Customer Reviews

MCSA/MCSE Windows XP Professional Study Guide, Second Edition (70-270)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

In order to appreciate a review, I believe it's necessary to understand reviewer's perspective. In my case I am NOT someone who already passed the exam and therefore loves whatever book got me there. Nor am I someone who just failed the exam and needs to tear apart the piece of junk that lead me to failure. I'm like you- looking for the best book to study and learn from so that I may pass the exam with as little struggle as possible.

One final cautionary note: Some reviewers out there, especially a few famed Top Reviewers, seem to never have met a book they didn't like. Their reviews are filled will comments like, "oh this book is great to supplement the class I'm teaching..." or something similar. My advice is to take this information with a grain-of-salt. The fact that so-and-so thought a book was a great edition to their collection says nothing of its real value to someone in my or your position. On with the review!

Lisa Donald is another very knowledge techie who can't write to save her life. A lot of this book is a poor summation from Microsoft's own technical reference library. I know this to be true because I constantly referenced Microsoft's website to gain further clarification from the often obtusely explained material in this book.

Check out this sentence, chpt. 2, p. 47, in reference to the /checkupgradeonly switch used with the winnt32 command:

"Used to check the current operating system for
upgrade compatibility with the hardware and software
that is currently installed and will be upgraded to
windows XP professional."

Why not just say, "Checks currently installed OS, hardware and software for its ability to be upgraded to XP"

The book is filled with verbose statements like this. Fortunately in this case the sentence is still understandable. Unfortunately, most of the other poorly written pages are nearly indecipherable. I love this one from chpt. 5, page 178. Here Lisa is describing the two sets of files that are used with Windows XP Multilanguage Version:

"Language groups, which contain the fonts and files required to process and display specific languages.

Windows XP Professional Multilanguage Version files, which contain the language content required by the user interface...."

Seems simple enough on the surface, but try to explain to somebody how these two descriptions are really different. Such an attempt would require actually understanding the difference between these two sets of files: Language Groups and Win XP Pro Multilanguage Version files.

Lets look at Language Groups. Looks like Lisa is saying that Language groups contain fonts for different languages so they can be displayed. Ok, no problem- now lets look at what the other sets of files do: Contain language content (what's that if not fonts???) required by the User Interface (how is that different than displaying them???).

What's lacking here is an explanation. The author does not concern herself with ensuring that the information she is providing imparts understanding or learning. This pattern continues throughout the text- it is almost devoid of comparisons to real life or easy to understand examples that would help relate the material to the reader.

On the somewhat bright side, the book is well organized and seems very detailed (although it isn?t complete). The old adage of never rely on one book to prepare for a certification exam certainly applies here. I found several errors, mostly due to the mind-numbingly poor attempt to write clearly, instead of out right inaccuracies (although those exist as well.)

The other good news (at least for the author) is that to the best of my knowledge, there aren't any decent study guides out there for the 70-270 exam. Exam Cram 2 publishes their indispensable review of the exam, but this is not intended to be a one stop shopping book, only a review book.

That having been said, go ahead a buy Lisa Donald's "MSCA/MCSE Windows XP Pro Study Guide", just don't expect much. While you are at it, pick up "Exam Cram 2: MCSE 70-270 Windows XP Professional". The Exam Cram 2 book is really great- well written, easy to follow, clear explanation, better coverage than this Sybex book and directions on where to find more detailed information at the end of each chapter. Finally, check out the Transcender Practice Exams, they are the best in the business for practice exams but also the most expensive (along with Self-Test, who are both owned by Kaplan.)

I hope this helps and good luck with the exam!

I went through this book trying to make sure I picked up the little things that I may not have encountered during my experiences with Windows XP. What I found was that this book contains examples of how to configure Windows 2000, not Windows XP. This is not the case with every example they provide, but it is the case way more often than should be when you are paying someone to teach you. The interface errors are way too common, and during testing (as show by their sample test) you get interface location specific questions which have answers that are IMPOSSIBLE in Windows XP, but are very accurate for Windows 2000. If you actually follow through with the exercises and verify the answers this may be a great book for you. The errors will force you to learn. If you plan to take what they say at face value, like you paid them for, then you will have errors in your education. The version I have is the UPDATED SECOND EDITION.

I've gone through this book is less than two weeks. If the publisher is unwilling to spend that much time testing their own questions & answers just think of what else they didn't care about.

I was interested in getting this corrected but Tonya at extension 315 with Customer Service said she wouldn't even write my problem/complaint down since she was really in sales, but told me she was the only person in Customer Service. With a total lack of effort to even get the items corrected I feel that people should stay away from this company and the work that they do.

This is on par or slightly better than the average Sybex study guide. Lisa Donald actually seems to have a deep knowledge of the operating system, and there are fewer technical errors in this book than in most authors'.

