Acknowledgments

You're holding what is basically the 14th edition of a series of books about Windows Server, the 14th in a line that stretches back to 1994. Over time, the books have changed because the product that they explain—Microsoft Server operating systems from Windows NT Server 3.1 to Windows Server 2008 R2—have changed, and because the needs of those running networks have changed. (As you can guess, the section on Internet security in the NT Server 3.5 book was fairly short!) Another thing that's changed about the book over the years is the cast of hardworking folks who've made getting this done possible. This time I've called upon a variety of terrific writers.

Aidan Finn, one of the most active members on my online forum and a full-time cloud networking consultant, penned the chapter on upgrading your network to include Server 2008 systems (Chapter 2), the chapter on understanding the changes in TCP/IP that 2008 and R2 bring (Chapter 4), and the valuable chapters on managing users (Chapters 7 and 30). Willem Kasdorp, another forum member, put together the chapter on Hyper-V Server (Chapter 29). Derek Melber, an old friend from the consulting/speaking world, created the chapters on Group Policy and Active Directory delegation (Chapters 8 and 9). Alun Jones, one of the smartest guys I know on the subject of networking, offered the IP routing chapter (Chapter 19). Wendy Henry, another consultant/speaker friend, took time from her extremely hectic schedule to lead us through two big subjects with big chapters on Internet Information Server 7.x and Windows SharePoint Services (Chapters 16 and 28). Another old buddy, Kristin Griffin, helped out by updating the chapter that walks you through connecting Windows clients to servers (Chapter 15). Byron Hynes, who's worked with me on a previous book on Vista security, tackled the monster that is Windows' patching server, Windows Server Update Services (Chapter 27). Another veteran coauthor, Todd Phillips—we worked together on several editions of XP books—explains 2008's all-new backup tools, as well as how to get Macs hooked up with your Active Directory (Chapters 18 and 26). Chris Henley, a widely traveled speaker on technical Windows topics, provided the much-needed chapter on SYSVOL, Active Directory's essential file share, and how to upgrade it to 2008 compatibility (Chapter 12).

I also got to work with some new faces. Darril Gibson is a guy who professes to enjoy few things as much as he does teaching, and he's got six Windows-related books that can testify to that fact. He handled the AD-related chapters on building a simple AD, adding sites to it, and adding a read-only domain controller to an AD domain; the ones on sharing files, folders, and printers and monitoring servers, and on providing remote desktop services (both for remote administration and for delivering virtualized desktops); and the one on virtual private networks (Chapters 6, 10, 13–14, 17, 20–22, 25). Techie writer Stephen Sutton provided Active Directory–related chapters on DNS, multiple-domain ADs, and AD reshaping, as well as the chapter on Server Core (Chapters 3, 5, 23–24). Wallace McGhee wrote the DFS-N chapter (Chapter 11).

Once we writer types get our jobs done, it's time for a legion of editorial and production folks to fire up those word processors and convert our unprocessed words to nicely formatted, grammatically correct processed words. Agatha Kim and Pete Gaughan started things going, and then Tom Cirtin developed the material and provided the necessary pressure to keep things moving. Technical editor John Mueller checked facts, and copyeditor Kim Wimpsett kept participles from dangling, i's from going without dots, and the like, ensuring that you readers are supplied with sentences that make sense. Liz Britten kept all the production folks on track, Craig Woods made the pages pretty, Jen Larsen caught all those last-minute typos, and Ted Laux created the index for the monstrous book you now hold in your hands.

As always, thanks go to the people who created the Server product in the first place, the Microsoft folks. (Life would be pretty boring if the latest version we had to talk about was Windows NT Server 4.0, wouldn't it?) And finally, thank you to all of you, the readers; I hope you find this book useful.

—Mark Minasi