I became a fan of the series when Robbie Allen released the very first one. Since then, I've been hooked. It's amazing how the book has developed over time to become the monstrosity that it is today. It's enormous, weighing in at over 1000 pages. Though the true value is in all the "recipes" in the book, I really enjoy all the background material that each section provides.



Each topic has:

* Problem - the task you need to perform

* Solution - how to perform it

* Discussion - additional information about the topic



It's great to have a reference that succinctly defines the task and the solution without having to read gobs of pages. It's not just limited to scripting as the name may imply. Most solutions are defined for scripting (vbscript, powershell, command shell), however, often times you'll find the gui (graphical user interface) equivalent of how to achieve the task.



Laura Hunter is a great author and well-respected MVP in the Active Directory space. All of the contributing authors from the past editions are tops in their field and sources of information I have relied on in the past and will continue to do so for as long as I support Active Directory.



It's time I give up my 2nd Edition Cookbook and make room for this one on my reference shelf. Valuable book!