1.6. Where to Find More InformationWhile it is my hope that this book provides you with enough information to perform the majority of Windows system administration tasks you are likely to do, it is not realistic to think every possible task can be covered. In fact, there are easily another five or six chapters I could have included in this book, but due to space and time considerations it was not possible for this edition. There is a wealth of additional resources and information you can find on the Internet or in a bookstore. In this section I cover some of the ones I use most frequently. Help and Support CenterWindows Server 2003 comes with a new feature called the Help and Support Center, which is available directly off the Start menu. It is a great resource of information and it serves as the central location to obtain help information about the operating system, applications, and installed utilities. Command-Line ToolsIf you have any questions about the complete syntax or usage of a command-line tool used in the book, you should first look at the help information available with the tool. The vast majority of CLI tools provide syntax information by simply passing /? as a parameter. For example: > netsh /? Microsoft Knowledge BaseThe Microsoft Help and Support web site is a great source of information and is home to the Microsoft Knowledge Base (MS KB) articles. Throughout the book I include references to pertinent MS KB articles where you can find more information on a topic. You can find the complete text for a KB article by searching on the KB number at the following web site: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx. You can also append the KB article number to the end of this URL to go directly to the article: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=. Microsoft Developers NetworkMSDN contains a ton of information on Windows Server and programmatic interfaces such as WMI. Throughout the book, I'll sometimes reference MSDN pages in recipes where applicable. Unfortunately, there is no easy way to reference the exact page I'm referring to unless I provided the URL or navigation to the page, which would more than likely change by the time the book was printed. Instead, I provide the title of the page, which you can search for via the following site: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/. Web SitesThese web sites are great starting points for information that helps you perform the tasks covered in this book:
NewsgroupsMost of the Windows Server-related Microsoft newsgroups are very active and have one or more of Microsoft's Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs) actively responding to questions. If you have a question and can't find an answer, try posting to the pertinent newsgroup. These are general-purpose Windows Server newsgroups:
Each of these newsgroups covers a specific Windows Server technology:
These are the scripting-related newsgroups:
If you have a question about a particular topic, a good starting point is to search the newsgroups using Google Groups (http://groups.google.com/). Just like Google's web search engine, Google's group search engine is an invaluable resource. Another good resource is the following Yahoo! Group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/adsianddirectoryservices. BooksIn addition to the Resource Kit books, the following books are invaluable resources for Windows Server system administration:
MagazinesA good way to stay current with the latest industry trends and system administration techniques is by reading magazines. Here are a few good ones you should consider subscribing to:
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