Customer Reviews

MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-680): Configuring Windows® 7

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(16)
2 star:		(16)
1 star:		(22)

 

 

This book is far superior to the Odom book, which I also owned. This book does a great job of covering all the bases. There are quite a few typos and errata, however those problems are fixable since the errata is published. I did not see any questions on the exam that weren't covered somewhere in this book. If you study this book, and supplement with some studying of Technet, you should pass. The practice exam that comes with book is too easy compared to the real exam. Microsoft tests are somewhat vague in general, so taking the practice test that comes with the book won't hurt you. Just don't think that the real test is as easy as the practice test.

I got this book to help me pass the Windows 7 exam. After reading the book and doing all the exercises and practice test questions I got above 900 when I took the test. This is the first time I have taken a Microsoft exam since Windows XP so I am pretty happy with the result.

The practice tests are similar enough to the exam that they helped me pass. The only thing I didn't like about this book was that some of the exercises take a while and you really need a computer with 4 GB of RAM if you are going to do them using VMWARE. This was okay for me, but might not be good for others. I was able to do all the practices using the RC version of Windows 7 even though they are designed for the real version of Windows 7.

I do not know what book the other reviews are talking about as the text seemed to be clear and I noticed few mistakes. If you want to pass the exam this book will help you do that. If you want to have a book as a Windows 7 reference you should get the resource kit book.

I am the type of person that never writes reviews. This might actually be my first.

This is one of the most poorly written books I have ever read. I am only on page 136 and and I am totally frustrated by the amount of errors in this book. I can't get through a single exercise without having to go on the net to find the correct commands to get through the exercise. Did anyone test this out as it was written? I have 7 certifications and have read through many books and never come across a book with this many errors.

You can still learn from this book and pass your exam but it will just take a lot longer because you have to go online to verify everthing you read.

Not sure about the other Windows 7 study guides but if you are debating between this and others, go with the others.

The book covers the exam topics closely, and the timed practice exams on the companion DVD (which also contains the book in .PDF format, and all the chapter review questions from the book in practice test format) closely simulated the exam experience. Each chapter was well-explained, and the practice exercises were well thought out and relevant... not only to exam 70-680, but also for real life Windows 7 tasks.

Bottom line: I spent a weekend plowing through the book, took the Microsoft exam Monday, and passed it. Well worth the money... especially since it included a 15% discount on the exam, making the net cost of the test at Prometric to $106.25... or, if you prefer, making the net cost of the book only about $25.
I just ordered the same book for the 70-685 exam.

Minor quibble: I counted at least a dozen typos in the book, including some in command lines. This cost it one star in my review.
Major quibble: There are even steps left out of the practice exercises. For example, the procedure for creating a Windows PE .ISO file -- a task early in the book that is necessary for other practice exercises -- is missing a crucial step, without which your Windows PE disks will never work. This is below the usual standards of MS Press. When I ran into this error, I chopped another star off this review.

Maybe I was hoping for too much, but this book is very difficult to follow. Information is repeated sporadically throughout various sections without any cohesive step-by-step information. Parts of the book appear to be step-by-step, but either leave out important details or contain completely incorrect information. I couldn't even make it through Chapter 2 without considerable rework and research from other sources.

Microsoft Exammers, Test Takers, and Windows IT Professionals....Lend me your Ears!!

I have taken several Microsoft Exams and have been a Microsoft SysAdmin for about 5 years (been in the industry for 8) in an Enterprise enviornment and I would definately recommend the MS Press books for taking the exam. This is merely a supplement. What do I mean?? Well, I have noticed that, in my past exam-taking experience, these were not enough. I would use these MS Press books and read them cover-to-cover to get the basic idea, and then use something like "TestOut" or "CBTNuggets" video training. Sometimes things are dry and hard to understand in the MS Press books and I need something else to supplement what I read to help me better understand it. It definately helps to tackle the material from different angles.

Now, in saying all of that, I must agree with others that have commented on the book....

