Microsoft Books

Very good book, lots of useful info that goes beyond the normal documentation.

The content reveals a lot of details of RS. However, I had a hard time to make the samples running.

I found this book to have lots of information, but if you learn best by hands on examples, this is not the book for you. The author shows you a report already done and gives a quick explanation of how he got there. It is not a step-by-step type of book. As a lot of the examples shown do not have a how-to to go with it, I found this book not a good place to start. There are others that are more hands-on and step-by-step which are easier to learn from.

Having said that, if you've had some Reporting Services experience and are just looking to brush up on techniques and/or learn additional techniques, then this book will probably save you the tediousness of having to go through a step-by-step example that you have already done in the past.

Being a Microsoft trainer, and needing to get up to speed in a hurry, I found this book - luckily. This book was able to give me the answers to the "how do I do..." questions I had, and then enabled me to explain these concepts to my students.

Teo's style is easy to read, and he makes it easy to see how you can apply his examples to your reporting needs.

If you need to get up to speed on Reporting Services in a hurry, and need a book you can refer to in the future, this is the one.

The project: create a secure, distributed, Internet-facing, interactive ASP.Net reporting application for a Very Large Customer. The schedule: short. The budget: low. Amazingly, we got it done, and I credit Teo and this book with helping us meet our requirements.

The Microsoft Reporting Services 1.0 documentation is not very useful to the newcomer, and with 7 months' experience now, I can also say it's not very useful to the rising journeyman. The product is quirky, with surprising gaps and baroque security features. Without expert guidance from someone who has worked with the RS dev team I don't see how anybody would get much done with Reporting Services 1.0.

Teo Lachev worked intensively with the Microsoft dev team and the book shows it. Perhaps one of the reasons other reviews here gripe about the examples is that the most useful examples are the non-trivial ones in the second half of the book. Report authoring is the easy part! Delivering your reports to your users in the ways they demand is the hard part, and in my opinion this is where Teo's book shines.

It is no exaggeration to state that without Teo's book, and in particular his discussion of custom security extensions for Reporting Services, we would have failed to deliver the goods. But we succeeded... thanks Teo.

I've been purchasing books here since the days of NT 4 Server and have yet to feel oblighted to write a review until I read this book. Let's face it, any book written by or endorsed by "Mark Manasi" is worth every penny. This book covers the DOs and DON'Ts for Group Policy like no other. Simple and to the point. "I am" the IT Department therefore my time is at a premium. The author gives me the answer I need in plain english.

When you're working with Group Policies or Profiles, it's simple: you must read this book. Jeremy Moskowitz learns you the tough parts of Windows in his own matchless style.

This book isn't for beginners but if you're a network or systems administrator it is an excellent source of group policy information for Windows servers and workstations (2000, XP, and 2003).

Jeremy Moskowitz books are easy to read. He gives you great examples.

For managing GPOs for locking down servers, this is not a complete book. This is an excellent book for managing desktops or workstations, laptops and terminal servers. There are many user rights assignments and security settings that are left completely out of this book.

Updates:

Since the author commented, I feel it's only fair to elaborate on some of the items, either as a thought for a "Group Policy - locking down your servers" book or possibly a future update to this one.

Most of the User Rights Assignments are the most sensitive rights you can grant. Several of them provide the ability to impersonate other users, including the obvious ones (Impersonate client after authentication). Other rights don't actually provide the functionality that users likely think (Create permanent shared objects - you wouldn't believe how many application teams thought this would let them share folders and printers). At the very least, a detailed list of rights that should be granted per setting for complete OS functionality(changing Impersonate Client... without granting the right to the Service builtin object will break a server running Windows Server 2003 with SP1, but have no effect on other versions of the OS) would be very helpful - the defaults for Windows Server 2003 and Windows 2000 Server are completely different.

Personally I think that another book about securing your servers via GPO would be nice. Not everyone should be securing their servers via GPO and it may add a certain level of complexity to an application environment that is not desired, but for larger environments that require an automatic mechanism to correct any security deficiencies or changes, GPOs are an excellent solution. A book that would cover Windows 2000 Server, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008 (or whatever Longhorn ends up being called) and the differences between the OS versions, would be fabulous for a security/AD/GPO admin in any environment that is much more complex. Particularly in a complex environment, all 3 versions of Windows Server that GPOs apply to should be covered. Many larger companies are slow to adopt new versions of software or upgrade that which they already have (if it ain't broke, don't fix it!), so finding OUs that have Windows 2000 Servers and Windows Server 2003 machines in the same structure of your organization is definitely far from abnormal and providing the reference to effectively secure all of the GPO functional server operating systems (or at least the MS ones).

