Customer Reviews

MCSA/MCSE Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-290): Managing and Maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server(TM) 2003 Environment

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(7)
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2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

If you have no experience with Windows 2000 or 2003 you will not pass the exam regardless of which text you buy. I am studying for the MSCE in Windows Server 2003. This text covers all of the objectives for the 70-290 exam. This book also includes a Prometric exam discount voucher and a set of practice questions on the CD in addition to those in the text.

The exam objectives listed on Microsoft's site are covered by this text. The coverage is not deep, but is adequate for those that are attempting the exam who have experience with the operating system. Unexperienced candidates are wasting their time on the new MS certifications and should get some hands on before heading off to the testing center.

The questions in the second part of the book appear well written. They mirror some of the lengthy questions on the actual exam and this aspect of the text was refreshing. Most certification textbooks skimp on the practice questions adding them as an afterthought rather than a feature. To many books ask questions like "what does DNS stand for" and "where would you use DHCP". The first time I tried many of them I got them wrong. When I was getting them right I tried the exam and passed. Until the Transcenders are released, finding good questions will be difficult. Resources like this text are quite valuable.

This is probably the tenth Microsoft Press book I've purchased, and it is no different than the rest of them. While the technical aspects of the material seem adequate, I think there needs to be more detail. The exams always seem to contain a few questions that only Technet can help you answer. An exeption to this was the Microsoft Press MCSE study guide for 70-216, which was very detailed. Another bad thing about this publication (70-290) is the CD, which contains a few typographical errors and what I believe to be wrong answers on a few of the Readiness Review questions; namely a claim that a RAID-5 array isn't fault tolerant, which it clearly is. If you are considering purchasing this book, please do yourself a favor and check it out first. Read through some of it, and verify its accuracy with other publications or online material. The 2003 Server Administrators Guide is much better written and contains more real world scenarios than this book. Use it as a backup. Hope this review helps, and good luck on the exam.

If you don't know the product, you will not pass. This book will help you pass. If your only experience with Windows Server 2003 is installing it twice and running a few applications then you WILL fail the 70-290 exam no matter what book you buy! The MCSE is not like it was back in the NT4 days when you could train your parrot to pass the exams. You need to know what you are doing. This book is reasonably good at building on the exam objectives, but in some cases you will need to look at Technet. If you buy this book and fail the exam, don't blame the book - have a good look at the amount of experience you had going into the exam with Windows Server 2003. I passed this exam and this book helped (though my experience with the product, and prior Microsoft server operating systems did as well).

I'm not sure what problems the other reviewers ran into, but the MS Press book I read was an excellent prep guide for the 70-290 test. I passed it recently with a score of 850 and relied on this book and the included Readiness Review Suite CD for 90 to 95% of my preparation for this test. The exercises were clear and straightforward, and the explanations were pretty thorough. I wouldn't recommend this book to an absolute beginner - but then again, if you know little about server management or sys admining, you shouldn't be taking this test anyway.

The sample test questions towards the back and the MeasureUp tests (while prone to the occasional error) do give you a realistic feel for how hard the MCSE test is and how complex the questions are.

As with all guides, this book should hardly be used as a sole source of material - but combine this with another prep guide (I used the ExamCram book) and you are well on your way to passing. Again, I achieved a score of 850 on my first attempt at taking this test.

Minus a few errors and lack of detail on a few areas (IIS as someone else mentioned) this is a great book for prepping for this exam.

I hold an MCSE in NT4 and 2000 (and soon 2003). This text covers all of the objectives in a good, if occasionally dry, fashion. Including an exam discount voucher and the book in ebook format was a good idea, though reading such a long text on a PocketPC is a bit of a strain.

The objectives themselves are covered, though not at a level of detail higher than is required to pass the exam. If you are looking for a straigh reference on Windows Server 2003, rather than a reference for the 70-290 exam, you would do better waiting for the Resource Kit to be published. Good pointers are given on where to seek further information if you wish to drill down into a particular topic, but when trying to cover so many topics some readers might find them a little brief. This isn't really a criticism of the book itself as all certification texts suffer from this problem. This particular title suffers less than most from this particular issue.

The questions supplied in the latter chapters are sometimes a little long, though I found them to be of similar length to what I actually encountered in the exam. Some of the questions are harder and some are easier than what you will face on test day. It is fair to say that if you can pass the questions in the written chapters you are in good shape. Some of the questions provided on the bonus test CD are simpler are simpler than the real exam questions. Unlike the questions in the book, passing the questions on the companion CD won't give an accurate indication of your readiness to face the real exam.

Overall I found no glaring errors and I'd recommend this text to other students looking to pursue Windows 2003 MCSA/MCSE certifications.

This book will act as a guide to teach you concepts and introduce you to the technologies of Server 2003, not teach you all of the specific technologies in depth.

Long gone are the days of read book, take test as far as the MCSE is concerned. Microsoft is determined to add credibility to the MCSE certification and when you take this test for the first time you will see just how true this is.

