# About This Guide

Plesk for Windows Advanced Administration Guide is a companion guide for Plesk Administrator’s Guide. It is intended for server administrators whose responsibilities include maintaining hosting servers and troubleshooting server software problems.

The guide provides step-by-step instructions to perform server management tasks that require use of Plesk functionality other than the GUI and GUI-only tasks that administrators may need to perform only in rare specific situations. Administrators can use several additional tools that are supplied in the standard Plesk distribution package to add customized automation tasks, back up and restore data, and repair Plesk components and system settings. The tools include a number of standalone Windows applications, command-line utilities, and the ability to integrate custom scripting with Plesk.

This guide consists of the following chapters:

- Introduction to Plesk. Describes the main components and services operated by Plesk, licensing terms, and the ways to install and update Plesk components.

- System Maintenance. Describes how to change server host name, IP addresses, and locations of directories for storing virtual host files, backups, and mail content. This chapter also introduces Plesk’s command-line tools, a mechanism for running scripts on Plesk events, and service monitor that allows monitoring and restarting services without logging in to Plesk.

- Backing Up, Restoring, and Migrating Data. Describes how to back up and restore Plesk data by means of the command-line utilities `pleskbackup` and `pleskrestore`, and introduces the tools for migrating hosted data between servers.

- Changing Security Settings for File System Objects and Accounts. Describes the process of applying Plesk security rules to file system objects and accounts. Presents examples of commonly used security rules with explanations.

- Customizing Plesk Appearance and GUI Elements. Introduces Plesk themes that can be used to customize Plesk appearance and branding and describes how to remove specific elements of Plesk GUI or change their behaviour.

- Statistics and Logs. Describes how to run calculation of statistics on disk space and traffic usage, and how to access web server logs and configure logging.

- Localization. Introduces the means to localize Plesk GUI into languages for which Plesk does not provide localization.

- Troubleshooting. Describes how to troubleshoot malfunction of Plesk services.

- Glossary. Explains terms used in this guide.