Microsoft Content Management Server 2002: A Complete Guide

This team-authored book uses a variety of strategies in communicating information to the reader. These include discussion of design issues (generally quite effective in making the reader think about the situation on his own site), narrative elucidation of procedures with frequent screen shots, and code listings (generally under-commented and therefore less useful than other elements). In any case, this is from-the-source documentation of an expensive software package. You'll benefit by having it around. --David Wall

Topics covered: How to install, configure, and use Microsoft Content Management Server 2002. Sections deal with the general architecture of MCMS, and its particular ways of facilitating page design, user interaction, and workflows. Integration with Visual Studio--the chief advancement in the 2002 version--gets lots of attention, as do security and user rights managements. The Publishing API (PAPI) is covered in greater depth here than anywhere else.

Product Description
Praise for Microsoft Content Management Server 2002 "This is one of those rare books that you will read to learn about the product and keep re-reading to find those tidbits that you missed before. Need to know how to setup CMS? Microsoft Content Management Server 2002: A Complete Guide will tell you. Need to know how the information is being processed before the user views it? Microsoft Content Management Server 2002: A Complete Guide will tell you. A great book no matter what your experience level is with Content Management Server." --Gary Bushey, SharePoint Portal Server MVP "A concise and accurate guide to Microsoft's enterprise development tool for content-centric applications. An invaluable resource for any developer who wants to get the best out of Microsoft Content Management Server." --Ed Robinson, Lead Program Manager, Microsoft Corporation "Content management is a complex, multifaceted application area, and Microsoft's CMS Server is a complex product. This book sets out everything you could possibly need or want to know about CMS.The title could easily be The CMS Resource Kit since it will be an essential addition to the library of any IT professional or developer working on content management and Microsoft's CMS. " --Thomas Lee, Chief Technologist, QA Content Management Server (CMS) is fast becoming a vital content-management tool that helps administrators and developers handle the ever-increasing amount of content on their Web sites. However, an authoritative source of product information has been missing ...until now. Microsoft Content Management Server 2002: A Complete Guide is the first book that explains how to effectively unlock the power of CMS. Administrators and developers alike will learn how to enhance their Web servers' scalability, flexibility, and extensibility by using CMS features and API to manage content on the Microsoft platform. This thorough reference explains the product architecture, then shows you how to create and edit content and use the workflow. Topic coverage includes CMS administration and security, the Publishing API, deployment options, site configuration, and template development.A running example is used throughout the book to illustrate how important CMS features are implemented in real-world Web site development. Inside you'll find answers to such questions as: *Chapter 6: How do you customize workflow? *Chapter 10: How do you develop for Microsoft Content Management Server (CMS) 2002 using Visual Studio .NET? *Chapter 17: How do you establish user rights? *Chapter 22: How do you best deploy CMS according to your organization's needs, size, and resources? *Chapter 32: How do you publish dynamic data? Books in the Microsoft Windows Server System Series are written and reviewed by the world's leading technical authorities on Microsoft Windows Technologies, including principal members of Microsoft's Windows and Server Development Teams. The goal of the series is to provide reliable information that enables administrators, developers, and IT professionals to architect, build, deploy, and manage solutions using the Microsoft Windows Server System. The contents and code of each book are tested against, and comply with, commercially available code.Books published as part of the Microsoft Windows Server System Series are an invaluable resource for any IT professional or student working in today's Windows environment.

The value in this book is it's breadth of coverage and succinctness of the explanation of the topic. The general approach of the book is to give a general explanation of a topic and then to provide specific instructions with examples. It is possible to reference a particular topic and use the information in it without having to read a large part of the book.

The level of technical expertise required of the reader varies depending on the topic being covered. Hence it's possible for users at varying technical levels to make use of the same book, depending on what information they need. It's a remarkable accomplishment and I'd recommend having copies available to all employees who work on your MCMS 2002 site in any capacity.