The only chapter that has technical errors is "Chapter 9: Accessing Files and Folders". Lisa has a couple minor misunderstandings about cummulative permissions, effective permissions, and how effective permissions are determined when both Share and NTFS permissions are involved. So many authors are too quick to use the term "most restrictive" without explicitly stating how the permissions are determined. Lisa explicitly states everything, but she misses the mark slightly. Consequently, Question 12 on the Assessment Test at the beginning of the book is incorrect, and there are a few other technical errors related to permissions.

An appropriate qualification for any study guide is whether you could pass the test if it were "open book". In this case, I think you could score above 900. Overall, this is an excellent book, and I'm looking forward to reading Lisa Donald's other study guides.

This book really helped me nail down the basic concepts. I used it and the Test CD to build my base knowledge. I really needed the material on RIS and IIS.

I coupled this with Video training from AppDev and the test questions from BrainDumpGalaxy. WARNING just studying the questions will not cut it. Use them to test your knowledge and study the explanations of why the correct answers are correct, and why the wrong answers are wrong. Then go back and study the book on the stuff you realize you just aren't getting.

This method allowed me to score 938.

Ok,

So this book is GREAT to get you started. It's super easy to read from front to back. It really gives you the best scenarios to help you easily start to understand and comprehend what they are teaching. The practice tests are OK, but you will find the actual test's questions a lot harder. I definitely recommend this book, but at the same time, recommend the Microsoft "Blue Beast" book, which isn't as easy to read, but goes a bit further into the technical aspects of certain things, which will help. Plus the practice tests on the microsoft book are a lot more like what you will see on the actual exam.

I didn't use the blue book as much as I should have, used mainly this book, and the fast pass. I Passed with a 778.. not great, but it's a pass none the less.

Good luck!

Yes, I passed the test but not with the score I thought I would receive. I ended up with a disappointed 794. I read this book as well as the Exam Cram book thoroughly. In addition, I have four year experience as a PC technician. One might then inquire as to why the low score. The answer is this: the 70-270 test does not solely test your knowledge on Windows XP alone, as it should since there are separate tests for server, network management, active directory, etc. You must have experience with Windows 2000/2003 server and Active Directory to get anything above an 850. You will need to have an understanding of Group Policy (which is a server topic), Login Scripts (also a server topic) and Active Directory (which is a separate test itself). Fortunately, I was able to get through it from the minimal experience I received from setting up a practice LAN with 2003 server with Active Directory installed. However, I did not think that I would be tested on Windows Server or Active Directory, therefore, didn't study them. If one were just to study this book as well as Exam Cram with no experience with 2000/2003 server, they would surely fail the test. However, if you want to have a descent insight into XP Professional, this is a great book.

I purchased this book for under $1, the book was in great shape and it is very helpful and easy to understand. I would definitely recommend this item to others.

I am a current MCSE NT 4.0 going for my MCSE 2003 with 10 years experience.

This book did well in covering most topics for the exam. I passed with a 905 after two weeks of studying. There were questions on the exam that I would not have known just from reading this book. Questions relating to bluetooth were not covered in this book. Overall it was a good study guide.

After having read the comments on the first edition, I wondered if the authors made any improvements that makes buying this book worthwhile. Unfortunately, the answer is no. Although most of the spelling errors are gone, the book fails to meet my expectations for several reasons:

- The content is sometimes flawed. That is a bad thing for a book, which pretends to be useful for exam preparations. See e.g. Chapter 11, answer to review question 2: "You can't provide drivers for Windows 3.1 clients." Now check out the answer to review question 11: "In Windows XP, you can also specify (and provide) print drivers for Windows 95/98 clients, Windows NT 3.1 clients etc etc etc". Once again, I had to check out the Microsoft site (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/networking/learnmore/printershare.mspx), which I believe is indispensable when preparing for your exams anyways.

- The content is so obviously adapted from a Windows 2000 exam preparation guide, that people working with Windows 2000 on a day-to-day basis are only sparsely offered new XP material. Look at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/evaluation/whyupgrade/featurecomp.mspx. See that list of new features? Why is only a handful of those topics covered in this book? What about all the new cool command line utilities, which makes scripting so much easier for admins (which in my humble opinion are the ones required to take the exams)? Why not dig deep into those things? It's an XP book for crying out loud!

- The review questions are questionable, to say the least. If you are going to ask me on what tab I can find a certain button, or if the offline file checkbox is called "allow offline files", "activate offline files", "permit offline files" or "none of the above", you really don't understand the concept of review questions. Besides, review questions are supposed to be used to review content discussed earlier, not to introduce new concepts.

- More references to other sites wouldn't have hurt. There are so many good knowledge base articles, book, Microsoft whitepapers etc. which clarify what the authors try to convey, that I think it's a shame incidental references are included.

To sum it all up: 2 stars. Not impressive.

Good is good enough. I passed the 70-270 exam on the first try after reading this book and taking practice exams from two major exam prep testing software packages. Still, the exam is wicked hard.