Mastering Windows 2000 Registry

Rating:
Summary: Excellent!
Review: Great book! Coming from an NT4 background with a reasonable knowledge of it's registry, this book built on that and explained all the new additions and formats in Win2K. It was a great help getting to grips with all the new features and clearly explained the unexplainable - The Registry...

Rating:
Summary: A useful but poorly written brain dump
Review: Hipson obviously has spent a lot of time fiddling with Windows and acquiring useful tidbits about how it works. But Hipson does a very poor job of communicating his knowledge. He seems to have dictated the book into a tape recorder, and not bothered to go back and put related facts together. Thus an explantation of the overall organization of the registry starts out with a muddled analogy with disk drives, pauses to give a list of handy hive name acronyms (which he never actually uses!), gets back on track long enough to list (but not define) registry data types, meanders off into a lengthy description of the Windows boot process, returns to the organization issue long enough to deliver a rant on inconsistent usage in other people's documentation.... You get the idea.

One other sin: some material from Hipson's previous books on the Windows 98 and Windows NT registries seem to have been included, dispite their inapplicability or obsolecence.

Although I'm probably less expert than Hipson on NT and 2000 administration, I have to question some of his recommendations. A big example is his approach to dealing with NT/2000's inability to boot off a floppy. This makes it difficult to restore the registry from backup manually, since you can't overwrite the hive files while the OS is running. Hipson throws out his own solution (have a second, minimal installation of Windows 2000 on the same disk) as is it were the only one. But there are many others: install the WinNT directory on a FAT partition (so it's accesible from a DOS or Linux boot floppy), obtain a NTFS driver for DOS or Linux (Hipson states, correctly, that the Microsoft DOS/NTFS driver is read-only -- but Microsft is not the only source for NTFS drivers).

If this book has any virtues, it as a source of registry information that Microsoft chose not to document. But that says more about the desperation of harried sysadmin's than Hipson ability as a writer.

On his web site, Hipson states his goal to write "lots and lots of books". I would hope that he would emphasize quality over quantity -- and maybe give priority to *reading* a few books, on how to present technical information without driving your readers crazy.

Rating:
Summary: Not as good as expected...
Review: I purchase this book as a guide to the Windows XP Registry. There is probably more useful information about the registry than any other book out there. That said, the book suffers from poor organization and many inane jokes.The Registry information is comprehensive, maybe overly so as there is no emphasis on what are important tweaks and changes to the Registry as opposed to insignificant details. Other sections point out many different ways to accomplish a task, but no suggestions as to which technique is the best. this book is best as an encyclopedia rather than a guide to using the Registry. Also Hipson recommends installing a second copy of XP to a different directory rather than a different partition. Bad idea! Try Honeycutt instead.

Rating:
Summary: Great reference for Registry details
Review: The Registry is probably one of the most misunderstood, praised, and cursed portions of the Windows operating system today. This book on the Windows 2000 Registry covers areas such as optimization, fixing problems and disaster recovery in addition to the traditional information on Keys, Entries and Data Types. You will find that Hipson tends to take the "official" Microsoft position on many items. However, there are many third party alternatives out there to help resolve problems. For example, as consultants our company often has to work on a system that we did not set up. So, since security is often messed up, the registry has problems, etc. we find ourselves in the position of having to boot the system in DOS and access the NTFS drive to repair a problem (and, No, I am not going to explain here how to reset the Administrator password this way). Hipson indicates that it can't be done (the official Microsoft position). However, there are many third party utilities out there in the real world that make this a no-brainer to do.
While this book contains a great deal of very good and very detailed information on the registry, the text actually is written in a very choppy manner. It is an exceptional text to have around to help resolve a problem but not a particularly easy one to read from beginning to end. In short, a better reference than a read, but an exceptional reference at that.

Rating:
Summary: Great reference for Registry details
Review: The Registry is probably one of the most misunderstood, praised, and cursed portions of the Windows operating system today. This book on the Windows 2000 Registry covers areas such as optimization, fixing problems and disaster recovery in addition to the traditional information on Keys, Entries and Data Types. You will find that Hipson tends to take the "official" Microsoft position on many items. However, there are many third party alternatives out there to help resolve problems. For example, as consultants our company often has to work on a system that we did not set up. So, since security is often messed up, the registry has problems, etc. we find ourselves in the position of having to boot the system in DOS and access the NTFS drive to repair a problem (and, No, I am not going to explain here how to reset the Administrator password this way). Hipson indicates that it can't be done (the official Microsoft position). However, there are many third party utilities out there in the real world that make this a no-brainer to do.
While this book contains a great deal of very good and very detailed information on the registry, the text actually is written in a very choppy manner. It is an exceptional text to have around to help resolve a problem but not a particularly easy one to read from beginning to end. In short, a better reference than a read, but an exceptional reference at that.

Rating:
Summary: Mastering Windows 2000 Registry
Review: The Windows Registry, the nervous system for Windows 95, 98, and NT, is a complex and misunderstood element of the Microsoft Operating System architecture. Just as absorbing all the facets of the human nervous system is difficult, covering the topic of Registry from all the aspects is too gigantic undertaking to be practical in market today.

I feel this book is better than 98 series in terms of organization, cross references and security information. As for me, the extent of usefulness was limted because I wanted some specific information regarding registry- setting multiple icons(superimposed) on my company's system. At places, I wanted the counterparts in NT, but I think that was too much to ask. Nonetheless, the author strives to put in some good tricks.

Unlike the books that are just for beginners( too slow paced books, I mean), this book is ok for experienced Windows(and novices) users moving to the 2000 platform, power users, administrators who manage Windows 2000 and maintain clients, and programmers interested in manipulating the Registry( better luck with the information you are looking for)

Better luck with Registry.