Authoritative Reference for Content Mgmt. Server   June 14, 2004
Richard T. Kingslan (Omaha, NE)
1 out of 6 found this review helpful

What drew me to this book was Bill English's name. I've known Bill for a few years (I'm a Windows Server MVP, Bill is an MVP on the Exchange side), and am usually quite impressed with his writing, his teaching, and his work. Yet, there were a number of other names that are associated with this book. I don't know who was responsible for which parts, but this is truly an all-star cast of technical experts on Microsoft Content Management Server.

Content Management Server can be a tantalizingly ominous program. On the surface, it appears so simple, however - under the covers is a very complex and detailed series of modules for managing content on web servers. Essentially, it covers birth to retirement of the content of web publishing. And, diferent from many other programs of this type - it is aimed at all levels of content creators. It's aimed at the Pro Web Master, but also provides the capacity to allow the typical Business or Marketing type to create and submit content - and to allow it to be reviewed before it is published out to the web site by defining 'roles', and assigning responsibilities and rights to these roles. This flexibility and control is what makes Content Server special.

*This* is what makes this book special. English (Microsoft MVP), Londer (of QA - a training firm in the UK), Bleeker (CTO/ Consulting firm to Fortune 100), Shell (Dell Pro Services), Cawood (MCMS Product Team - Microsoft) are some of the brightest folks working with this product, and they know it well. The thickness of the book is because of depth. Specific sections of the book deal with any portion of CMS that you might encounter, from deployment, to management, to security, and to optimization. It also educates you on how you can use code (your choices are open to any .Net language) to modify some behaviors, enhance and further control the functions of the server.

My experience with CMS is that it can either be the very worst of nightmares, or the best thing for managing your web servers / farms. This book can definitely put you on the track of productive suite rather than uncontrollable mess of code and tags. In conjunction with Application Center Server, Content Management Server provides a complete toolset for staging, deploying, proofing, controlling and validating your web servers.

Your chances of success with this software are greatly enhanced with the written knowledge of these technologists.


A must have resource but...   December 17, 2003
Housten Heidi (Stockholm, Sweden)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful

There is a lot of excellent information in this book. I was just disappointed that there wasn't more depth in the areas of interest to me. I wanted more details, like when it comes to an upgrade path from CMS2001 - what are the limitations(for example: is there a maximum database size or channel count that the upgrade tool can handle?) or gotchas? What things have changed? However, there were only three pages on upgrading from CMS2001 in this 1000 page book.

As another example, there was some interesting sample code in the Tips & techniques section, but they didn't give a complete usage scenario of the bit that interested me, so I wasn't sure how to implement the sample that interested me.

I must say that I was impressed that this book was so thick yet not padded with the usual repetitive and excess verbiage. It is all good content.

This book is the most comprehensive resource I've found. I've been going back and forth between MSDN articles and the documentation that comes with CMS and this book covers everything, especially planning, much better. However, it still could have had more!


Poor Layout. Not for beginners.   July 20, 2004
Varad Arasanipaalai (MD)
7 out of 9 found this review helpful

I bought this book to help my client evaluate CMS 2002. First few weeks with the book was agonising to read through. The author explains in verbose text about something and you have to read through it all coz you dont know what is fluff or where he might say something useful! I read through the documents that came with CMS 2002 last week and there is one called SiteDevl.chm which has a chapter on how to Use VS.net to create a CMS web site. I finished the whole chapter in about an hour creating my site simultaneously. Since I did a web site from scratch I had a better understanding how to use various CMS components! First read this help file before you buy this book.
I went through the first 286 pages of this book and was yet struggling. Then I read through this help file that comes with CMS which has 36 pages now the difference is like day and night! Since there are no other good book available you have to get this book just coz you odnt have a choice.
There is a new book written by Stefan Gossner from MSFT coming out soon. He is a regular contributor on CMS message boards on msdn. Seems very knowledgable. I havent got the book yet, I have reserved a copy when it is out.