Review by Billy Barron

"Windows NT in a Nutshell" by Eric Pearce (O'Reilly; ISBN 1-56592-251-4) is the only microcomputing books that I remember reading in a long time (maybe ever) which I'm excited about. Unlike most PC books (especially those written about Microsoft products), the author has not been brainwashed into thinking that if it is from Microsoft then everything about it must be good. In usual O'Reilly style, the book bluntly states what is good and bad about Windows NT including the potential dangers of the bad parts.

After a short introduction chapter, much of the rest of the book is a series of reference chapters. Some cover how to admin NT through the GUI interface. Even more interesting is the "Using the Command Line" chapter, which is by far the best reference to the command line interface to NT I've seen.

There is a meaty chapter on RAS, which I personally skipped since I have no personal need for RAS though others do. Finally, it ends with a most unusually named chapter "Uncommon Sense". However, it is perfectly named for the material contained without which is a lot of random pieces of information and tricks about NT that would not be obvious to the average person.

The one word summary of this book is "Wow!". This book is a great start for O'Reilly to become the premier publisher for the NT market that it already is for the UNIX market. If you haven't gotten the point, I highly recommend this book for any semi-serious (and above) NT user.