Subj : Windows 2000 MCSE Upgrade Exam To : Steve Quarrella From : Lawrence Garvin Date : Sun Apr 01 2001 08:41 am Steve Quarrella said in a message to Lawrence Garvin: SQ> I don't test through Sylvan Prometric if I can avoid it. Where do you test? LG> FUBAR during February and it took me 2 attempts and 17 days before LG> they finally delivered my site registration ID on 3/3/2001. By LG> then, it was too late to register to take the exams. SQ> I'd have called Microsoft about that one. You made the attempt, SQ> and Sylvan bollixed it up. Well, I sent an email to prometric, microsoft, and MCP Magazine. No response from any of the three. SQ> That's what I'm trying to avoid, given that my previous employers SQ> want to reap the benefits of having someone with a certification SQ> onsite, but they refuse to pay for it. Now ain't that just cheap... I've not yet found an employer unwilling to reimburse the cost of a passed exam.. though I have had a few that didn't have the bucks to pay for the week long course. On the other hand, I paid for my Microsoft guy last December to sit in both the NT4 Core and NT4 Enterprise courses. He never took the exams. SQ> As far as I'm concerned, if I pay $100 and pass, I pass that onto SQ> my employer during a review (and if they don't bite, I can shop SQ> elsewhere). If I pay $800, same thing: Either you pay me, or SQ> someone else will. Exactly! SQ> I was paper certified with my 3.51 MCSE -- I did the entire 4.0 SQ> track to prove to myself that those times had changed -- so I know SQ> all about walking that tightrope. In this case, it's all about SQ> money, and I have every indication that the real hands on SQ> experience will come, in due time. One thing I've noted about the MCSE 2000 track that I'm much more happier about. I won't have to work on learning any -applications- as it's now possible to earn the MCSE 2000 cert by doing OS only classes... The core 4 classes The fifth core class (one of the Design courses) Two electives (the other Design course and one of either: Upgrading to Microsoft Windows 2000 or Supporting Windows 2000 in an NT4 environment... fighting through the electives for the NT4 track was killing me. LG> Absolutely! In fact, with the development of FP98, FPSE, and IIS4, LG> I was surprised that Microsoft even continued to acknowledge the LG> existence of PWS. SQ> I don't recall the exam, but there was one I took in the 4.0 track SQ> where they wanted you to put "NetBEUI" as the correct answer (and SQ> the alternatives were BS, like NWLink, SNA, or DLC). Come SQ> on...when's the last time you seriously rolled out NetBEUI at the SQ> enterprise level? Well.. I've never rolled it out personally.. but sad to say, I've seen quite a few implementations with it installed and operating on a co-existant TCP/IP network. I chalk that up to novice NT installers. Incidentally, I was forced to install NetBeui on my home network as it's the only way my OS/2 Fido node could see the NT Server! SQ> That would be my take on it, too. I recall on either the '95 or SQ> the NTWS exam, that they were very heavy on Novell, with the SQ> obvious intent of having you understand how to migrate. There was a fair share of IPX on Win95 questions, as I recall. SQ> You know you're getting a bum deal, though, when they're asking SQ> you how to install the LFN support on Netware! :-) :-) SQ> Groups will kick your ass if you're not careful. Once you SQ> understand who can belong to what group, you're OK, but even then, SQ> the NTE exam was quite tedious in this regard, as you had to wade SQ> through scenario after scenario, with the clock a-tickin'. Interesting... though once I read the section one author wrote that simplified the whole concept with "users join domain groups and domain groups join local groups", the rest of it seemed to fall into place. Why did they have to make such a simple concept so complicated in the teaching, though, I just don't get. SQ> I really think they want you to panic. I know I felt a brief SQ> moment of it, and then I said to myself "You've got close to an SQ> hour left, you're paying for this exam, take all the time you SQ> need." I won't go into how I approach a non-adaptive exam, but SQ> with that breath of air, I rallied my troops and came back. SQ> Remember how Rocky was saying to Mr. T in the one movie "You ain't SQ> so bad...you ain't so bad"? ;-) I suspect that was my failing in the NT4 Server exam.. I just wanted to get the darn thing over with. Didn't spend a lot of time "thinking". Of course, I -expected- to miss a few questions here and there on topics I refused to study on the grounds that I would /never/ use the information. SQ> Now, I have exposure to all of them, but I still think the 4.0 IP SQ> exam was considerably less detailed in its scrutiny of my SQ> abilities. I thought the TCP/IP exam missed a lot of significant issues it should have covered as well. Maybe if they'd spent less time on the impractical emphasis on non-standard subnetting of Class B addresses, they would have had space in the pool to ask useful questions. --- * Origin: lawrence@fido.eforest.net | The Enchanted Forest (1:106/6018) .