I understand that the intention of this book is to talk about basically the user environment portions of the GPO, but the name doesn't define that, so won't update my rating. Maybe if it had a companion for the machine-side security related settings...

I read this book and Couchman's Oracle 8 DBA Certification Guide (from Oracle Press). The Exam Cram book did a great job covering the bases needed for the Oracle networking exam. It is very concise and to the point. If you ignore the number of silly typos, the book attacked the topics very well from examination point of view. I think it was a very poor proofreading effort!
I gave a 5 star because the topics are laid out well and details are to the point.

This book contains everything you'll need to pass the Oracle8 Network Administration. It has the good standard Exam Cram format, but it contains more info than the usual Crams do. It's more like a study guide than a study guide companion, without repeating the classic mistake of being too wordy. This is one of my favorite Exam Crams.

Very good book, started from basic knowledge of net8 to advanced options.

Nice to have before you take the DBA Net exam.

This book has very useful tips and is excellent exam guide. Highly recommended.

I bought this book as a complement to Couchman's Oracle 8i DBA Certification Guide (from Oracle Press), because the latter's networking coverage was clearly a rushed effort. The Exam Cram book does an admirable job covering the bases needed for the Oracle networking exam. In general, the material is explained well and concisely. Overall the test questions in the book matched the breadth of those on the real test. There are a couple of notable exceptions. My test had FOUR "fill in the blank with the name of the parameter or view" questions. (Giving V$SHARED_SERVERS instead of V$SHARED_SERVER is wrong). There are no questions of this type in the book. Additionally, the actual test generally asked more demanding questions regarding CMAN and MTS than are in this book (in my opinion).

If you're taking the 8i exam, be sure to look over the Oracle docs on load balancing, which is not fully covered in this volume (which is designated for 8).

This book loses a star due to the sheer volume of silly typos and cut-and-paste errors. A look at Coriolis's errata page (on their web site) for this book reveals over 50 reported errors. I found many more, about one every other page. And on the web site errata page the utility "lsnrctl" is spelled, in multiple places, as "1snrct1" (digit 1 instead of letter l)! Doesn't anyone proofread this stuff? (The author works at the Washington Post!)

This book was a big help in passing my TCP/IP exam, but I do not recomend it as a single source. My strategy, which has served me well, is to read the book once, take a practice test (eg Transender), figure out what concepts you do not get, study those areas of the book, take practice exam, repeat untill you are scoring high on the practice exams. This book work out great for that and it is cheap and a quick read. Perfect.

Only get this book if you're already experienced in the TCP/IP world. Passed the test with flying colors! I used this book to review beforehand. Wished it had a little more practice questions, but overall good material!

This is a great book. Even if you're not interested in takingthe test, this book is worth the price. It seems to cover almosteverything on the test. Buy the book if you want to take the test.

It is a very good book. It is not a thick book, but it contains many materials relevant to the exam, and you can get the main points from this book. I would say its content is even better than other training guide in the market. Of course, it is just a revision book, you cannot get any training from it, just get the facts only. In addition, I also find that its content is even same as the live questions that can help me pass the exam.

If you already know TCP/IP this book will help you slam-dunk the test! Its explanation on subnetting is the best I've seen. If you're new to WINS, DHCP and DNS then you better try another book. New Riders Training Guide on TCP/IP (ISBN 1562059203) is great- know this book and you know TCP/IP on NT! I studied both of these and scored a 966.

This book provides excellent coverage of the subject. I found it to be accurate and to contain the details I needed.

This is hands down the best book I have ever seen on the topic of Windows debugging. Whether you are chasing tricky synchronization issues, reverse engineering, or probing for security flaws, you'll do well to have this one handy. A bit pricey perhaps, but worth every penny.

Simple review here:

If you're a developer working on Windows who sometimes needs to debug and diagnose complex / intermittent app failures, BUY THIS BOOK!

There is simply NO other book that delves so deeply into how to debug using WinDBG / KD and it'll be some time until someone creates a book that supersedes this one.

Very well written and containing information that would normally take YEARS to come by on your own, this book will save you MONTHS of hard work.

BUY IT NOW!

If you do nothing more than read the initial 4 chapters you will probably learn something. If you can get through Part II and Part III you will improve your knowledge of Windows programming and good general debugging techniques no matter how experienced you are. This is one every developer should have sitting by his PC.

