BKWNTW4U.RVW   990321

"Windows NT Workstation 4 Unleashed", Sean Mathias/Eric Osborne, 1996,
0-672-30972-6, U$39.99/C$56.95/UK#37.50
%A   Sean Mathias
%A   Eric Osborne
%C   201 W. 103rd Street, Indianapolis, IN   46290
%D   1996
%G   0-672-30972-6
%I   Macmillan Computer Publishing (MCP)
%O   U$39.99/C$56.95/UK#37.50 800-858-7674 317-581-3743 info@mcp.com
%P   660 p. + CD-ROM
%T   "Windows NT Workstation 4 Unleashed"

Leaving aside, for the moment, the possible contradiction between
"concise and comprehensive," the introduction states that this book is
for "power users and system administrators alike."  This is,
therefore, not an introduction or tutorial, but a working reference
for advanced users.

So, we are supposed to trust the accuracy of something that starts out
by telling us that "In the beginning, Bill produced QDOS?"

Part one appears to be a general introduction.  Chapter one presents a
block diagram model overview of the system, without really explaining
much.  The first part of chapter two introduces some of the new
interface features (with some highly irrelevant and erroneous
illustrations) while the second half recapitulates chapter one.

Part two looks at installation.  Chapter three briefly mentions system
requirements.  The installation program is assumed to do all the work
for you in chapter four.  A very (extremely!) few tips or problems you
may encounter are listed in chapter five.

Part three discusses basic operation.  Chapter six seems large, but is
only a quick look at each of the applets in the Control Panel. 
Chapter seven's presentation of the interface has a little more detail
that in chapter two.

Having been promised advanced content from the beginning, are we now
to believe that we are going to get it in part four?  Chapter eight
tells us about some administrative tools that can get you into serious
trouble if you don't know what you're doing.  The Registry gets once
over (very) lightly in chapter nine.  The "advanced" configuration
options in chapter ten are fairly simplistic, and probably won't be
much help in trying to install or work with related technologies. 
Chapter eleven's review of system services shows glimmerings that it
could have been interesting, but doesn't follow through.  A quick peek
at user administration is in chapter twelve.  Chapter thirteen lists
some of the system subsystems (for DOS, Win16, and so forth).  There
is an ad for doing programming on NT in chapter fourteen.  Chapter
fifteen describes some graphics APIs (Applications Programming
Interfaces).

Part five presents NT networking.  Chapter sixteen again assumes that
all will go well, and that you already know enough about networking
options that you won't need the book.  The troubleshooting section is
hilarious--unless you happen to run into trouble and need some
information or help.  There is some more detail on network protocols
in chapter seventeen, but only in terms of which dialogue boxes to use
for configurations that you have already planned.  Network services
potentially provided by NT are listed in chapter eighteen.  Chapter
nineteen is back to dialogue boxes again, this time for heterogeneous
network protocols.  (I'm sorry, but this is getting ridiculous.  A
heterogeneous network is a complex beast, and to manage one you need
to know just a little bit of background information.  If you are going
to reduce it to this level, you might as well go all the way and say
"you'll need to learn something about networking.  When you have, the
menus you'll need to turn on the functions you want are here, here,
and here.")  Chapter twenty actually provides a reasonable guide to
turning on Internet server functions in NT.  Configuration of the
Remote Access Service (RAS) in chapter twenty one is not quite
straightforward, but with careful reading it can be done.

Part six looks at administration.  Chapter twenty two looks only at
the backup program provided with NT, and does not note its
shortcomings.  Some additional details of disk and CD-ROM operation
are given in chapter twenty three, but not many.  System logging gets
a brief but (conceptually) reasonable description in chapter twenty
four.  Chapter twenty five lists some tips for troubleshooting, but an
awful lot is left out.

Part seven consists of only one chapter with a shortsighted look at
the future of NT.

This is neither basic enough for newcomers, nor detailed enough for
power users.  System administrators will need a *lot* more
information.  Intermediate users may find that there is at least a
reference to the applet that technical support told them to run but
they were too proud to ask about.

copyright Robert M. Slade, 1999   BKWNTW4U.RVW   990321