I have seen a few book recommendations on this list recently (Kouti&Seitsonen, Kilpatrick, Robbie Allen) and thought I would add a note for the two volumes on WMI scripting by Alain Lissoir that sit beside those above on my desk. See:
http://www.lissware.net This is not entirely OT as volume 2 covers AD providers including the W2003 AD replication provider and the security coverage in Chapter 4 of volume 2 (210 pages of it) could be mentioned in the same breath as Kouti&Seitsonen IMHO. Volume 2 has coverage of all major WMI providers including those in Exchange that have been exposed before in Lissoir's excellent TechNet articles. Volume 1 Chapter 1 is a very comprehensive study of Windows Script Host. FWIW I would not want to be without these two books in managing Microsoft systems. Lee Flight University of Leicester List info : http://www.activedir.org/mail_list.htm List FAQ : http://www.activedir.org/list_faq.htm List archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/activedir%40mail.activedir.org/