Thanks to my technical reviewers: John Lambert, Peter Partch, and Bill Moseley. The book wouldn't be the same without your efforts.

I’d like to say a special thank you to Don Box, who jumpstarted my writing and teaching career back in 1997 when he invited me to teach COM for the training company he founded. It was Don who helped me land my column with Microsoft Systems Journal. He encouraged me to work on security back when nobody seemed to care about the topic. I’m still using his Word template when I write articles for MSDN Magazine.

Thanks to all of the people who read the online version of the book before it was published and took the time to e-mail in suggestions. Lots of the tips in the section on running as non-admin came from these folks.

Thanks to Chris Sells for his simple suggestion before I even started writing, “Please give me something practical,” he asked.

Thanks to all of my students over the years. Your questions and insights have challenged and strengthened me. Please come up and say hello if you see me at an event. Stay in touch!

Thanks to the folks at Addison-Wesley for their help in getting this book off the ground. Karen Gettman, my editor, didn't let me slip (well, not much at least). Thanks for giving me the leeway I needed to find this rather off-the-wall format for the book. Thanks to the two Elizabeths at AW for all your help getting the book through production, and Connie Leavitt at Bookwrights for managing the copyediting process, even as I submitted entirely new content after beta 1 shipped. Thanks to Curt Johnson and his staff who somehow figure out how to sell all these paperweights I’ve been writing over the years.