looked at a few other books on the topic and this is the best so far. The book takes a very logical approach toward describing all the complex details behind Active Directory. And as a bonus there are a bunch of chapters on scripting. The sample scripts were helpful. Even though AD is a very complicated beast, I think the authors did a good job in making it understandable. If you've never done anything with Windows before and want a very high-level introductory guide to AD, this book will probably have too many details for you. If you have even a little experience with NT4 or AD, then this book is a great reference!

Update: I finished reading the book and though I still basically feel the same about the AD part, I have found that the scripting part is not too bad *IF* you have some prior scripting/programming experience (which I do), particularly with VB or VBS (which I do). Some of the scripts I have been able to modify and use in my job as a sys admin. Now, overall, I will bump my rating up from 2 stars to 3 stars. $31.47 with free shipping is not a bad deal for a half-decent book on AD with the bonus of several hundred pages on scripting. I guess you can�t have your cake and eat it too � either you get a full-fledged AD book and a separate scripting book or you get this one and it does a half-decent job covering both topics. Additionally, the author, Robbie Allen, does respond to questions via e-mail in a prompt manner.
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First off, this book is not for beginners. Do not buy this book if you have no experience with or knowledge of Windows NT, Windows 2000, and Active Directory. That said, here is my review:

I'm more than 2/3 done reading this book and so far I cannot recommend it. The book is not practical enough for a real sys admin to use. For example, the section on sites mentions site transitivity a few times, but no where in that section could I find any instructions on how to actually activate or deactivate that feature. After researching the issue myself, I found that all there is to that is a simple check box. Also, the sections on replication, GCs, and DNS needs more "meat."

A few of the examples used in the book are just totally absurd and there are numerous little typographical errors throughout. Also, the ordering of the chapters are counterintuitive and some topics, such as GPOs, are covered in different, non-sequential, chapters of the book (the author does explain why that was done).

Right now I am finishing up the scripting section and have found numerous inconsistencies with the sample code and the references to it. In one example, the author states that the code will update phone numbers while the code is actually updating (or attempts to update) pager numbers. Contrary to the author's statement that you don't need previous programming experience to learn scripting with this book, some of the examples involve functions and other programming techniques that are way too advanced for novice scripters.

Conclusion:
If you want a practical book on AD, then get one geared towards MCSE certification - probably from Sybex. I even found the old Exam Cram book on AD to be rather useful and informative. I think the main goal of this book was to help the reader design an AD infrastructure, but it failed at that, as there was not enough "meat" in the book to cover that, and some of the examples were too absurd. The only part of the book that I did like was its decent explanation of AD object and attribute classes.

As for the scripting part, it's mediocre thus far. I've been supplementing that with the very well written and easy to follow Windows 2000 Scripting Guide, (...).

I had the privilege of meeting Robbie Allen recently at an Active Directory Conference. His experience in designing and maintaining Active Directory at Cisco showed through both in his presentations and this fine new book from O'Reilly.

Features new to Windows 2003 are covered in this edition, and the tools and scripts mentioned and listed in the book have most or all been updated.

One of the problems with technical books is how fast they become obsolete, especially in the Windows NOS space. Robbie's book keeps pace with those changes and helps administrators plan for Windows 2003 and beyond.

As a departmental administrator in a global multinational system with many servers, I found this book useful to get you off the ground and keep going. The concept of Windows 2000 Active directory is not intuitive and requires the use of this book or similar material to understand and maintain the system properly. IBM can supply sufficient training and training material; there comes a time when you need to see the information from a different perspective. This different perspective is given in this book.
If windows 2000 Active Directory is totally new to you or if you are used to NT, Novell, or Unix systems then you may want to read "Active Directory for Dummies" ISBN: 0764506595 first for the over all changes that use the same vocabulary to mean completely different concepts.

I have to agree with the majority of the reviewers that this is a wonderful book. A must read for serious 2000 Admins.

In response to the previous two bad reviews...

To the one who thought it was too technical. The reading would be hard to get through if you didn't have a solid background in Microsoft networking and Windows 2000 Server. If you don't know what a domain is, this book is not for you. If you don't understand what objects are, this book is not for you. Explaining that stuff would be a waste of time for the targeted audience. This book is not "Active Directory for Dummies" if such a thing even exists. This book assumes, as it should, that you have the base knowledge required to understand the depths of AD. I already had my 2000 MCSE before I even picked up this one. (For AD basics to intermediate skills, I used the Osborne book Windows 2000 Directory Services Administration. Another great book! **EDIT 7/24/02** Amazon has the title of this book mistyped as "Windows 2000 Directory Services Infrastructure". A couple of people have e-mailed me about having problems finding the book. The direct link is http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/007212380X/)

This is not a beginner's manual. This is an in depth approach to AD, and does a wonderful job.

As for the one who said the book was based on RC 3. There were some changes from RC3 to the release version of Active Directory. However, this book has had at least 3 reprints with updates, and this has been mostly corrected in the version I have, dated November 2000 (I believe this is the most recent reprint)... That is a VERY short list for a techinical book.

If you're clueless when it comes to Microsoft networking and the basics of Windows 2000, don't pick this one up. If you know Microsoft networking and Windows 2000, this book is a MUST READ!!

This book, written by the person who headed the largest and broadest Windows 2000 deployment in Europe to date, not only covers the 'What' of Active Directory, but the 'How' and 'Why'. This includes not only the technical aspects of Active Directory but also the operational and business aspects that are all too rarely addressed in this kind of book.It also covers key concepts (and code) of ADSI and Vbscript. I am a real fun of O'Reilly books, and this is another gem in my library.