With the General Availability of Windows Server 2022, everybody looks at the learning community to get up to speed with Microsoft's latest and greatest Windows Server operating system (OS).

From that perspective, I'm happy to announce that I started work on the Second Edition of my Active Directory Administration Cookbook.

What's changing?

Here's what I'm changing in the Second Edition, compared to the original Active Directory Administration Cookbook:

Windows Server 2022

The first edition of the Active Directory Administration Cookbook, the five-star-rated book on managing Active Directory, released on May 3, 2019, was entirely based on how to do things on Windows Server 2019.

This time around, I'm going through all the recipes on Windows Server 2022 to see what's changed. Don't expect a lot of changes in most chapters, though, except for the addition of Windows Admin Center possiblities.

Azure Active Directory

The first edition of the Active Directory Administration Cookbook features three chapters on Azure AD Connect and Active Directory.

The chapters on Azure AD Connect will be updated with recipes focusing on Azure AD Connect v2. I may add one or two recipes for Azure AD Connect Cloud Sync, but I haven't deciced yet.

As the chapter on Securing Azure AD still features baseline policies, it is definitely time for an overhaul. You can expect to see up to date information in this regard.

DNS and Certificates

In the first edition of the Active Directory Administration Cookbook, I had to make some tough choices to reach the desired page count of 550 pages. The book counts 620 pages, so I guess I didn't do a really good job…

For the Second Edition, we can go to 700 pages. This time around, I have room to provide recipes for the Domain Name System (DNS) and for Active Directory Certificate Services (AD CS). It means the Second Edition gets two additional chapters, but also that the book probably falls in a different price category.

PowerShell and Command Prompt

Many of the recipes targeting Active Directory show how to achieve your goal in the Graphical User Interface (GUI), on the Command Prompt and with Windows PowerShell.

In a possible third edition of the Active Directory Administration Cookbook, I'm planning on removing the Command Prompt methods. I haven't used most Command Prompt tools in a long time and I feel most of you haven't either…

Stay tuned!

The Second Edition of the Active Directory Administration Cookbook is due for the first quarter of 2022.