Customer Reviews

MCSE: Exchange Server 2000 Administration Study Guide

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

It is obvious that a lot of thought went into the planning and writing of this book. Unlike Sybex's 70-240 book, this book is extremely well organized and well presented.

The writing is clear, not wasting valuable space and time with redundant text. There are some errors in this book, like on page 336 where a cut/paste from the previous transport stack excercise is obvious, but that is more attributable to bad editing than anything else. While the errors are annoying, they are far fewer than most books, ESPECIALLY the 70-240 book.

Since there are no other practice test resources available until Q3 of 2001, the included CD contains some very valuable preparation tools.

This book is a complete, clear and organized resource and I highly recommmend it. Kudos to the author!

The book is well organized and presents the various capabilities of Exchange 2000 in a useful manner. I found it to be a very good grounding in all of the basic knowledge that you would need to install and administer an Exchange Server/Organisation.
I noticed some errors in the book, but they are few and do not distract from the usefulness of this book in preparing for the 70-224 Microsoft Exchange MCP Test.

However it does not teach you everything you should know (information you gain through practical experience and "just by knowing the product"). My first attempt at the 70-224 Test was not successful (I just missed it by a couple of points) which served to show me the level of my own knowledge and the level of information that this book provides (Tip: check out also the functions of utilities like ESEUTIL and ISINTEG). So don't rely on this book to supply the complete works ! But as I said before, it is very good for the basic knowledge.

A major criticism that I have of the practice tests provided with the book is that they are all too simple! The test questions in the book are mainly short and simple, or describe a scenario which is not too complicated. In the real test, the questions are generally quite complicated scenarios; much more complex that what is provided in the book. In the real test that I experienced, there were very few simple questions. Maybe that I did so well in the test (just missed a pass mark) is a good recommendation for using this book?

My own practical background in Exchange helped a lot. 4 years with Exchange 5, 12 months with Exchange 2000; installed multiple Exch2000 Clusters and FrontEnd/BackEnd-Servers plus "normal" standalone Exch2000 Servers.

Best of the bunch. Require a detailed read with plenty of challege questions from various sources. But basically the one you want!

I do not recommend this book for anyone planning to take exam 70-224. It does not go anywhere in depth as what you need for this exam. It only gives you a general overview of Exchange 2000 and some excercises in it are flawed and will not work if you follow the steps in this book.