Rating: 
Summary: DO NOT BUY THAT BOOK!!!
Review: I have already found 3 errors in this book:(and I just started reading it...)1. SRS is not even mentioned (the component that allows exchange 2000/2003 to be a part of exchange 5.5 organization and allows for move mailbox migration) 2. ADC is presented as "new with exchange 2003" - not true - exists in windows 2000/exhange 2000 environment. 3. In the system requirements, the book says you need windows 2003 - not true - you can install exchange 2003 on windows 2000 sp3 and up. Ronen
Rating: 
Summary: Well written
Review: I have had this book for a little over a month. I have found it to be well written and informative. As far as what the previous reviewer wrote regarding the system requirements, it does say right in the book that you can install Exchange 2003 on Windows 2000 w\SP3.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Start
Review: I haven't recieved my book yet. It will be here later today. When I first started working with Exchange Mr.Gerbers book on exchange 2000 was a big help to me. I imagine this book will be as good as well. If you are new to exchange this will probably be a great place to start.
Rating:
Summary: Overall, not too bad
Review: I would hardly consider this book "Mastering Exchange" but the author does take the time to step you through all the property pages and settings so you at least get a basic idea of what it all means. You will have a solid basic understanding when you are done but you certainly won't be a master by any stretch of the imagination. I found several errors throughout the book specifically related to Windows and networking. The author should stick to Exchange because when the topic shifts to something else, I had my doubts about what I was reading. For instance, I believe the author stated that in an NT 4.0 Domain, if a PDC goes down, the other DC's elect a new one. WHAT!!!! Maybe a browser, but not a PDC. Its been a while since I read the book but I am pretty sure I read that in a side bar. As I said, overall, not bad if you what a basic intro to Exchange 2003. The title should be changed to Exchange 2003 basics.
Rating:
Summary: Poor writing style
Review: Maybe the content of this book is ok, but the writer has constant urge to put useless text lines and useless personal opinions between the technical explenations. This shouldn't be a story book ... Things get worse when on page 142 he still needs to explain the difference between FAT and NTFS. quote: "Setup displays a little gauge showing formatting progress. Formatting takes quite a
bit of time." in this case, burning a book is ok ;)
Rating: 
Summary: not worth it
Review: The author might know Exchange but its clear from reading his initial chapters on network and windows setup that he doesnt know DNS or Networking very well. Many of his examples are very amatuerish and in some cases incorrect.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Explanations but not Practical
Review: This book has generally good easily digestible explanations for Exchange 2003. I really appreciate the informal down-to-Earth style and discussion of a lot of pieces. I was especially happy to see some good coverage of LDAP, IMAP, and POP configuration, which is seldom adequately covered in other Exchange books.
Despite the excellent overview in many areas, I wish the book was more practical in real world situations. It is great to know about key technologies, which makes the book a worthy of perusal, but still we need to implement and deploy this stuff, which unfortunately involves bizarre tweaks and configurations combined with third party tools and maybe even scripting. I just don't get this practical real-world oriented sense from this book.
One area that irked me quite a bit was coverage of security. There is some coverage of securing open insecure technologies like POP and IMAP, but only on the client. In the security chapter, there's a few paragraphs stating that security is a client issue and should not be covered in the scope of the book. I think it is important both to setup the security on the client and the server, so that the clients can use it, and so that potential hackers don't get passwords for domain accounts. The author does attempt to give a short blurb on how to setup SSL, but I found that the instructions did not work. I was probably missing some other pieces, Certificate Authority?
In conclusion, overall decent coverage of Exchange 2003 with good explanations, but one needs more material, perhaps other books in order to put all the pieces together and get the job done.
Rating:
Summary: Not That Bad
Review: Unlike others, I didn't care too much about the mistakes. No source is perfect and experienced techs will be able adapt and still be able to utilize the information. From my own experience, resolutions to problems have been found from various places so there will never be a single source for troublshooting. What I found lacking are screenshots. More would have been more helpful and easier to understand than reading the explanations.
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