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Rating: 
Summary: It?s sad really?
Review: Although I've been looking for an exchange 2003 book for a while, this one fits well for exam and reference! The authors did a great job! Hats off.
Rating: 
Summary: This is a great book
Review: Although I've been looking for an exchange 2003 book for a while, this one fits well for exam and reference! The authors did a great job! Hats off.
Rating:
Summary: No Longer Acceptable
Review: Countless times I have been foolish enough to think that since it is a Microsoft product, there would be a higher quality of content, style, teachability, and quality. For me this book finally broke the camel's back. Why in the world that between two authors, all the proof readers, the senior editors, junior editors, editing editors, the project managers, acquisition editor, copy editors, desktop publishing specialist, etc etc etc, one cannot depend on a decent book with minimal errors (and I am not talking about spelling errors). I want to start itemizing the errors but "hey!", I was out of a job for 6 months (the overseas outsourcing fiasco) not getting paid while those (see list above) were getting paid for something they did not even come close to doing and that is proof reading and editing. The book has you in a yoyo, dcpromoing up, down, back to standalone, then back to memeber server just to go through the books chapters. Just know that if you were to really go through the book as it is written, be prepared to have many machines with many operating systems, and also be prepared to build and rebuild just to learn Exchange 2003. (Hint: use vmware and answer files - also own All the operating systems and all the Exchange applications since 5.5) <-- Yeah, everyone just has those in their back pocket) I have finished the book and the frustration of mistakes and serious errors on "how to's" alone could disappoint even an advanced technical MCSE. The authors are also over-zealous in using all the Microsoft jargon in every sentence when just some simple wording would have worked wonders. The authors also present step by step examples but leave out the very preparation where one has to be in order to start the step by step implementation. Most all of this could have been easily corrected by "someone really working through the book" as a person who wanted to learn Exchange 2003. Not someone with a "proof reader" title that does little more than review a page or two. Lastly but not the most important, I wrote one of the authors and very politely requested comfirmation on one part of a chapter involving forcibly removing an exchange server. (the process is wrong and 3 other book owners frustratingly agree as well, but no answer ever!!! Many authors respond if not with just a 2 or 3 sentence reply but they answer the questions when "their book" is seriously lacking or confusing. Not these authors. There are now other books that can teach you Exchange 2003. This book could be used as a 3rd book if necessary but not a first book. That is why they even get 2 stars. Microsoft seems to always get authors that are there for the paycheck and recognition but not for the customer support. Tony Redmond's book is exceptional. Just for the record. I am MCSE NT4\2000, Early Achiever MCSA 2003, MCDBA 2000 and CCNA so I was not new to technology when trying to learn Exchange 2003 with this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Good, but a few errors
Review: I have to say, I kinda liked this book, even though I found a number of errors. Between this and Unleashed, you probably can't go wrong. But both left holes and technet wasn't much help. Eventually I found what I needed and agree with the other reviewer that winstructor's website is brilliant and I consequently passed my exam using their videos. This book has quite a few labs, which were nice. But very little on things like Certificates and Front/Back End Servers. Overall if I had to choose either book, I'd go with Unleashed, even though its not an exam prep book.
Rating: 
Summary: The other reviews are correct..
Review: I just had to add in my 2 cents. I too am teaching a course on Exchange from this book, and I wish that we had used another book. The organization is not good, for example, it discusses connecting Exch 2k3 in an Exch 5.5 environment as well as migration in chapters 4 & 5, and has not even addressed what Exch 2k3 is and does and how to configure it at that point. Ch 3, on Administrative and Routing groups is severely lacking (no diagrams at all and does not go into any length about connectors, the routing engine, etc...). Chapter 6, on clustering and NLB, again should have been placed near the end of the book so that you would have covered virtual servers before the chapter on clustering. Additionally, in chapter 9, when they finally do talk about virtual servers, they repeat information from chapter 6, and muddy the distinction between the virtual server that encompasses the clustered installation with the virtual servers (such as POP3, IMAP4, NNTP, etc..) that you need to configure to provide services. Chapter 9, on virtual servers, is extremely repetitive.. It looks basically like they cut and pasted the same material from POP3 to the IMAP4 and NNTP sections and just noted a few of the differences. Rather than bringing out the commonalities, and saying it once, and then pointing out the differences, they say it over and over and over.. I'll spare the zeros and ones on the rest of the book. I've already used my 2 cents worth and don't want to add any more. I just really wish that I had read the reviews before we decided to use this book for the class.
