Chapter 1. Introduction


The Windows Server operating system (OS) has come a long way in the past ten years. In the early days of Windows NT, system crashes were common annoyances that administrators had to learn to deal with. There were few tools to manage the OS, and the ones that were available, which mainly consisted of the graphical variety, were limited in functionality and didn't scale well. Also at that time, Microsoft was not yet serious about providing intuitive scripting interfaces, which would enable administrators to automate repetitive tasks. The result was that administrators were forced to do a lot with a little.

The tides changed dramatically with the release of Windows 2000, which turned out to be much more scalable and manageable. Microsoft began to improve in the management areas it had previously lacked by adding more tools and introducing several new scripting interfaces that were robust and easy to use.

But in many ways, Windows 2000 felt like a first version release of a major piece of software, which it was. Windows 2000 did a lot of things right, but there were still major gaps in terms of manageability. Windows Server 2003, Microsoft's latest server OS, is a much more mature platform. It isn't as big of an upgrade as Windows NT to Windows 2000, but Microsoft smoothed out a lot of the rough edges that were present in Windows 2000.

So what are we left with? If I had to sum it up into a single sentence: Windows Server 2003, and Windows 2000 to a lesser degree, is a sophisticated OS that has been built from the ground up to be both scalable and manageable, and supports all of the major information technology services you need to run a business or organization. The result is that administrators now have to do a lot with a lot.

You can't get all of this capability wrapped up into a single OS without some trade-offs. To be able to take full advantage of Windows 2000 Server or Windows Server 2003, you have to know lots of gory technical details. You have to know how to navigate through the hundreds of dialogs and menus. You have to know which command-line utilities are available to accomplish various specific tasks, where to find them, and which options you should use for each utility. You have to know what scripting interfaces are available to automate tasks so you can keep your support costs low. We take it for granted, but that is a lot for any one person to know. I've been doing Windows system administration for eight years and I still have a difficult time recalling the correct tool or command or scripting interface for certain tasks.

And that is the purpose of this book: to be a comprehensive reference so I don't have to waste time (and brain cells) trying to remember that Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) doesn't have any scripting interfaces for creating or modifying page files; or how to use Group Policy to run a task on a group of workstations; or how to find all of the files that are currently open on a system. This book covers general system administration duties, but it also covers a great deal more. There are dedicated chapters on many of the major services you'll end up running at one point including IIS, DNS, DHCP, Active Directory, and Exchange.



Windows Server Cookbook
Windows Server Cookbook for Windows Server 2003 and Windows 2000
ISBN: 0596006330
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 380
Authors: Robbie Allen

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