Windows 70-697 materials

Hey all. I'm just getting started studying for the 70-697 so that I can upgrade my Windows 8 MCSA to Windows 10. I've read through a couple of threads here and used that to determine what I'm going to need to study. The list is a bit long but from my previous experience it is really important to include all the TechNet stuff because Microsoft draws a lot of questions from there.

I've never used ITPro.TV before but I see that they offer Transcender access even under their monthly plan. That would certainly make it worth paying for it but I wondered if anyone has used them before and can confirm that Transcender tests are free through them.

I'm looking forward to working with everyone else here while studying for this test

Microsoft Press book:
http://www.amazon.com/Exam-70-697-Configuring-Windows-Devices/dp/1509303014/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1459254176&sr=8-1&keywords=windows+70-697

Azure 90-day trial:
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/offers/ms-azr-0018p/

Azure TechNet material:
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/gg605186.aspx

Azure TechNet forum:
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/forums/azure/en-US/home?category=windowsazureplatform

Azure MSDN forum:
https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/azure/en-US/home?category=windowsazureplatform

InTune 30-day trial:
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn646967.aspx

Intune TechNet material:
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj676587.aspx

Intune TechNet forum:
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/forums/en-us/home?forum=microsoftintuneprod

Office 365 TechNet material:
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg681899(v=office.12).aspx

Office 365 TechNet forum:
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/office/en-US/home?forum=officeitpro

ITPro.TV videos:
https://itpro.tv/course-library/mcsa-windows-10/overview70697/

CBT Nugget videos:
https://www.cbtnuggets.com/it-training/microsoft-windows-10-70-697-configuring-windows-devices

Transcender practice test:
https://www.transcender.com/product.aspx?product_id=Cert-70-697

MeasureUp practice test:
Configuring Windows Devices

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Comments

115935

Thank you for this!

AMD4EVER

Quench24 wrote: »

I just spent 20 hours in the last two days studying. Read the book in the original post. I watched the CBT nugget videos.

Now I can't find any practice tests. What. The. Hell.

What is the best paid option for practice questions?

Below are the two practice tests that links were provided for in the first post of this thread. Transcender is the one I used. Something I always caution people about in case they haven't used non-braindump practice tests before, these are not going to have the exact or even necessarily similar questions to what you see on the test. They will test you on similar subjects though. If you find you have a tough time with a particular subject on these practice tests then you should devote some study time towards that subject.

https://www.transcender.com/product.aspx?product_id=Cert-70-697

Configuring Windows Devices

AMD4EVER

AMD4EVER wrote: »

Below are the two practice tests that links were provided for in the first post of this thread. Transcender is the one I used. Something I always caution people about in case they haven't used non-braindump practice tests before, these are not going to have the exact or even necessarily similar questions to what you see on the test. They will test you on similar subjects though. If you find you have a tough time with a particular subject on these practice tests then you should devote some study time towards that subject.

https://www.transcender.com/product.aspx?product_id=Cert-70-697

Configuring Windows Devices

I should also note that it is actually cheaper to pay for a month with CBT Nuggets that gives you free access to Transcender tests than it is to buy a Transcender outright

Nicolo

Which study book would you suggest to buy - in addition to other material like videos and practices test, either the Microsoft Official Book or the William Panek one ?

thanks in advance

Nicolo'

malachi1612

William Panek

SoftwareGuy

As someone who has taken the 70-697 exam, do not for a second waste time ever with the microsoft press book. It is beyond belief worthless towards the exam as a whole, if you bought it. burn it.

SoftwareGuy

I'm just going to get it out there since I already said the above and I can't edit my post.

The Exam Ref guide is so off base and so off the mark, that after my exam knowing what I was asked on it and tried going through the book to kind of refresh or go over things a bit more, the stuff wasn't even in the book at all. Just put it that way, that is how far off the book is that it doesn't even mention the topics the exam asked.

I knew by the 5th question into the exam I was ######!

Only things between book and exam that were legit, were the powershell. Beyond powershell? NOTHING. Not remotely worth it AT ALL. Do NOT buy the microsoft press books for the 70-697!!!

Nicolo

SoftwareGuy wrote: »

if you bought it. burn it.

