Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) 6.0 Resource Kit

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Summary: Must have book for IIS experts
Review: Covers all topics required for successfully planning, designing, deploying, troubleshooting and tuning IIS. You can't claim to be an IIS expert without this book!

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Summary: IIS 6.0 Resource Kit for Dummies?
Review: My biggest objection to this book is the tone used by the authors in talking to the reader. Presumably this is a book that will be bought and used by professional persons with an above-average intelligence, but the feeling I get when reading many passages in this book is that the authors are talking down to someone who they don't expect to be very bright.

There is a lot of repetition and a lot of trying to describe something that is intrinsically complicated in a way to try to make it sound simpler than it is. This is presumably done because the authors are afraid that the reader will otherwise not be able to follow the descriptions at all.

Another thing that I don't like about this book is that references from one place in the book to another place do not use page numbers. Here's a typical example:

'For more information about how to back up the Web server, see "Back Up and Restore the Web Server to a File or Tape" in "IIS Deployment Procedures" in this book.'

Because there isn't any page number reference you have to go to the table of contents and find "IIS Deployment Procedures" (which is an appendix) and then scan the contents of that appendix for "Back Up and Restore the Web Server to a File or Tape", and then you find the page number.

Another problem is that you can't be 100% sure that what it says in this book is correct. I haven't found all that many errors, but I have found a few. (...)

For example, on page 10 it says, "When IIS is installed, it is locked down by default so that it can only server static content." This is not true, at least not for Windows Server 2003, Web Edition, which has ASP support enabled by default.

Another example: On page 22 it says, "When you complete installation of Windows Server 2003, Manage Your Server automatically starts." This is not true, at least not for Windows Server 2003, Web Edition.

Two CD-ROM's are included with the book. One CD contains an evaluation version of Windows Server 2003. The other CD contains several searchable online versions of IIS documents and Help files, and 14 IIS tools. Incidentally, you don't need to buy this book to obtain the tools, as they are also available for download on Microsoft's web site.

This book contains a huge amount of very detailed information about IIS 6, and if you really need this information then this book is "the only show in town". My advice though, is to consider carefully if you really need all this advanced information, or whether you can perhaps get along with one or two of the less comprehensive books about IIS 6.