Very well organized, the book flows logically from an overview of specific systems to what can go wrong and how to fix it. It supplements troubleshooting diagnoses with brief case studies that present a problem, discuss it, and ultimately provide a solution, all in just a few paragraphs.

An exceptional feature of this book is that it explains the theories behind many of the issues affecting performance characteristics and attributes. A primary example elaborates on the OSI model and how it relates to Windows NT networking and general queuing theory, including the role played by CPU (all of which is accompanied by a readable analogy to lines at a cash register).

Practical advice crops up throughout the volume. For instance, if interrupts/sec are dominating the system (especially if the system is old or has recently been moved), the book recommends checking your adapter cards to make sure they haven't popped out of their slots.

Even given its superior content, Windows NT Performance leaves much to be desired in terms of style and editing. Redundancy takes the crown for glaring style problems, in which readers find sentences beginning with terms like "The microkernel" or "SMP Operations" within the same paragraph. The book also has its fair share of typos. This doesn't necessarily affect the understandability or readability of the text, it just looks bad. --John Keogh