I have little to add to the effusive praise of previous reviewers. This is a one-of-kind book. An instant classic.

Beware, however. As others have noted, this is definitely an _advanced_ book. If you're not comfortable with arcane command syntax, bits and bytes, and such this will be painful to incomprehensible for you. On the other hand, I dare say you will never be a true Master Debugger until you have a good grasp of this material.

You would do well to start with Debugging Microsoft .NET 2.0 Applications or the now-unavailable Debugging Applications for Microsoft .NET and Microsoft Windows. Both will give you an easier introduction to WinDbg. The latter, older volume has much more information on native code debugging than the newer version. As they also cover the Visual Studio debugger in detail, most developers need go no further than one of these.

Note that WinDbg _can_ be used with SOS and ADPlus to do some pretty fancy .NET debugging that isn't possible with Visual Studio alone. For that matter, the .NET CLR on Windows is implemented using the same Windows API as any native application. I've seen WinDbg used to trace bugs through C# application code down to find that the defect was actually in the CLR or Windows itself. John Robbins (author of the previously mentioned books) states in Chapter 6 of the latest version that "in our consulting work at Wintellect, which as you know works on the toughest bugs, we use WinDBG nearly 70 percent of the time."

Don't ignore this book just because you program in .NET!

Watch out for the font used in the listings though. Not being a master myself, I've been stumped for quite a while because the letter 'l' looks like the number '1' in the font they use. (I've been assiduously following the examples line-by-line).

I also recall being stumped because of an error or two in the text, though I admit I can't find them now. These as you can imagine could be a serious problem given the arcane and undocumented nature of quite a bit of the material. Just make sure you check the errata periodically. Ironically, the errata web page for the book is not functioning at the moment...

This book is clear, concise, interesting (almost like an unputdownable novel by Sidney Sheldon). I'm not joking. You can read it in one or two days, do the transcenders, print out your transcender results. Before the exam review the transcenders and walk out with a 900 like me. I must mention i have six months admin and six months support experience. Just to let you know the experience level. Good luck to all.

This book is clear, concise, interesting (almost like an unputdownable novel by Sidney Sheldon). I'm not joking. You can read it in one or two days, do the transcenders, print out your transcender results. Before the exam review the transcenders and walk out with a 900 like me. I must mention i have six months admin and six months support experience. Just to let you know the experience level. Good luck to all.

Exam 70-073 is now the 1 exam most people take in order to become MCP and this book will make a big difference in the attempt. This book covers each exam objective and gives the detailed information you need in order to pass the exam on the first try.

The book of over 600 pages gives you exam tips, study tips, hands-on exercise, case studies summaries and review questions, exam questions and practice tests all to help you obtain your certification ....................

The book sis loaded with diagrams, pictures, tables and figures to make the learning process easier. The author takes out the mystery behind the NT Workstation and uncomplicates the technical jargon thus enabling to retain more information, and remember information is the key to passing the exam.

The book includes Top Score Software exam simulation; this allows you to try the exam before you go live. Overall the book is one for the technical library even after passing the exam.

As good as it gets - do not look farther....

I have looked at few of the books on this subject - this one is make you understand the subject in plain English - you do not feel stupid reading it.

Combine with a good exam test questionary - and you will make it...

I have right know - 5 books on this subject and I just passed the test on the first try with a 866 when only a 700 is required. I believe this book is what put me over the top and gave me some error room to boot! It is very easy to read and reminded me a lot of a textbook but thats a good thing, those "other" books try to make things much harder than they have to be. This book lays it out in a GREAT format. I found no errors unlike many other books and I recommend this with 5 star! - something I rarely ever give out. Good job to the author, keep it up! Highly recommend!

If you want to understand and write professional Windows Service programs, buy this book. You will find good C++ examples and best practices in Windows Service writing.

There has been so much written on the reviews for this book that I don't think I want to repeat all the good stuff said about it. The author has presented the various topics clearly and I like the style of writing. This book has been a great help. If you need to understand NT Services and how to program something decent; this is the book. Not for someone new to Windows programming. Just hope he comes out with another book soon.

The book is comprehensive, clear, and easy to read. The source code works and it is easy to follow (the code is available on-line.) The discussion on ATL COM servers is truly enlightening and by itself worth the price of the book. If you are writing an ATL COM server this book is a must, especially if it will be a multi-threaded server.

From the beginning the author has the attitude that NT services are easy to understand and his "prophecy" becomes self-fulfilling throughout the book. The book is well organized and it pays special attention to service design and usage patterns.