Rating:
Summary: Caused me a lot of trouble and headaches
Review: I used this book to teach a course on Exchange based on someone else's recommendation. I really should have read the reviews here first. That was a terrible idea. There are technical errors, the activities don't work, and there are lots of surprise requirements. The hardware and software requirements listed at the beginning of the book are not all you will need to complete the labs. What a major pain this course was for me to use. I am very sorry that I purchased 15 copies of this book. Don't be fooled by high sales numbers, this product is not worth it.
Rating:
Summary: Not exactly a great resource for learning Exchange 2003
Review: There is not a single diagram in this book!
Everything in this book is explained in text, which makes learning very, very time-consuming. So many times a little diagram could have been be very helpful in explaining how the various components of such a complex system work together. It's missing. These authors obviously have had the diagrams next to them, described it from top to bottom and from left to right, then leave it to the reader to reconstruct the diagram from the textual description. Frustrating.
The book also doesn't have a single table. Up to the reader to reconstruct the tables from the text.
The most surprising thing missing in this book are page numbers! I never realized I used page numbers so often.
It's very hard to go back and forth, searching in the TOC or the register takes a lot of time to bring you to the section you need. Another sign of the speed with which this book has been written: so many typos that it's really annoying. This book is totally unfit for what is was intended: studying Exchange 2003.
Rating:
Summary: Horrible!!!!
Review: This is book is by far, the worst book that MSPress has ever produced. Generally the MSPress books are pretty good. I have only run into two titles that were poorly written/edited/proof-read. This is one of them, and interestingly enough, the other was also co-authored by Ian McLean. This book is so bad that I will never buy a book with his name on it again.
Rating:
Summary: The negative reviews are spot on
Review: This is without doubt the worst MCSE book I've read. There were no reviews here when I bought it (worse luck!) but I wish there had been - I wouldn't have wasted a month of my life studying it.
It is error strewn (major errors, not just typos, only some of which are mentioned in the errata web site), badly written, disorganised, unclear, full of redundant information and it will - as other reviewers have noted - force you to reinstall AD/Exchange every second chapter if you want to do the exercises.
I postponed the 70-284 exam twice as I felt I didn't understand the material even after going through the book TWICE.
In the end, believe me, the exam wasn't too difficult. Administering Exchange 2K3 isn't difficult either. This book won't convince you of that.
Rating:
Summary: It¿s sad really¿
Review: Usually the MS Press cert books are pretty good, I've passed several of the MCSE (70-290, 291, 293, 294) tests recently and have been using these books as the primary preparation tools. Unfortunately this book does not live up to the others in the series. In fact, this book is poorly organized from start to finish. There are several places throughout the book where the authors seem to cut and paste from other chapters. All of the books that I have read lately contain some errors (usually typo's or features that were not finalized prior to the books release) but this book seems to more than its fair share. It seems that the authors are trying to take a person without any prior skills and teach them what they have to know to pass the exam. Rather than focusing on Exchange the book is all over the place and does not really cover any subject in-depth. The chapters do not build on the subject in a logical order and tend to skip around within the lessons. One chapter your working with clusters and the next your working on recipients. After a couple chapters your working on virtual servers and how they work with clusters. The exercises in the book tend to have you rebuilding servers more than learning the software. In short there is very little continuity. The last thing that I will mention is that the book really mixes terminology. I wish that there were more books about Exchange 2003 available. It looks like this one was just trying to get to market first and first is not always best. Especially this time.
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