* Microsoft "enhances" your Windows experience
We’ve spent the last dozen or so newsletters looking at the improvements coming in Windows Server 2003. Many pundits have gone on record as saying that the new operating system offers very little change, but I think we’ve seen that there is quite a bit of difference from Windows 2000.
Of course, much of the big improvements are in the areas of security, robustness and scalability. They may not be as “sexy” as major facelifts but I feel that server improvements should benefit server and network managers first and only after that should they “enhance the user’s experience.” The user had their experience enhanced with Windows XP Professional. Now it’s time for the server to catch up, consolidate the changes that were applied to Win 2000 in a piecemeal fashion and coordinate the various server subsystems into a coherent whole. That’s what Win2K3 does, and does fairly well.
Besides the white papers (https://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/techinfo/overview/default.mspx) at the Microsoft Web site that outline the technical improvements in Windows Server 2003, there are two books I can recommend.
First up is a book that’s written in a style that I’d like to see a lot more of. Don Jones and Mark Rouse have written the “Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Delta Guide,” published by SAMS. As the name implies, it’s a guide to the changes between Win 2000 and Win2K3. It’s what I’ve tried to do in the past month or two in this newsletter, but the book gives a much more expansive and comprehensive coverage of the changes. This is a great book for the experienced Windows network manager.
The second book, also from SAMS, is “Windows Server 2003 Unleashed,” by a large group of authors led by Rand Morimoto, who has been involved in over a dozen books on Microsoft server technologies. This massive (almost 1200 pages) tome covers all of the intricacies of Win2K3, whether new, improved or unchanged. It stands as a complete reference and deserves a place on every network manager’s bookshelf.
Both books have extensive selections (Table of Contents, sample chapters and more) available at the SAMS Web site (https://www.samspublishing.com/) so browse on over and check them out.
Other good sources of information are the upcoming TechED conference Microsoft will put on in Dallas (https://www.microsoft.com/usa/teched/home.asp) the first week in June, as well as the two Directory Experts Conferences that Netpro will host – in Phoenix (overlapping with TechED) in early June and in Amsterdam in late September. Browse to https://www.netpro.net/welcome/declink/index.cfm where you can get you the information you need. Active Directory plays a much more integral role with Win2K3 than it did in Win 2000 so you need to be prepared.
We’re not finished looking at the new operating system, of course, but the overview is now over and we can concentrate on the best (or worse) parts in the coming weeks. Stay tuned.