Also notice that the book does not cover hardware drivers. By the way, do read the previous review titled "One of a kind" as it gives very useful tips on installing ATL services (using "myservice.exe -Service") and housing COM objects in a service; I have not found that information in the book.

This book addresses all the issues related to such complex problems as NT Services. The author explains them in very great details, and makes you understand how all this works. The sample code works and you can use the classes from the book to start coding NT Services very fast. The author is very talented in explaining difficult concepts. Funny enough, this book has the best explanation on MSMQ, as well as apartments. As an alternative to the classes provided in this book, I recommend the CodeGuru NT Service C++ wizard written by Joerg Koenig. But even with a wizard, it is good to know how all this works.

No other source compares to the quality and convenience of Professional NT Services, either in book form or on the Internet. The only other way to get this information is to read sample code on MSDN, which is a less-than-optimal way to learn the subject.

Professional NT Services describes the issues involved in writing services, such as security and threading, and provides sample code every step of the way. The book also details how to build a service with ATL and even tells you how to improve ATL's implementation. It even talks a bit about Microsoft Transaction Server (now part of COM+).

Here are three bits of information that I discovered elsewhere that I wish were more evident in the book -

1. If you create an ATL service, the default registation code registers the EXE as a COM server instead of a service -- run "myservice.exe -Service" to register the service.

2. The easiest way for multiple clients to be able to use a single COM instance that's housed in the service is to implement the COM class using DECLARE_CLASSFACTORY_SINGLETON. This is your typical "server" pattern.

3. Clients that want to connect to COM objects housed in the ervice should use CLSCTX_SERVER in CoCreateInstance

Perhaps this information is buried in the book somewhere, but I didn't find it. At any rate, without this book, I wouldn't have known where to start.

Finally, for all its great qualities, the book needs to be revised for Windows 2000. It mentions some new features of "NT5" but I wonder how accurate this information really is.

I use this book and also the author's AD cookbook daily to help with supporting our global Active Directory server infrastructure. This is an absolutely indispensable reference.

This book is a great resource covering a wide variety of interactions with Windows Servers. Whether you are new or experienced, this book is an invaluable tool.

We're a software engineering company, and I maintain our internal servers (6-7 servers) as well as provide customer support on our products. A lot of that involves asking for information from the customer - and this book helps in putting together scripts that I can send out that will send back information to us that avoids us asking to exchange 5 emails to get the same result. Anything that saves my time - and our customers time - is worthy of purchasing. Well done, well organised book - and the author returns emails!

This book is not one for beginners who don't know what they are doing and are looking for detailed explanations of topics. This is made purely for the admin who needs to get a job done, and quickly, and knows already what they are trying to accomplish. I really appreacieate all the scripting examples and also how Rob puts in some great building blocks for scripting (like how to redirect your output to an excel file rather than just the usual Wscript.Echo output that you can redirect to a text file or to stdout). Great Job Robbie!!

This book has a sound foundation for managing a windows 2003 server. The chapters are logically organized. I used some of the examples in the book to migrate some file shares in my network from unix to windows, the book was there for the rescue (the fact that the author has a solid windows/unix experience makes this book even more attractive). The solutions in this book include windows scripting, an area that is seldom talked about in windows literature. If you are serious about managing a windows 2003 server competently then you want to have this book in your arsenal.

I love books like this, which take a different approach to teaching. They begin not by going through, chapter-by-chapter, each individual building block of a network, but by showing you just how horribly wrong you may have been in your thinking all along. Then, they basically say, "Do we have your attention now? Good. Now we'll show you how to mitigate these risks." In my opinion, that's the ONLY way to teach a computer geek, since many are quite set in their ways.

In my opinion, this is THE best book I have ever read (and I have read a few) on security in a Windows network. It is very well written; unlike a standard security book that simply has configuration guides and checklists. These guys are not only security gurus, they are very good authors who know how to write. They not only offer explanations on various security best practices, but they also dispel many myths about Windows security "recommendations" by so-called experts. The book has a definite Microsoft bias (as it's title would suggest), but I found very little that I would disagree with. As a long time Windows Administrator (MCP NT4, MCSA 2000/2003 and CompTIA Security+ certified) and also being a security minded individual (though not a security specialist)I highly recommend this book.

Great people these two authors and very charismatic. If you happened to visit one of the IT forums or speeches you'll know what I mean.

