MCSA/MCSE Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-290): Managing and Maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Environment [With 2 CDROMs]

by Dan Holme, Orin Thomas, Orin Thomas Dan Holme

Book Overview

This title is designed to help readers maximise performance on one of the core exams for the new Windows Server 2003 certification. It provides real world scenarios, case studies and troubleshooting... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0735622892
• ISBN13: 9780735622890
• Release Date: May 2006
• Publisher: Microsoft Press
• Length: 835 Pages
• Weight: 4.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.8" x 7.9" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Fantastic

This product is far superior to the proscribed Microsoft course books that you will get in a classroom setting. I basicly tossed them aside and concentrated on using this before I took my exam. Guess what, I passed with flying colors! Take this book and run, It's the best source out there.

Excellent Book

This is an excellent book that will prepare you for the exam. I used it as my only source and passed the test on the first try. The 70-290 is a very easy exam but regardless of that the book prepares you very well.

Helped A Non-Techy Pass the 70-290 Exam on the First Try

First of all I am not highly technical. I am a CRM Project Manager and I wanted to take and pass this exam to become and MCP and a MCBSM Profession for Microsoft Dynamics CRM. I do not do any of the outlined Windows Server tasks on a regular basis and had very little knowledge of them before I read this book. I also found the certification exam to be very challenging and confusing at times; even more than some of the other Microsoft Certifications Exams the I have taken. That being said I believe this book did a very good job preparing me for the exam. I found it to be bearable, which is actually pretty good considering my interest in the topics was limited. I spend roughly 30 hours reading the text and doing the examples from the book and another 15 hours taking the practice tests. In my opinion each of these three components are equally important. Overall I don't think I retained much of the content and I would not recommend reading this book if you don't plan to taking the certification exam or using the content on a daily basis. However, if you are planning on taking the exam this probably the best resource because of the content, examples, and practice test cd.

Excellent preparation

I purchased this book for study purposes after taking a class that was supposed to completely prepare you to pass the 70-290 exam. Thinking that this would be mostly review, I tore into the material last week when I got it and found that it is way more in depth than my class was. Excellent depth and the writing style is easy to follow. I recommend this highly to anyone wishing to prepare to pass the test.

Great Preparation Material

I hold an MCSE in NT4 and 2000 (and soon 2003). This text covers all of the objectives in a good, if occasionally dry, fashion. Including an exam discount voucher and the book in ebook format was a good idea, though reading such a long text on a PocketPC is a bit of a strain. The objectives themselves are covered, though not at a level of detail higher than is required to pass the exam. If you are looking for a straigh reference on Windows Server 2003, rather than a reference for the 70-290 exam, you would do better waiting for the Resource Kit to be published. Good pointers are given on where to seek further information if you wish to drill down into a particular topic, but when trying to cover so many topics some readers might find them a little brief. This isn't really a criticism of the book itself as all certification texts suffer from this problem. This particular title suffers less than most from this particular issue.The questions supplied in the latter chapters are sometimes a little long, though I found them to be of similar length to what I actually encountered in the exam. Some of the questions are harder and some are easier than what you will face on test day. It is fair to say that if you can pass the questions in the written chapters you are in good shape. Some of the questions provided on the bonus test CD are simpler are simpler than the real exam questions. Unlike the questions in the book, passing the questions on the companion CD won't give an accurate indication of your readiness to face the real exam.Overall I found no glaring errors and I'd recommend this text to other students looking to pursue Windows 2003 MCSA/MCSE certifications.