I am about to dig in to this book so I can knock this exam out within the next couple of weeks.
Note: I have been reading reviews by different ppl on Amazon and there are quite a few errors and type-o's in the 70-680 book. The author, Orin Thomas, actually posted all of the corrections on Amazon to quite a few questions, scenario's with problems, command line problems, etc...

Here is the link(I hope this helps you out as it did me):

http://www.amazon.com/70-680-Errata-Thread/forum/Fx1YPQTLINOD6NN/TxAV8WUXY6AURU/1/ref=cm_cd_ef_rt_tft_tp?_encoding=UTF8&asin=0735627088

I have printed off the link above and am keeping it by my side as I study. I would HATE to go into the exam room and have the wrong answers. These guys are supposed to be professionals....No doubt, they are better and wiser than I am. 1 or 2 or 3 errors would be differnt but there appeared to be 49 errors/type-o's in the link (my math could be a little off - I just counted the page #'s referenced). Either way, That is WAY TOO MANY (in my book)!! Nonetheless, I am still going to read the book as it still has a lot of valueable data that I need for the Windows 7, 70-680, Exam!

This is all just my opinion. Take it as you will. You know what they say about opinions....I will not recite that here/now...LOL

Thanks,
Gerald

MCTS (2 more exams after Windows 7 to earn Server 2008:Enterprise Architect)
MCSA: 2003
MCP 2.0
Network+
A+
DCSE (Dell Certified Systems Expert: Portables, Desktops, Servers)

I have not finished the book yet, but I found this link:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/microsoft_press/archive/2011/02/18/book-update-page-corrections-mcts-self-paced-training-kit-exam-70-680-configuring-windows-7.aspx

This contains the 85 page update for the typos and spelling issues with the original book. Seems to be a high percentage of issues for an 800 page book...

While the book and practice tests are informative they are not sufficient to pass the 70-680. I could easily obtain 95-100% on the practice tests, including study mode with all 200 questions, but was not able to pass the actual exam. 700 is needed to pass and I received 650.

I highly recommend the addition of alternative sources to pass this exam. The 70-680 exam I scheduled thru Prometric had plenty of questions not covered by this material. Recommend more knowledge on IE8 and the configuration of hardware and applications.

As others have mentioned, there are numerous typos and grammatical errors in the book but that shouldn't keep you from learning the material that it relays. Just dont rely on it exclusively or you will be disappointed.

I purchase this book and the Odom book. The Odom book wasn't good at all and I ended up using just this book to pass the test. It's a comprehensive, in-depth look at Windows 7.

Problems with the book: Errors when describing command-line input is incredibly frustrating if you're not familiar with what they're trying to teach you and made worse in that subsequent lab exercises might not be possible if you weren't able to successfully complete an earlier one; review questions aren't very good and you can often figure out the answer without even having read the chapter; for a book aimed at a somewhat experienced technician, it goes into great length on some very basic topics such as troubleshooting wireless network connectivity.

Before reading this book, print out the errata guide and mark the pages in the book so you know when you're coming across some not quite correct information.

Good news: I passed! I liked the layout of the book. I thought the sections (which follow the exam guidelines) flowed very well. I have worked in the industry for 2 1/2 years now and have taken other exams (Net+, CWNA) and feel like this book REALLY did help me prepare for the exam. Many other exam books I have read don't go into detail about a subject or the important material is not presented in a format that shouts out "hey! you need to know this!" Well, this book does. Many of the questions I was asked on the test seemed to come right out of this book (or vise versa). This book is also helping me a TON at work. Lots of useful information for imaging using WAIK and DISM. Lots of details for performance as well as Group Policy.

Bad news: Who wrote this thing? Seriously!! how can a book get published with this many spelling and grammatical errors! Their are step by steps with WRONG commands as well. I spent hours trying to get my WinPE image to work but then after searching the forums, I came to the conclusion that one of the commands was written in the book incorrectly and it didn't copy the files needed. Once I used the right parameter I was good to go.

Also, The practice tests (Hundreds of questions) are very good and written in a very similar fashion to what was on my exam. I could have swore that a couple of them were actually on my Exam.