Really a great book with a logical processing of different topics. One of the great things is that they create awareness by giving everyday examples of hacking attempts and how to take the right precautions. Things you'll recognize in your daily work. It's easy to read and while the book is a couple of years old, the practical site of it hasn't changed a lot. I hope they update this with Vista and Server 2008 in mind. So certainly worth buying!

Rob Faber [CISSP, CEH, MCSE]
The Netherlands

The problem with some computer security books is that they are nothing more than pages of checklists with myriad dos and don'ts. But after all the checklists have been dutifully completed, readers still don't understand the underlying concept of how to secure a computer. Within a short time, their computers and networks are insecure, and they are back where they began, as fodder for hackers.

The distinctive nature of Protect Your Windows Network : From Perimeter to Data is that it suggests ways to secure your Windows workstation and network, but it also takes a much broader approach to security and shows you how to address the issue of securing systems as a whole. This panoptic approach to securing systems is quite refreshing, and it makes the book a fascinating read.

The theme of the book is that there are three elements of a successful security program: people, processes, and technology. In 17 chapters covering the gamut of security from server hardening to password protection, the book details how to use these people, processes, and technology to ensure that Windows networks stay secure.

Early chapters deal with the basics of how attacks work and show the reader how they progress from low-level social engineering to the code manipulation that leads to the exploitation of software and vulnerabilities.

The book is filled with easy-to-understand practical and tactical solutions that can be implemented by everyone from nontechnical end users to system administrators, helping them to ensure that their Windows-based network is as secure as possible. Even at 550 densely packed pages, the book is quite readable.

The simple truth is that if you're directly responsible for the health of a Windows network, you need to read this book. It contains a wide enough breadth to be applicable to all Windows administrators running a variety OS and application levels, while still managing the depth required to be truly informative and serve as a good everyday reference. It provides an incredible amount of detailed theory and hands-on practical advice that will give you the background information, tools and motivation to improve your defenses and keep hackers away from your data.

Those directly responsible for securing the network should read this book through and then read it again, perhaps discussing it with a peer. There's a lot of information to unpack, so a critical study of how to contextualize the recommendations to your environment would benefit from a team of individuals dedicated to understanding and carrying-out the guidelines that are given. In contrast, high-level managers and decision makers who have a more hands-off role would be well served by taking a half an hour to read the first two chapters, giving them a sobering first-hand account of the ease with which a knowledgeable attacker can subvert an entire domain. It will be 30 minutes well spent! A final group, the technically-savvy supervisors who don't actually implement (but monitor those who do), should quickly read the entire volume and hold their employees accountable for upholding at least the principles, if not the specific practices, mentioned throughout. All three groups should read it with the goal of acquiring a security mindset, filtering all their projects and goals through the "lens" created as a result of the truths learned from this pair of gurus. It is the unique combination of sufficient depth with comprehensive breadth that gives this book the edge over most recent Windows security titles from other authors. If you have to pick just one printed manual to take with you into battle, this should be your weapon of choice. I heartily recommend it as a great read for now, and as an investment for your go-to shelf later on.

Jesper and Steve begin the journey with the same eye-opening SQL injection attack you may have seen in one of the talks they present around the globe in their roles as security experts for Microsoft (Jesper has since changed employers). They exploit a poorly-written web application by feeding SQL code directly through the web form, eventually compromising the entire network, even though it's fully-patched and even somewhat hardened. They describe the intricacies of the attack from beginning to end, laying the groundwork for the defense techniques described in the remaining chapters. After taking over their victim network, they round out the section on fundamentals with a chapter on patch management. This was the low point of the book and, in my opinion, it glosses over the realities of just how time-consuming and complex change management and regression testing can be in a heterogeneous environment. Don't get discouraged by this chapter; slog through it and enjoy the informative--yet surprisingly fun--chapters that follow.

Having established the basics, more groundwork is laid with above average, but not spectacular, sections on administrative policies and physical security. These are the most "CISSP-ish" pages of the whole book and should look very familiar to members of the (ISC)^2. While the advice in these early chapters will stand the test of time, there's not much in here that won't already be a part of your daily arsenal. If you haven't figured out such basics as having a written security policy and that users will always choose convenience over security, then study this section hard. For the rest of us, you will find yourself saying "Amen" a lot as you review these four well-written and comprehensive middle chapters. The real epiphany comes at the end of Chapter 7 when they declare that the days of having a notion of a "perimeter" are over. If you haven't realized by now how incredibly porous your network is, this book should help bring you back to reality.

