Question from a reader:

Tony,

I saw you as one of the authors of the Microsoft Self-Paced Training for MCITP Enterprise Administrator series from Microsoft Press.  I visited your personal website and really liked your photography as well… Very impressive.

Anyhow, I digress… I’m not really writing to talk about photography, though I could.  My question is about MCITP training and certification.  You have a substantial history and experience in training/writing about Microsoft certifications.  I’m moving up in my employer’s organization and I’m tasked with getting my certification.  I had my MCSE 2000, but it’s time to upgrade my skills.

As someone new to Win2008 (specifically R2) do you have any hints, tips, suggestions for getting GOOD training, but also receiving certification.  I’m purchasing the Microsoft Press self-paced series that you’re one of the authors of, but I’m looking for more as well… By no means am I suggesting your books aren’t great… they are!  But I’m one who looks for help from many angles (even emailing the author, as you can see).  Any guidance you may have is much appreciated.

Regards,

And my answer:

Of course, real-world experience is the best teacher. Sounds like you have quite a bit of that already. If there’s some area where you don’t have enough real-world experience, setup different scenarios with virtual machines, and make it actually work (without following step-by-step instructions like those in the Training Kits).

I like to read the TechNet blogs. They’re written by the guys writing the software, so you tend to get a deeper understanding of how the technologies work. I also like to check out different IT forums to see where people are running into problems in the real-world.

The #1 resource for MCITP certifications, though, is TechNet. Not only is it one of the best technical resources, but it seems to be the place where the people writing the questions get their inspiration. Note that I don’t have any inside knowledge on how they write the questions–I’m saying this based on my own experiences taking the certification tests.

Hope that helps! And thanks for the compliment on my other passion. :D

Tony

I bought your MS Press 70-642 Configuring Windows Server 2008 Network Infrastructure and would like to know how to set up the lab using Virtual PC 2007…

I have two Dell Latitude laptops running XP Pro SP3 with enough hard drive space that I should be able to install both Virtual PC 2007 and Windows Server 2008 on…they will be connected to each other via a 4-port Netgear switch…

Where can I get a free copy of Windows Server 2008 to use for the lab?…and do you have any suggestions on ensuring that the lab software don’t mess up these two laptops (I use both of them for business purposes)?

And later in an e-mail followed up with:

Actually, I was able to download WS2008 (and VPC 2007 SP1) from a MS download website yesterday (WS2008 was 1.9 GB and it downloaded as an iso file)…

I just have a few (dumb) questions about setting up the lab (please confirm the correctness and the sequence of the following steps):

1. I’m assuming that I need 3 actual computers physically connected to each other by a switch…true?

2. Next, install default? VPC 2007 on each computer.

3. Next, install default WS2008 on each computer (I am assuming I will install WS2008 while inside the VPC environment , or should WS2008 be installed outside of the VPC environment as you suggest?…if outside of the VPC environment, do I have to wipe the hard drive clean before installing WS2008, or can I keep the existing XP Pro SP3 OS and all of my apps and data files intact and install WS2008 in a separate partition?).

4. Next, do I rename the computers from inside or outside the VPC environment (however, I cannot change the real existing computer names on these computers because they are domain machines in my company’s environment…if I change their names, I will not be able to connect to my work network!).

Are there any other steps that I am missing?

Really appreciate any clarification you can provide!

My replies after the jump.

Hiya, John. Here’s a link to download a trial of WS08R2:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/trial-software.aspx

I know you found regular Windows Server 2008, but R2 is newer and better, and will be fine for the labs and such. Of course, it’s 64-bit only, so you’ll need to use Sun VirtualBox (which, if you watched this video, you know that I prefer anyway).

So, to answer your questions… You need either one of these setups:

• One physical computer with 3 GB or more of RAM. Install virtualization software (Sun VirtualBox, Virtual PC, Virtual Server 2005 R2, VMWare, whatever). You will then create two virtual machines, and install Windows Server 2008 (or R2) on both virtual machines. They’ll be automatically connected to the same virtual network.

- OR -

• Two physical computers with 1GB or more of RAM each. Install Windows Server 2008 (or R2) on both computers. Connect them to a network. You can plug them both into a switch, connect them to a wireless network, or even just run a crossover Ethernet cable between them and manually assign them IP addresses on the same network.

