Windows 2000 Registry Little Black Book, 2nd Ed.

I totally enjoyed the information in the "Black Book" series of books Coriolis. I have over 20 of them. The information is easily read and technically sound. I find it easy to flow through the book and find just what you need at the time that you need it. They are indeed a favorite in my collection of technical manuals. As an MCSA, I have the opportunity to use them on a daily basis. The information doesn't let you down. A very well made and quality product. Well worth the price.

First off, the book starts with "This book is not for amateurs." I fully agree, as modifying the Windows registry can have a huge effect (good or bad) on your server. However, I would venture a guess that most users already know how to launch Regedt32. And for those that don't, you would only need to explain it once or twice in the entire text. From then on, "Launch Regedt32" would suffice in the text... But in this case, almost EVERY page in the text has detailed explanations on HOW to launch Regedt32, such that it accounts for about 25% of every page! Overall, that's about 25% of about 440 pages filled with redundant information! Second, I would estimate that 30-50% of the registry tweaks described can be accomplished without modifying the registry directly. Any NT or Windows 2000 administrator worth his / her salt will probably know this, and would prefer to accomplish the "tweak" without modifying the registry directly. So overall, 55-75% (25% + 30-50%) of the text is not going to be useful to the typical reader! Disappointing. There are several aspects of the text that I do like... If you have a specific problem (like how to implement automatic logons without user input), the book has a very simple step-by-step approach to solving these effectively. It also explains the registry layout a bit, and what some of the subkeys are used for.

If you are a typical system administrator, and need more control / automation over a Windows 2000 computer than the provided GUI will give you, you will find this reference book useful.The format of the book leaves a little to be desired in that the goal was to be a reference book, but the target audience is from novice to advanced, so much of the references are padded with "how to get there" information. This style will annoy the advanced administrator right off - a feeling quickly shared by the novice who spends even a small amount of time in the book.However, once you get past the formatting, you will find a great amount of information from Administrative tools and General Networking, to IIS, Transaction Server and Microsoft Office. Some of the data is a little out-dated; an entire chapter is dedicated to Internet Explorer 4..... They provide a well organized Table of Contents, an extensive Index and external visible page formatting for quick scanning and searching of sections.Overall, a handy registry info guide.

Hm, well i unlike most of the people with their "reviews" find this book very interesting and well written, this book can take you deep into windows 2000 registry, starting from changing settings of your keyboard and finishing with resolving networking problems through regedit. I got this book from a friend, now i think i'm gonna buy one for myself.

Well, if you trust the opinion of one guy that issued a mere one star for the material, then you certainly aren't ready for the information in this book! However, if you're a genuine system administrator that needs to have easy access to detailed registry information without having to crawl the web, then this book is very well worth having. The whole point of the book is to delve deeper than GUI utilities like TweakUI and actually get to the meat of HOW things are done. Whether making registry changes from remote, via scripts, or locally, knowing where the right information is located is much more educational than shined up utilities.While the book does go to some extremes in repeating some non-essential information, the overall value of the book is not badly diminished. I've been dealing with the Windows registry for years now, and I can't say that I have it all memorized. Grabbing a quick reference like this Little Black Book is a time saver... period.

I feel I have to add my voice to this book, to reduce the average rating for this book, because it does not deserve 4 stars. The fact that every single entry for a registry change has a 6 line entry that is IDENTICAL for each entry and the rest of the explanation is only useful if you are the village simpleton, takes away all merits this book may have in its coverage of the subject. There is no reason for the obvious contempt that both the Author and the publisher obviously hold any possible reader in. If there was a way to return this book to the shop as unfit for the purpose it was sold, I would return it. This book does not deserve to sell anymore copies.

You will find it hard to pass up this little gem of a book. Nathan and Anthony do a superb job of giving us the wealth of registry tweaks that would take us all a month of Sundays to find on the web. After searching for a particular tweak for 2 hours, I grabbed a copy of this book off a friends computer and found it in 5 seconds. This is definitely a "must have" in your library.

The book is 453 pages that could have been condensed to 200 if the author had given the reader a little credit in being able to remember "Step 1, find the registry editor", "Step 2, open the registry editor"... EVERY SINGLE Tip starts out this way... Come on... Give me some credit... Most of the "tips" can be just as easily accomplished using TweakUI or similar software. There are a few tips worth reading, but nothing that can't be found on the web. Save your money on this one folks..