S**t!!
I bought it a week ago , I discovered only afterwards about the William Panek.
Ok, I'll buy the other one... Thanks SoftwareGuy and malachi1612 for the tip !

malachi1612

Made the same mistake twice, got microsoft press books for the 70-697 and 698!! Wasted of money, was told by many people too but it was too late. William Panek books all the way.

drdeany

Took the exam on Tuesday and scored 650. I have NEVER failed an exam before. This was definitely tough. I have the CBT Nuggets, but got them late. Will definitely go through them again. DO NOT USE SkillSoft! It was provided by my company and the vids are terrible. All lecture with no hands on examples.

And I will be going back through Exam Ref and Panek again.

malachi1612

You did better than me, I got 550. I'm retaking mine in 4 weeks.

JGMorg

Thank you for the materials.

I am sitting for the 697 one week from today, wish me luck! I passed the 698 in January with an 850 something, but I am expecting this exam to be pretty rough.

malachi1612

Good luck. Yeah the 697 will be tough. Did you find the 698 easy?

I did set my retake for the 697 for end of Feb but I might wait till of March now. I need that bit more time to understand how MS ask those questions.

JGMorg

I thought the 698 was hard. My score was way higher than I expected though. Maybe it is a confidence problem haha. I had passed the 70-410 before the 698, so I think that helped.

I used my student discount and a coupon from for the 697 voucher, it only cost me about $60. So whatever happens next week I'm not going to get too upset.

JGMorg

I took the 697 this morning, passed with a 955. Swear to god.

I used James Conrad's CBT Nuggets course (think my profile said I watched 91% of the course), used ITPro.tv's virtual labs, read technet, and made flash cards using studyblue.com. The Transcender practice exam is much, much harder that the actual test. Transcender is a very good tool though. I did not use any 70-697 books.

Some context: I passed the 70-410 summer of 2016, and 70-698 last month. So I had that knowledge going in.

Good luck everyone!

malachi1612

Well done, that's a very high score. I am just hoping to pass next time

drexman999

I wanted to add my thoughts in on this subject as I have only been in IT for a relitively short amount of time (just over a year when I began studying), working as a Helpdesk Engineer. This was my first MS exam. Before this, I had passed A+ and Net+.

I have been following these boards since I started the exam but found a lot of the advice is aimed at people who have been working in the industry for a while or have previously done similar MS certs. I thought maybe I could offer a different perspective.

I have just taken and passed the 70-697 exam, score of 911. It was a long slog, it took me about 8 months start to finish and roughly 350 hours study time.

Firstly, I tried pretty much all of the study material out there: CBT Nuggets, Pluralsight, Official Study Guide, Panek Study Guide, MeasureUp and Transcender. Some worked for me, some didn't. I'll try and give a round up of them below.

I set up my own home lab to follow along with the videos, which was perhaps the toughest part of the whole journey. Mainly as I had never used Server software before, let alone set a domain up. "Eli the Computer guy" on youtube has a great Server 2012 series that I used heavily to get the domain controller set up. I set up the host with W10 Pro and the VMs using Hyper-V.
This is the most important part, if you don't know how to do it in practice, you will struggle. MS have deliberately designed the exam like this.

In terms of the video training, I found Pluralsight to be a lot better as it was more in depth and aimed towards people with less knowledge. I took the 6 months free offer with Visual Studio that was available when I started, so only ended up paying for a couple of months. I found CBT Nuggets assumed a lot of knowledge before starting and wasn't really suited to the newbies like me.

With the books, I'm going to disagree with the general consencus here and say the Panek book wasn't really much good. It was very vague and didn't seem to have a lot of structure to it. I gave up on it after 100 pages or so as I wasn't getting anything out of it.
The official study guide on the other hand, I found very useful. I must say straight up though, it is not an "all in one" guide. They don't pretend it is either. They offer the material up in a high level overview kind of way, but not much detail. For me, this was perfect as the videos took me a while to get through, so I'd forgotten some of it by the time I got to the end. The official study guide was great for a quick whip through in the weeks before the test.

In terms of exam prep, again the Panek book was useless. The online portal provided is a neat idea, but the questions were so easy, it didn't really hold a lot of value when trying to get exam ready.
Transcender, I would say is most similar to the exam. The interface is horrific though, I could only get it to work properly on my old laptop using Chrome. I used it through CBT Nuggets though, so I don't know if this made a difference.
MeasureUp exam. In short, these questions were really difficult, the week before my exam, I was hitting 50-60%. Despite this, I found it to be the best of the lot. If you can pass their exams, you will breeze the actual test.

