BKWNTRPR.RVW   980307

"Windows NT 4.0 Registry", Steven B. Thomas, 1998, 0-07-913655-9,
U$59.95
%A   Steven B. Thomas
%C   300 Water Street, Whitby, Ontario   L1N 9B6
%D   1998
%G   0-07-913655-9
%I   McGraw-Hill Ryerson/Osborne
%O   U$59.95 905-430-5000 800-565-5758 fax: 905-430-5020
%P   764 p. + CD-ROM
%T   "Windows NT 4.0 Registry: A Professional Reference"

There are a number of other, thinner, books on the Registry.  What
sets this one apart is the inclusion of all the Registry entries you
are likely to find in a basic Windows NT installation.  There is also
some handy Registry management software included on the CD-ROM.

Chapter one provides a basic introduction to the Registry, its
structure and function, and the major subkeys and mappings. The
Windows 95 Registry gets a brief overview, and there are explanations
of the conversion of Windows 3.x initialization files to the Registry. 
A significant amount of space is devoted to application development
tools.  Chapter two looks at the hardware configuration keys built at
start up, but is very limited.  Since almost everything about NT
relies on the Registry, almost every change you make to NT modifies
the Registry.  Chapter three looks at the common administrative tools
in the operating system, and how they affect, or are affected by, the
Registry.  You can, of course, also update the Registry directly, and
chapter four looks at the various tools to manipulate the data,
concentrating particularly on REGEDT32.EXE.  Chapter five introduces
the programming of modifications to the Registry using C and Perl.  It
is generally well known that there is no essential difference between
NT Workstation and NT Server.  Chapter six, while not providing a
cookbook solution, discusses the Registry changes necessary to effect
the conversion.  Tools and tips for Registry management are reviewed
in chapter seven.  Chapter eight details the way the Registry can
affect the NT shell and user interface.

The bulk of the book, though, is in the operating system Registry
entry list in part two.  Chapter nine looks at subsystem configuration
in services, devices, control, and DCOM (Distributed, Common Object
Model) properties.  Filesystem entries are discussed in chapter ten. 
Chapter eleven deals with performance monitoring functions.  Network
chapters are rather distributed: general services in chapter twelve,
interoperability in thirteen, network protocols in fourteen, remote
access in sixteen, routing in seventeen, and TCP/IP in twenty. 
Chapter fifteen covers printer entries.  Security and related
functions and properties are listed in chapter eighteen.  Chapter
nineteen is entitled simply "Registry Problems."  However, this very
short chapter lists only a few, albeit important, disasters.  MS
Office 95 and 97 keys are listed in chapter twenty one.

MS BackOffice product entries are listed separately in part three. 
Internet services are covered in chapter twenty two.  Chapter twenty
three looks at MS Exchange entries.  SQL (Structured Query Language)
functions are discussed in twenty four.  SNA (System Network
Architecture) services are dealt with in chapter twenty five.  Chapter
twenty six closes out the book with systems management properties.  An
appendix lists Registry related event log messages.

While a number of other books do a good job of presenting the
Registry, its purpose, functions, and modification, this is the most
complete in terms of the contents of the Registry itself.  Given that
the Registry is the descendant of the AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS
files, via the INIs, it is possible to argue that this book should be
of interest to any intermediate NT user.

copyright Robert M. Slade, 1998   BKWNTRPR.RVW   980307