Microsoft SMS Installer (Book/CD-ROM package)

When you run a fleet of Windows workstations (particularly ones that are geographically distributed) and are responsible for maintaining the software on all of them, you need Microsoft System Management Server (SMS) to automate software installations and updates. Rod Trent's Microsoft SMS Installer takes a from-the-trenches view of software management under SMS, explaining precisely how to write SMS scripts for scores of diverse situations. Trent shows how to write scripts that operate efficiently under ideal conditions and deal gracefully with irregularities and problems.

Though many readers will jump right to this book's companion CD-ROM and start digging through its prewritten SMS scripts, the book is primarily useful as a tutorial and reference for people who want to do their own scripting. Trent (an MCSE) shows how to create, edit, and deploy scripts with SMS tools. More importantly, he documents the SMS scripting language in a way that's both intelligible to newcomers and useful to old SMS hands with relatively obscure problems to solve. He explains scores of capabilities--such as configuring ODBC data sources--by documenting each parameter that script coders must set and explaining how each contributes to the big picture. Adequate (but not overwhelming) code listings, with annotation, describe full solutions to a variety of problems. --David Wall

Topics covered: Microsoft System Management Server 2 and its application to networks of Windows NT, 95, and 98 computers. The Installation Expert and Script Editor tools are explained, as are the logical and syntax conventions of SMS scripts themselves.