Also, I'd like to thank AMD4EVER. The study notes he shared on these forums were actually spot on for what you need to know for the exam. My advice would be to keep reading through those until it all makes sense. At that point you are ready to take your exam!

Overall, I found this a tough exam as it requires you to know a broad amount of things in quite a lot of detail. I'm glad I did it though, I am already more competant at my job, and much better placed now to move on to bigger and better things! Good luck to anyone else attempting it!

mrmrscott

I am looking to study and complete this exam, but on the cbt nuggets website it says "This course will be retired in 17 days. If you have questions, please contact us. "

Does anyone know how long til you can't take this exam?

Timo1986

The CBT Nuggets of James Conrad indeed are getting retired because Anthony Sequiera is busy re-ecording them

CBT Nuggets' Windows 10 70-697: Configuring Windows Devices Course Outline - AJSNetworking.com
I've informed and it seems they will be complete by[FONT=Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif] March 10 . These Nuggets also provide hands on lab so I'm really enthousiastic about this! I hope to retake my exam in a couple of weeks after I had 2 failed attempts (650 and 675)
[/FONT]

UncleB

The CBT Nuggets course is going to be retired, not the Microsoft exam - probably because the exam blueprint has evolved and the course needs re-working to cover the new material.

Timo1986

I already tried to reply but my previous post didn't submit..

There are new CBT Nuggets here: https://www.cbtnuggets.com/it-training/microsoft-windows-10-70-697-configuring-windows-devices1 that are re recorded by Anthony Sequeira, these will be ready the 10th of march
I'm really enthousiastic of these nuggets with hands on lab. I hope to retry my exam after 2 failed attempts (scored 650 en 675

) in a couple of weeks

malachi1612

Some of the exam objectives on 70-697 are the same as 70-698. So I have been watching the 70-698 by Anthony Sequeira and then cross referencing with 70-697 by James Conrad. Best to do that instead of waiting for the new 70-697 to be completed by Anthony Sequeira. This is the process I am going through.

benv

I sat the exam and failed at the beginning of the month, less than 500. After the third question, I realised that I am not ready for this exam. I used skillsoft 70-697 video and practice exam. I have just purchased Transander exam to help with preparation. I am looking at the end of March to site 70-697 again

benv

Hi JGMorg, so you sat 70-698 before 70-697? I can see that 70-698 has less exam topics than 70-698 that I failed miserably earlier this month.

malachi1612

Got my retake for 70-697 at the end of March too after failing end of January. I got 550 but a fail is a fail. Good luck to both of us Benv.

Now I have gone to the extreme levels of having 2 actual computers running Server 2012r2 and 2016 dual boot. Using them to configure App V etc. As well as I have another computer running 3 Windows 10 OS's in Hyper-V. After failing 70-697, I need to understand how the technology works. Technet, CBT Nuggets and Transcender was enough for me to pass. Unfortunately my revision skills are not as good as others on these forums.

drdeany

I got a fail of 650 out of 700. Its the AppV and PowerShell questions that got me. I had used SkillSoft (useless) and Configuring Windows 70-697. Am now going through CBT Nuggets and playing with Azure AD trial with Intune. Reading up on Remote Desktop setups and Configuration Manager. And learning PowerShell. About to schedule my next try!

tapancheh

What kind of questions can I expect on User-Experience Virtualization? Will the Pluralsight videos coupled with the Bettany 70-697 book be enough to cover the material on the exam? I don't have access to a 2012 server to practice a lot of the UEV topics.

malachi1612

Download the trial version of server 2012 or even 2016. If you want to practice VM stuff.

I would read the technet for each topic stated on the exam objectives.

As a person who failed the 70-697 exam once already, going through technet now, some of the questions I saw in the exam was taken directly from Technet.

tapancheh

Thanks for the advice. Technet is a bit of a rabbit hole but it is straight from the source.

malachi1612

Also CBT Nuggets have released their updated version on 70-697 and its now complete. This is one is more straight to the point with the exam objectives compared to James Conrad and the total course materials is 7 hours now. Easy to watch over and over again in one day if you must.

Booked my retake, was scheduled for 31st March but there wasn't any available spaces. Now its 3rd April, the extra weekend for studying could be a blessing in disguise. I shall see.....