For every 10 NT MCSE's I know, I know about 1 2000 MCSE, and for every 10 2000 MCSE's I know, I know about 1 2003 MCSE. This is a very difficult certification to obtain now. Plan on taking at least a year to achieve it unless you already have 2+ years experience with Active Directory. I have over 6yrs now in the industry and this track took me almost 18 mos. If you are not ready to make that sort of a commitment then this certification is not for you.

"Ed"

MCSE/MCSA/MCP/MCT on Server 2003

If you are familiar with working in an Active Directory domain then this book can fill in the blanks. I wouldn't recommend it to a beginner in server administration, one of the Sybex books might be a better starting point, but this book gets in depth with the "need-to-know" information for the 70-290 exam.

The format works for me, the first section goes step-by-step through configuring a Windows Server 2003 system with lessons followed by open-ended sample questions and follow-along labs. This approach works as it walks you through from the very beginning of installing the OS (included on CD) to configuring a variety of services and performing administration tasks. You learn the topic, you quiz yourself, then you do a practical portion. Getting the hands-on and seeing it work is key to success.

The second portion goes over the exam objectives. This helps to gauge the areas in which you are strong and those which need improvement. It also details all the "subject domains" you are expected to know for the test, and is shorter than the first, making it useful as a cram guide to keep the topics fresh.

The book includes Microsoft Windows 2003 Server Enterprise Edition 180-day trial on CD for following along through the labs, as well, the second CD includes a test engine to gauge your subject matter knowledge and preparation readiness. It also includes the book in PDF format, as well as two other full eBooks, Security Encyclopedia and Networking Encyclopedia, both from MS Press, and both are great for reference with excellent content. CD 2 also includes sample chapters from other MS Press books which can help explain some concepts further and are really worth the read.

I am very pleased overall with this package, the book is well layed out, the content is in-depth, and the extras go above and beyond was is typically expected of a certification guide, inluding extra eBooks and chapters of eBooks pertinent to the subject matter.

I have a good deal of experience with a Server 2003 environment and I found I learnt a lot regardless, but this book may be a bit overwhelming for new administrators. Again, if you are new to Server 2003, the Sybex 70-290 guide might be the best start, but this book is a great value and easily my favorite from MS Press to date.

Having worked in the training industry for several years, I've found that learning through questions (i.e. the Socratic method) is one of the most effective methods of knowledge transfer. That's one of the reasons why I enjoyed the Self-Paced Training Kit. In addition, I thought the questions were very appropriate. By that I mean that they were very similar to the actual exam in format and difficulty. However, unlike some of the illicit practice exams floating around the Internet, they aren't word-for-word rip-offs of the actual exam (a practice I abhor).

The treatment of the material is certainly adequate and given the relative lack of Server 2003 information currently in existence, actually quite a pleasant surprise. The references provided are also sufficient and other readers will enjoy the fact that many of them are available free of charge. In addition, I thought there was a good amount of value-added provided through the CD (e-book is great because it is searchable making for easy location of key concepts) and the discounted exam voucher.

It'll be a while before we can judge how this book will stack up against its competition but given the fact that there is relatively little competition out there right now I'm pretty certain this book is the best of what's currently available.

One would think that purchasing the official Microsoft Press self-study guide would be the best way to study for MCSE Core Exam 70-290 without taking expensive instructor-led courses. Apparently, this is not the case. Of course, Microsoft has no other recommendations for supplementary study for this exam, only this book. So here you are, this is your only choice.

After reading some of the reviews here, I had my reservations but decided that they were unfounded because Microsoft wrote the book and Microsoft wrote the exam, it didn't make sense to go to a third party for information for the exam.

I am extremely disappointed with the quality of this title. The lessons are not organized and skip steps, apparently assuming that the reader has the ability to read the author's mind. There doesn't appear to be a logical progression from chapter to chapter, lesson to lesson. Or perhaps they expect you to already know the content, but then this begs the question: What is the point of a study guide? Just go test out.

Out of the world's largest software company that makes hundreds of millions of dollars annually, I would have expected a top-notch title complete with though lessons and real-world information. I also would have expected a toll-free number where I could request a refund if I wasn't happy with the purchase. I have yet to locate the quality lessons a handful of reviewers speak of, and no telephone number to speak of - toll free or otherwise.

Regardless, this title most definitely should not be considered to be the excellent study aid Microsoft has billed it as. At best, it is someone's shorthand notes published as a hardcover book with a shiny cover with a 15% off coupon taped to the inside back cover as a come-on.

After 5 weeks of studying, I passed this exam.

Overall, the book did a pretty good job. The chapters/lessons that lack the most, when relaying the information presented in the book to the test, are the chapter concerning managing disks and the lesson on IIS 6.0. Real world experience is the best I could find to help me when presented with many of the disk management questions. (In case you're wondering, I had the fixed length test.) There just wasn't enough "meat" in that area. The lesson on IIS 6 was just a bit shy of a teaser. It's on the CD... install it. Everything else in the book was covered rather well.

If you want to pass this exam, start reading section one, then move on to section two and do all of the related readings. Keep in mind that no book is absolutely flawless. Anything that you don't know like the back of your hand, research on Technet. Most importantly of all... an evaluation version of Windows Server 2003 (Enterprise Edition) comes with the book; install it, use it, and push yourself to your limit. Then push some more.