With the first half of the book used as an appetizer, the authors start serving the main course of practical, detailed advice about how to protect every aspect of your clients, servers and network infrastructure. Their incredible insight into password theory and how exactly a real password attack would work is so refreshing--these guys are experts, and it's demonstrated most profoundly in their chapter-long advice on the subject. Here and throughout the book they constantly bring you back to reality by refuting myths common in "security theater" and give you the best advice, with enough background to understand why it works. One particularly sobering moment was the sweeping dismissal of biometric authentication because of the myriad (often foolishly simple) flaws that can defeat even über-expensive fingerprint readers, retina scanners, etc. In the next two hundred or so pages the give you just enough instruction about IPSec, 802.1X, two-factor authentication and server/client hardening to help you understand the critical pieces of theory and find the detailed implementation instructions for yourself. You'll feel like you finally know the reasons to do all these things instead of just getting a litany of the individual steps to implement a particular setting or policy. Microsoft has published a lot of dry technical guides on every registry setting and tweak imaginable; these guys tell you the background information of why any of this stuff matters and they do it in a winsome, often satirical way that makes you want to keep reading.

The key concepts I took from reading this book were: a healthy skepticism about merely doing tweaks or checklists that have an air of sophistication but don't actually improve security; a sense of empowerment about how to untangle my network from a web of dependencies caused by shared service accounts (they even provide a handy utility to make their advice doable); and renewed sense of encouragement that least-privilege is actually obtainable. They end each chapter with an immediate call-to-action that addresses the most important steps you can take to do the most good quickly. If you can force yourself to do these challenging tasks for every area they address, you'll be well on the road to a more secure installation.

Cover to cover this book sails through the hype dispensing nuggets not to be forgotten!!! .Net and C#-aholics had breathed so much hot air, I was having trouble find a place to start. Once received I put everything else aside. I used to use arrays, types, RDS, and ADO to get the plumbing done but now its OOP, and serialization from now on!!! I got so many good pearls from this book its ridiculous.

I have been programming in VB since 1992 and decided to move to VB.NET when it was released but found the learning curve was immense - until I bought the book of VB.NET. This book is my Bible, it sits besides my computer all the time. Without delving into the VB language, it simplifies the transition to VB.NET for the experienced VB Programmer. It's not for VB learners nor does Matthew propose that it is. If you know VB this is the book to ease the quantam leap from VB to VB.NET - explained in logical steps with excellent examples. I have had to EMail Matthew with a few queries and the response is always prompt and helpful.

There are certainly other books you need in your arsenal - such as Francesco Balena's Microsoft Reference - but this one is a must.

I won't do a lengthy review... just read the other 5-star reviews and you'll get the drift. This book is so easy to understand you can learn without a PC in front of you (if you're a VB6 developer looking to understand .Net). The explanation of what ADO.NET is all about is worth purchase price alone. No chapter is super comprehensive, but it's a great text to get you rolling in VB.Net right quick. As an MCSD and MCDBA certified developer, I wouldn't write such a great review on just any book. Buy it.

There is so much that is lacking in this book. First, it is not user friendly. It is difficult to follow. Second, it simply does not cover enough information that one needs in order to truly be able to use .Net technology.

This book has a very good intention and concept - to introduce VB6 developers to VB .Net. In general it is a very good book. Not very deep, but good enough to start working with VB .Net and bee reasonably productive. So, if not for sloppy writing, I would probably give that book all 5 stars.
What do I mean by sloppy? For once, author uses terms object and class interchangeably throughout the book. Sometimes it is contextually understandable what he means, but often it might be very confusing, especially for people relatively new to OO. Then there are errors and typos in code examples. Some of them are also very confusing. For example: on page 80 author introduces the new VB concept - delegates. For VB6 folks this is something fundamentally new and strange.
In code example author defines delegate type and calls it ProcessFunction. Then he defines variable of this type and calls it ProcessDelegate. After that on the same page he shows how to use delegates and assigns value to ProcessFunction and retrieves value from ProcessFunction.
From the context one should understand that in the last two cases the variable ProcessDelegate should be used instead, and that this is just a typo. Yet, given that VB .Net now supports shared properties and methods, when Class (Type) name can be used where one expects to see Object (Variable), this types of mistakes are very confusing and annoying.
I would not go here into more examples of books imperfections. There are some more. Not terribly many, but enough to frustrate.
Would I recommend this book? Yes, if you have patience and some other VB .Net book to resolve inevitable confusions.
This could become a great book in its next edition if author takes time to make it a bit more accurate and precise.