In the introduction, Holderby says that “this book is intended for the reader who is not familiar with Windows [sic] NT4 and may or may not be familiar with networking.” In the last chapter, he says that he wanted to address everyday issues of networking. The book is indeed written for the intended audience and fulfills the author’s purpose. It contains 12 chapters, two appendices, and the now nearly obligatory CD-ROM containing useful, pertinent software.

Chapter 1 is an introduction to Windows NT networking; it includes a discussion of both NT and network architecture. In chapter 2, the author covers internal networking: APIs (I/O and WNet), protocols (TCP/IP, WINS, DHCP, and DNS), and so on. Chapter 3 is almost a cookbook on installing and configuring the software for Windows NT version 4 networking. Chapter 4 addresses network security in some detail. Remote networking is discussed in chapter 5. The next chapter talks about network planning. Chapters 7 and 8 consider maintenance, testing, and troubleshooting. Chapter 9 discusses configuring NT for the Internet. Chapter 10 addresses NT in the multivendor environment. Chapter 11 covers network performance. The last chapter summarizes the book, and each chapter has a short summary section. Appendix A is a 14-page glossary of terms, and appendix B is an annotated list of NT’s networking files and Performance Monitor objects. I did not review the contents of the CD-ROM, which include network scanning tools, system scanning tools, a network monitor, and a hard drive fragmentation analyzer.

All the chapters are well written and cover their subjects in enough depth. I especially liked the discussion of network planning, which includes an example situation and explains what the author would do to address the issues. Chapter 8 contains several specific networking problems and lengthy discussions of how to troubleshoot each one. Chapter 10 addresses NT and the Novell Netware network, but also (somewhat surprisingly) discusses how to use NT in a Banyan Vines network. Just about the book’s only defect is that there are a few more typos and glitches than a well-edited book should contain.

This is a good book, and I highly recommend it.