Customer Reviews

Microsoft Exchange Server Training Kit (Microsoft Official Curriculum)

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

 

 

This book is one of the most comprehensive Exchange Server study guides on the market. Its only problems: 1) it's big (1200+ pages), 2) its prose is sometimes difficult, and 3) it repeats itself too often. If it wasn't for these flaws, however, I would give it five stars. The Sybex guide is shorter and better written, but it doesn't cover all the material that this book does.

This guide is ideal if you are willing to invest the time it takes to learn the material. If you want a shorter exam guide, get the Sybex book (Easlick and Chellis) instead.

This book has all you would need for the MS Exchange Exam BUT its too much information to assimilate! Well written book that has a great deal of exercises. Overall great book to have especially if you are not taking the exam.

Having worked my way through this massive book, I was quite surprised by some of the negative reviews it has received.

I used this book to supplement my main Sybex text and I was impressed by the depth of coverage. It covers everything you would every need to know about Exchange and then some. The labs are clear and structured, and fun to work through. The book is well illustrated throughout.

Perhaps its only shortcoming is that the end of chapter questions are not "exam like". This may certainly cause problems if the book is used as the only resource for the 70-081 exam. Combine it though with the Sybex or a decent "test prep" book and you have a virtually unbeatable combination.

Outside the exam the book is useful reference material and unlike purely "examcentric" books will certainly not be relegated to the garage after the exam.

Be prepared for long nights though as this book is almost 1400 pages!

I got 933 on the exam. A fair portion of the material on the exam was covered by this book and not by the Sybex book.

Well worth the money!

After the first 500 pages of this book I am definitely searching for another book worth reading as this one certainly is not! The format appears to be an attempt at a modular writing style but shows evidence that many different people may have had their hands in on the writing. Numerous different writing styles were encountered with excessive amounts of duplication of subject matter. Unfortunately with the large amount of duplication this book also suffers from contradictions from one explanation to another of the same specific topic. A large number of basic grammatical errors were encountered causing confusion and ultimately a trip to the WEB in hopes of finding better explanations for what should have been a simple topic.

About the only possible use for this book, besides filling an empty bookshelf, is as a last resort reference after you have already spent hours elsewhere and can not find any other explanation for a question. If you have a logical mind and approach technical topics this way then stay clear of this book. It will only give you a headache!!! I have used other Microsoft Press books that were well written and that is the main reason I purchased this one. I am definitely surprised that Microsoft bothered to put their stamp of approval on this piece of drivel! The contents could easily be condensed into half its size and the remainder of paper used to provide a better in depth look at Exchange Server or to help save a tree!!

I used this book in preparation for the exam 70-081 and found the labs which are based on Microsoft Official Curriculum very useful. The book deals with everything possible on Exchange 5.5 using lab exercises to demonstrate most of the theory including various connectors, Outlook web access, LDAP, POP3,IMAP and much more. I've used Microsoft Press for my entire MCSE training and this book lives up to the usual high standards.

The book is large but that is because the objectives of the module are vast. In fact it appears that Microsoft have split the new Exchange 2000 exam into two modules. To gain in-depth understanding of the Exchange system make sure you use this book to give yourself the confidence required for the exam.

I passed 5 other exams using only the Microsoft Trainig Kits, but I have failed the Exchange Server test twice. This book is far from complete, there are topics in the tests that are not mentioned on the book. To make things worse, some topics are repeated over and over. It seems that a different person has written each chapter, but they forgot to revise how the chapters would fit together (remember the Hubble mirrors fiasco?).

I wasted some time reading this repetitious and wordy book. I could skim for pages to glean a few sentences of substance. Paragraph upon paragraph of information without illustrations. It took me a couple of months before I could pick up Mitch Tulloch's ES5.5 book, which was great.