I'll admit that I haven't read all of this book (yet), but I did use it to help me get an IIS 6.0 up and running, with a couple of web sites and an FTP server. I read parts of two other books about IIS 6.0 too, and comparing these three books I'd put this one in the middle in terms of how helpful I found it.In general I think this is a pretty good book. The author seems to know his stuff and is good at explaining things, and the subject matter is well organized.
You should be aware that this book covers only the administration of IIS 6.0. It does not include any information about how to install IIS 6.0 or anything about creating web applications.
One thing I liked is that the book includes a chapter about the Indexing Service, something that I notice is not mentioned at all in the other two books I've read about IIS 6.0. I expect to be using Indexing Service later, and appreciate that it is covered here.
The chapter about setting up and administering an FTP site did not include any example showing how to best do this when FTP is to be used to upload material to a web site. On the other hand, the book did include the necessary warnings about the security issues involved, and it did include enough information so that I was able to figure out the best setup within the given limitations. So this book is still better than the other two books I read about IIS 6.0 concerning this point.
A few random quibbles:
- There's a mistake on pages 5 and 11 where it says that IIS 6.0 is not installed by default when Windows Server 2003 is installed. That's not true for Windows Server 2003 Web Edition.
- Figure 3-3 on page 51 is incorrect.
- References from one place in the book to another place do not use page numbers, only chapter and section titles, making it harder to find the place being referenced. (But apparently all modern IT books are like this. Is it because the same formatting is used for an eBook version?)
In conclusion, this book is too big to really be a "pocket consultant", but within its limited scope it does a very good job.
Rennie Petersen
