Customer Reviews

MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-640): Configuring Windows Server 2008 Active Directory

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

The good: The book quickly dispenses what you need to know for the exam, then tells you what you need to survive in the real world. I.e. Powershell and scripting. Coming from a 20,000+ user environment it is refreshing to see a book actually written for the "real world".

The bad: I'm only through the first four chapters, and oddly enough I find myself actually doing the examples. To my surprise, about one in ten commands is flat out wrong. Parameters are specified that aren't part of the program being executed (p.122), PowerShell commands that are typo'd bad enough to throw errors that would be undecipherable to most people (p.127), etc.

And no, despite the fact that they show it about 20x, you cannot use %username% from the command line to set a variable with dsmod as they show it, since it uses the logged in users' username (the admin running the command).

If they would have proof read and tested these commands before throwing them in the book it likely would have raised by rating of this book to a five. However, it's hard to overlook such glaringly obvious and *frequent* errors. I hope the other books in this series aren't as bad in this department.

I recently recieved this Microsoft Press training Kit for Exam: 70-640,
MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-640): Configuring Windows Server 2008 Active Directory

After reading through its over 860 pages of information, I was equiped to pass the Certification Exam. Although it is an excellent tool for preparing for the test, there are quite a few errors in the text. The book seemed rushed, as if the writers were trying to meet a deadline. There are many references to outside sources for concept understanding throughout the book. Some of the answers in the back do not match the questions in the lessons from each chapter. A few mispelled/misplaced words, and some information, such as on Page 280 which states that you can troubleshoot RSoP with Gpupdate.exe is just not correct. The statement should say Gpresult.exe instead. Nothing that a little more proofreading would not have solved.

All in all, the book was easy to grasp. I was happy overall with the content supplied by the curriculum. Once the errors are resolved, I feel that this will be an excellent source for 70-640 enthusiast.

I bought the MCITP Enterprise Administrator bundle which included this book. This was the second one I read in preparing for my certification. Overall not bad it goes into some detail on important key AD features. There was some incorrect information and mispellings throughout the whole book. I noticed this within the first 2 chapters. I even looked it up and Microsoft has a web page dedicated to the incorrect data. Including incorrect answers to questions they ask. The other portion that was lacking was the AD LS/CS/FS/RMS chapters. They each had one chapter and for ADFS and ADRMS overview that may be ok. However, they did not cover details on AD LS that was on the test and the AD CS chapter which is 13% of the test was really lacking. It went over some walk throughs for installs and setups, but did not cover much of the details needed for the exam. I recommend reading the book for the exam, but use other resources as well for the AD LS/CS/RMS/FS.

While it is sold as a certification reference, I don't advise others to try to use this book for test preparation. The book was obviously rushed and incorrect in a lot of the test related sections, and the accompanying disk with prep tests asks questions that are not even addressed in the book. Also the disk does not allow you to take focused tests based on specific chapters, just generic lesson 'area' like 'DNS Configuration'. Real world application isn't bad though and the information can be helpful in actual work related issues. Just be ready when several of the command line instructions don't work as advertised.
Bottom line is while I use it to help with some related server info, I had to rely on other material for the test due the books poor preparation.

First, I'm not a Windows administrator, I'm actually a Unix guy, so I really did start from ground zero. I give this book 3 stars (60%) because that's the score I got after reading it. While getting me to 60% is pretty good, I took a pretest, where I scored 40% before reading even one page, so this book improved my score by roughly 20% from baseline. This book will be a good reference in the future, although technet is at least as good, and more up-to-date. The questions on the MeasureUp were ok, but none of them were on the test; I got to the point where I was getting consistent 90%'s on the measureup cd, and then only managed a 597 score on my first attempt, so they aren't a good gauge of your ability to pass the test, in my opinion.

I would recommend the Exam Cram book instead, as it is shorter, but just as informative, because the author stays on-track better. He actually says at the beginning that he doesn't put anything in the book for fun, so reading every word is worth your time, while the Microsoft Press book will frequently move into unnecessary territory. After completing the Exam Cram 70-640 book, as well as reading many of the recommended technet references in the Exam Cram book, I managed to pass with a 780, which isn't horrible for someone who hasn't ever managed an AD Domain. The practice tests included in the text are especially good, because they are tricky, and help you practice the careful reading skill you will need to pass the actual exam.

Also, bit of a spoiler here, but I don't think it's fair that they put this on the test: there were 3 powershell-related questions on this test, and my reading indicated that they wouldn't expect powershell abilities, hence I didn't study powershell. I don't think saying that violates the agreement I signed to reveal questions as it's more of a topic, and it was devious of them to include this material without telling us to study it.

If you get through this book and complete the assignments you'll pass your test. Why you ask? Because you'll have successfully troubleshot your way through the scores of inaccuracies, typos and just plain wrong advice!

It is painfully obvious that not even one person went through the entire book before it was published. Certainly no one did the practice exercises. It's like reading a first draft.

I was really surprised at the plethora of errors in this book. This book is a FAIL. As a IT professional with an MCSA I already knew some of the material covered in this book. The material I already knew what littered with errors, incorrect information, and bad syntax. The biggest failure is on page 566 where the answer given to question 3 is incorrect, way incorrect. If you did it on your network you'd take down half your network incorrect.

Do not follow the directions on Page 649, you cannot restore a Active Directory Server using previous versions / snapshots. It screws crap up.

If I could rate it a 0 I would. Some good material in here, but when it is so littered with errors you don't know what to believe.

It seems to be a recurring theme among the Microsoft Press books I've been studying for the Windows Server 2008 exams: they get off to a great start with rich information and good detail, but then 1/2 to 2/3 through the book, it's like somebody flipped a switch and can't wait to get the book done. They hurry through what's left with pages of "recipe" step-by-step examples explaining how to do tasks, but not WHY you should do something this way instead of that way. As this book gets to the end, the coverage is sparse. No way do I feel near ready for the exam. Hands on is an essential ingredient in learning this material and being ready for the exam, and I'll do that on my own, but I still expect a better job than this book does for exam prep. Specifically, chapters 10 onward are weak, and the coverage of CS and FS is really poor.

Interestingly, several of the authors in the MS Press series have contributed to portions of several of the books, and some of them have done books for earlier versions, like Windows 2003. Don't rest on your laurels guys! You gotta do better!

This book contains some very serious errors. It is absurd to believe that any one book is all you need to pass an exam or get comprehensive knowledge about Active Directory (or anything else for that matter). But this book contains so many substantial errors that you wonder why it was published at all. The errata sheet is virtually useless and Google provides the only way to see which steps the authors left out or got completely wrong. You will spend useless hours trying to find out why certain tasks do not produce the desired results - and then, by using Google, find out that other readers had the same problem. This book is a complete waste of time. It's a shame that this book's steps was not tested by competent reviewers. It's not enough to proofread for grammatical mistakes or trivial typos. Please buy something else!

I've been positively impressed by this book, but the high amount of typos and errors, especially in command examples and command parameters is not acceptable in a book that is the official exam reference. A more rigorous review would have been welcome. The book is however very interesting and will help seasoned Win2003 admins to refresh their skillset and to prepare for Windows 2008. Don't forget to check and print out the errata from Microsoft Support.