Failed 70-291

Yesterday I took the 70-291 test and I failed.

And this is after some pretty intense studying! Can anyone recommend a good study guide? I'm thinking of setting up a lab in my house with a few computers. I'm just not sure I can afford to buy 3 copies of Windows Server 2003.

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Mishra

When you buy the MSPress books they come with evaluation versions of 2003 server so you shouldnt buy a single copy.

elover_jm

FredK9972 wrote:

Yesterday I took the 70-291 test and I failed. And this is after some pretty intense studying! Can anyone recommend a good study guide? I'm thinking of setting up a lab in my house with a few computers. I'm just not sure I can afford to buy 3 copies of Windows Server 2003.

Sorry man, but as you should know it's one of the most difficult exam in the MS pack (THE BEAST).

I like your preparation idea for the next attempt at it, u might also want to consider other resources such as Trainsignal or CBT Nuggets.

good luck next time man

boyles23

You can also get 90 day evaluation copy of Server 2003 by either mail or download from Microsoft. I would definitely recommend setting up a home lab for your studies, nothing beats having the real thing.

deneb829

You also don't need multiple machines if your current machine has at least 512MB of RAM - you can use Virtual Server or Virtual PC from Microsoft - it's a free download. If you have 256MB of RAM, you should be able to at least run 1 virtual machine.

What was your score and where were your challenge areas?

dynamik

You're at about the same place as me (with a few additional Comptia certs).

I skimmed the MS Press book, and am going to go back hit it hard here soon. It doesn't seem that difficult, but there's just a ton of information that gets covered. I'm planning on doing 293 to get more familiar with the concepts before I tackle 291.

Anyway, the VM route is definitely the way to go. Just throw in an additional gig of ram, and you'll be able to support four Server 2003 machines easily (256mb per machine is more than enough when all they're doing is essentially pinging each other).

I personally use VMWare workstation. I have a Technet ($349/year for the download version) subscription, which allows me to download any MS product with no time or feature limitations. It's probably not legal, but I just install one copy of Server 2003, activate it, and then clone out as many machines as I need. I don't feel too bad about it since it's just my virtual lab, and I typically delete all the machines after a couple of weeks.

I also love my Safari subscription. $50/month for a huge library from well-known publishers (MS Press, Cisco, O'Reilly, etc.): http://safari.oreilly.com/

[Edit]
As mentioned earlier, you can download the trials for free. I thought that they were 180 day, not 90, but that might have changed recently. Plus, you can use them for 30 days without activating them. 30 days is adequate time to setup and work with a configuration. After that, just wipe the drives and start over

royal

FredK9972 wrote:

I'm thinking of setting up a lab in my house with a few computers. I'm just not sure I can afford to buy 3 copies of Windows Server 2003.

Sorry to hear you did not pass. We all make mistakes, and now is the time to correct this mistake. Looking at the quote above, it clearly becomes apparent to me why you did not pass the exam. Reading and actually doing it, are 2 completely different things. You need to do hands on stuff to properly learn the material! As others have stated, you do NOT have to buy the server operating system to do this, as their are evaluation copies out there. You can use several evaluation copies and virtualize it all to get a better understanding on how multiple servers can co-exist with each other.

There are couple popular choices for virtualization software, and they are free!

Virtual PC 2007 (Supports Vista as your host OS):
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/virtualpc/default.mspx

Vmware server (Does not support Vistas your host OS):
http://www.vmware.com/products/server/

Server 2003 R2 SP2 Evaluation:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsserver/evaluate/trial/default.mspx

Several books will also have Server 2003 Evaluation copies.

Good luck!

JdotQ

All the suggestions in this thread are great.

I didn't see any mention of this, so I figured I would add it; You can also go through the simulations on practices exams (that have them) such as TestOut, Trancender, etc. Although nothing beats toying around with the real thing and going through practice scenarios, practice simulations could be the next-best thing - and it will get you in the gear to complete the simulations on the exam.

Best of luck on your continuing studies. I've also failed, and restudying for 291, so I feel your pain. If this is the hardest exam in the track, then the rest should be a cakewalk

dynamik

Whoops, you're right. I usually pimp Transcender in my posts, but I left it out this time

I've used it for all my exams, and I'm 3/3 thus far...

Ye Gum Noki

I hate it for you and know how you feel. The beast whipped my butt the first time I took it too. I like VMWare for running a couple of servers on my home PC. I have a gig of memory and that is plenty, but I don't think I could run a third session.

Good luck,

dynamik

It depends on how you allocate your memory and what else you're doing with your host machine. Server 2003 will run with just 128mb of ram, so even if you only allocate 192 per machine, you should be able to get 3 or 4 going. Just make sure to close any extraneous programs that you have running on your host machine. All the exercises I've come across in the MS Press books can be done with a pretty bare-bones configuration.

jimmyp83

I took my 291 the 2nd of april, failed with a 615, then studied some more and got a 700 this time around 11 days later. Keep your head up man. You'll get it.