I hate Microsoft Press books. While I've always found them to be pretty mediocre, this is the book that drove me to hatred.

This book was written by many different authors, and I would bet that they were given at least some of the exact same instructions. Then some lazy editor put all of each author's work into the book, without reading it. I actually read the first half of this book word-by-word, before I started skimming it. This is what is expected of you. Not reading, but skimming.

Instead of giving you a 200-page book that would suite your needs via normal reading, Microsoft gives you a 1200 page book with 200 pages worth of information. Then they repeat the "marketing" parts 100 times, so that when you "skim it", you will receive the full marketing message that a person who carefully read a much smaller book would have received.

That aside, this is a pretty detailed reference on IIS... although not in a reference format. Anyone familiar with IIS 5.0, and wanting to learn about IIS 6.0 can almost certainly find everything they need from a small, free, whitepaper on Microsoft's website. Very little has changed.
1. Application Pools
2. Web Service Extensions (Managing scripts /executables)
3. Metabase is now in XML instead of binary

Microsoft's development groups appear not to talk to one another, and for Internet Information Server that longstanding bad habit is a critical problem. IIS intersects systems, programming tools and applications (Windows Server 2003, Visual Studio and Internet Explorer). The Resource Kit is written from a systems perspective and has little to say about the other main actors. With the introduction of Visual Studio 2005, release 2.0 of the .NET framework, Small Business Server R2 and most recently Vista the material is badly outdated.

[...] As with other items written by Microsoft marketing staff, it is heavy on coverage, light on technical information and hard to use. Unfortunately IIS is a niche topic and so far has not attracted a skilled and knowledgeable writer who can integrate the several technologies and perspectives needed to explain it.

This book is great for those who are managers and won't ever actually do any real programming/web mastering or do anything but just want to know how IIS operates, or just want to claim you read a book on IIS. If you are a webmaster or want to learn about IIS specifics, you've come to the wrong place, this book is not for you.

If you are looking for a how to guide, this book is painfully underdeveloped. The authors are great for saying, if you want more information, use the IIS help and not discuss anything in great details. Most of the book mentions different aspects of the IIS without really delving into the details of the options. Parts on setting up mutliple websites is limited to 2 pages without telling you how to specifically do it. Instead they mention the various options and pros and cons for the different options. Beyond this, they say absolutely nothing. This is a fantastic no help book and is one of the worst books written from Microsoft press. Very disappointing.

My biggest objection to this book is the tone used by the authors in talking to the reader. Presumably this is a book that will be bought and used by professional persons with an above-average intelligence, but the feeling I get when reading many passages in this book is that the authors are talking down to someone who they don't expect to be very bright.

There is a lot of repetition and a lot of trying to describe something that is intrinsically complicated in a way to try to make it sound simpler than it is. This is presumably done because the authors are afraid that the reader will otherwise not be able to follow the descriptions at all.

Another thing that I don't like about this book is that references from one place in the book to another place do not use page numbers. Here's a typical example:

'For more information about how to back up the Web server, see "Back Up and Restore the Web Server to a File or Tape" in "IIS Deployment Procedures" in this book.'

Because there isn't any page number reference you have to go to the table of contents and find "IIS Deployment Procedures" (which is an appendix) and then scan the contents of that appendix for "Back Up and Restore the Web Server to a File or Tape", and then you find the page number.

Another problem is that you can't be 100% sure that what it says in this book is correct. I haven't found all that many errors, but I have found a few.

For example, on page 10 it says, "When IIS is installed, it is locked down by default so that it can serve only static content." This is not true, at least not for Windows Server 2003, Web Edition, which has ASP support enabled by default.

Another example: On page 22 it says, "When you complete installation of Windows Server 2003, Manage Your Server automatically starts." This is not true, at least not for Windows Server 2003, Web Edition.

Two CD-ROM's are included with the book. One CD contains an evaluation version of Windows Server 2003. The other CD contains several searchable online versions of IIS documents and Help files, and 14 IIS tools. Incidentally, you don't need to buy this book to obtain the tools, as they are also available for download on Microsoft's web site.

This book contains a huge amount of very detailed information about IIS 6, and if you really need this information then this book is "the only show in town". My advice though, is to consider carefully if you really need all this advanced information, or whether you can perhaps get along with one or two of the less comprehensive books about IIS 6.

Rennie Petersen

Covers all topics required for successfully planning, designing, deploying, troubleshooting and tuning IIS. You can't claim to be an IIS expert without this book!