SharePoint 2007 The Definitive Guide

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9780596529581/

ISBN 978-0-596-52958-1

Authors James Pyles, Bob Fox, Christopher M. Buechler, Murray Gordon, Michael Lotter, Jason Medero,, Nilesh Mehta, Joris Poelmans, Christopher Pragash, Piotr Prussak,, Christopher J. Regan,

Never judge a book by its cover. It’s an old saying but one that is very relevant in this case. I was very wary when I saw a total of 11 names credited on the cover. In my experience books written by committee tend to have chapters of variable quality and the topic coverage can be inconsistent with some topics covered in multiple chapters while others are completely missed.

However, in this case I was totally wrong to be thinking along these lines. I was very surprised to see that the chapter contents are logically arranged with minimal overlap.

After a quick overview of SharePoint 2007 and the architecture the book dives into installing and configuring SharePoint in single or multi-server configuration. I would have like to see more on architecting SharePoint solutions in the enterprise in terms of designing site hierarchies.

The bulk of the book details configuring the various SharePoint areas of functionality including:

· Document Workspaces and Libraries

· Meeting Workspaces

· Discussions

· Picture Libraries

· Lists.

The interaction of the Office 2007 products is well covered though the information about using Word 2007 with SharePoint appears to be duplicated across two chapters. The chapter on using InfoPath was very useful.

Standard administration tasks and security get their own chapters as expected. The coverage of upgrading from SharePoint 2003 seems to cover everything that is needed.

I liked the last part of the book with the coverage of Web Services and using the SharePoint object model. I would have preferred to see the examples in PowerShell rather than C# but that is personal preference rather than a criticism of the book.

I would have liked to see more coverage of the Search and Content Management functionality. Web Content Management has been moved into SharePoint from Microsoft Content Manager and is an area that definitely could have benefitted from deeper coverage.

“The Definitive Guide” – possibly not. An excellent guide to installing and administering SharePoint – very definitely. This one will be on my desk for quite a while.