BTW, if you don’t mind blowing away XP, you’ll get way better performance out of those older laptops by installing WS08R2 on the computer directly. WAY better performance, because they probably don’t support hardware virtualization… You can install WS08 on a second partition, if you still want to be able to boot to XP.

It sounds like you can’t blow away your XP computers, though. If they don’t have 3GB of RAM, but they have 1.5GB-2GB of RAM, install Virtual PC or VirtualBox on both computers, and then install one WS08 virtual machine on each computer–the virtual machines will require 1GB each, at least.

When you rename the computers (which you don’t really need to do, the names in the book are arbitrary), do it within Windows Server 2008–in other words, within the virtual machine. If you use a single computer with virtualization software, you’ll do everything within the virtual machines. Other than installing the virtualization software, you won’t have to make any changes to the “host” computer.

Regarding your MCTS (Exam 70-536) Book (ISBN: 9780735622777):

On pp. 172-173 (comparing UTF encodings, Chapter 3, Lesson 2) you state:

“Unicode UTF-8 uses 8-bit, 16-bit … and up to 48-bit encoding.”

and that:

“Unicode UTF-32 encoding represents … characters as … 32-bit integers.”

In the Lesson 2 Review Test, question 1 asks:

“Which … encoding types would yield the largest file size?”

According to the Answers section (pp.954, Lesson 2, Question 1) it’s UTF-32.

If UTF-8 can go up to 48-bits, and UTF-32 is always at 32-bits, how can the answer be a straight forward “UTF-32 would yield the largest file size”?

Answer after the jump…

Hi. You’re right, 8-bit could theoretically be larger than UTF-32, and that makes it a weak question. When writing in English (or anything other than Chinese, Japanese, and Korean), though, UTF-8 files are 8-bits/character.

Thanks for pointing that out!

Oh, and be sure to get the second edition of the 70-536 training kit–it’s MUCH better.

Tony

I’ve been studying for the Microsoft Certification exam 70-536 with the first edition of the MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-536) book.  I’ve noticed that there are many mistakes in this book and some chapters are a lot harder to process than others as they appear to be written by a different author to other chapters (e.g. Chapter 9 and 10).

I’m considering purchasing the second edition of this book but I wondered whether you could please let me know how much revision has gone into the book and if all of the errors have been corrected in the second edition.

I have also found that there are topics covered in the exam that aren’t in the text book – does the second edition cover all of the required exam topics?

Many thanks!

Hiya. The first edition really did have major problems. I did my best to resolve them all in the second edition–I wrote the entire book rather than dividing it between myself and another author, I triple-checked everything I wrote, and the editing team was much more thorough. Overall, reviews on Amazon seem to show that the effort was successful. Everyone really likes the book and people almost unanimously pass the test based on it.

Re: covering every topic on the exam–I thoroughly covered every objective on the public exam preparation guide:

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/exam.aspx?ID=70-536#tab2

And I personally have taken and passed the 70-536 exam. With that said, Microsoft isn’t legally allowed to provide me the exam questions, and as a test-taker, I only saw a portion of the exam questions. Also, Microsoft regularly changes the content of their certification exams. So, it’s entirely possible that the exam writers would cover something that I didn’t think to cover in the book. However, as I mentioned, Amazon reviewers report passing the test based on the book, so while it might not be perfect coverage, it’s very good.

Hope that helps, and good luck!

Tony

Hi Tony,

I am now preparing for MCTS 70-528 certification. I have studied the training kit of yours.

But is it sufficient for the exam? This is my first certification so I am not having any idea of how difficult the questions might be.

Tell me some sites which I can explore and prepare for this certification and also nice sites for the mock tests.

Thanks in advance.

Nita

Answer:

Hi, Nita. You’re referring to my 70-528 training kit. According to most of the reviews, it’s a good solid book and provides most of what you need. My advice would be to complete the book in its entirety, including working through each of the practices, and doing all the suggested practices at the end. Use the practice test questions, and if there’s a question you don’t know the answer to, check the links provided for the question to research the topic in more detail.

Good luck! I’m sure you’ll pass with no problem.