Although it's a bulky and comprehensive tome--weighing in at just under a thousand pages--this is not a book for the beginning Microsoft Windows 2000 student--like other books in the Exam Notes series, the MCSE Accelerated Windows 2000 Exam Notes is intended for the working professional who has a working knowledge of Windows 2000, and needs an overview of what's likely to come up on the exam. If you're that kind of person, this book does a very admirable job--condensing an entirely new OS down into discrete, easily read segments. And, for 20 bucks, there's scarcely a better value out there. But, if you're getting the bulk of your Windows 2000 expertise from book learning, be wary of this one.

Streamlining all of the major features of Windows 2000 into any single book is always a tough call, but the editors here have done a solid job, and hit all of the major topics without a glaring omission. The writing follows the old Hollywood scriptwriting maxim: "tell 'em what you're gonna tell 'em, tell 'em, tell 'em what you told 'em." Each section starts out with an introductory paragraph that gives a one- or two-sentence summary of everything that you'll read in the next few pages, then tells you what you need to know, and follows it with "Exam Essentials" and "Key Terms and Concepts" sections afterwards. By breaking every tiny bit of Windows 2000 down into such discrete chunks, the book is quite digestible and always crystal clear in what it's getting across. And the writing is as clean and efficient as a Japanese bullet train, getting across the information with minimum fuss, and switching effortlessly into charts and a few scarce pictures when it needs to.

Also, it's thorough. The section on DNS in particular is more than what many far heavier and more expensive books provide. In terms of raw technical specs, you get your money's worth.

But there are problems that make this a hard sell for the beginning or intermediate student. For one thing, there are no test questions to be found here--so, if you learn by throwing as many test exams at yourself as possible, you'll find no resources here--and certainly it won't give you an idea of what sorts of questions you can expect on the exam. Also, the book doesn't go into particular detail on troubleshooting, either, and often just gives lists of features, with a few real-world warnings tossed in. As such, if something goes drastically wrong with Windows 2000 (and, remember, Microsoft seems to have a near-sadistic love of inflicting test-takers with "How do you fix our product, once it's gone haywire?" questions), you really won't have the tools to cope with it. The Exam Notes book seems to assume that you already have that knowledge firmly in place, and as such doesn't provide it for you. This could be a real stumbling block for a book learner.