Summary

In this chapter, we provided you with some guidelines to help you establish a troubleshooting "style" and routine that works for you. We discussed the common procedure that is most effective in approaching any problem-solving situation, in which you first gather information, then analyze the data and come up with possible "diagnoses" or causes, and then implement a solution and assess the success or failure of your actions (and if necessary, repeat the steps). Finally, you should fully document the incident to preserve what you learned from it for your own and for others' future reference.

We discussed some of the many resources that are available to help you solve problems involving ISA Server and the Windows 2000 Server operating system on which it runs. You learned about formal technical support venues; official and unofficial Web sites; where to find useful books, magazines, and online articles; and how to use mailing lists and newsgroups to cut down on the time spent "reinventing the wheel."

Next, we approached a sampling of real-life troubleshooting scenarios based on commonly reported ISA Server-related problems. You learned how to implement solutions to address problems involving ISA installation and configuration, authentication and access, client configuration, caching, publishing, and services.