Studying 70-294 - Updated Passed 842

I've finally decided to take on 70-294, I was very confused with an elective because of the fact that I'm debating between Messaging and Security, since ISA 2006 and Exchange 2007 is not yet available as an elective, I will just nail 70-294 and wait to see if Microsoft ever changes this.

So I would like to greet everyone in this thread who is a prospective 294 takers and people that helps us in our endeavour.

Between the 294 before 2008 was a dream lol.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!!

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jbaello

Please let me know what books and other resources to look for, I currently have MS-Press 70-294.

doom969

mspress 70-294 is a good start. Some practice tests to gauge your level. TE of course.

After that, i'd say it greatly depends on your current level of understandung AD.
For some, as me, who have been working a lot with AD, its a rather easy exam, make sure you do plenty of practices with gpo. Know in what order gpo applies, wich level supercedes wich, etc... know the fsmo roles, what role is forest level and what is domain level, know what they do and what happens if they arent reachable. Know about delegations.

Know your DNS very well, but if you already did 70-291 it shouldnt be a problem.

I also read this paper for a unralteded projects and it helped.
Branch Office Infrastructure Solution for Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Release 2
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/solutionaccelerators/branch/default.mspx

This site is also your friend
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windowsserver2003/technologies/directory/activedirectory/stepbystep/default.mspx

Also if you plan on doing 70-297 for your design exam, you should read both mspress books before taking the exam.

Hope that helps, I've seen people claiming its a really hard exam, but it isnt. Its just that you need to do hands'on and practice the stuff. I dont think reading about it is enough. If you work or plan to work with MS products it might very well be your most usefull skill set .

dynamik

The MS Press book was good. I supplemented that with CBT Nuggets and Transcender. Good luck!

jbaello

doom969 wrote:

mspress 70-294 is a good start. Some practice tests to gauge your level. TE of course.

After that, i'd say it greatly depends on your current level of understandung AD.
For some, as me, who have been working a lot with AD, its a rather easy exam, make sure you do plenty of practices with gpo. Know in what order gpo applies, wich level supercedes wich, etc... know the fsmo roles, what role is forest level and what is domain level, know what they do and what happens if they arent reachable. Know about delegations.

Know your DNS very well, but if you already did 70-291 it shouldnt be a problem.

I also read this paper for a unralteded projects and it helped.
Branch Office Infrastructure Solution for Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Release 2
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/solutionaccelerators/branch/default.mspx

This site is also your friend
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windowsserver2003/technologies/directory/activedirectory/stepbystep/default.mspx

Also if you plan on doing 70-297 for your design exam, you should read both mspress books before taking the exam.

Hope that helps, I've seen people claiming its a really hard exam, but it isnt. Its just that you need to do hands'on and practice the stuff. I dont think reading about it is enough. If you work or plan to work with MS products it might very well be your most usefull skill set .

Cool this is very informative, I encountered FSMO role in 70-293, how to seize/transfer, it also thaught me how to use NTDSUTIL, although I believe my knowledge with FSMO role is still basic, hopefuly I can fully learn this with 70-294.

As far as Lab goes, this is what I do 60 % during study, I use trainsignal a lot for it.

jbaello

So far I have finished the following:

Testout (My favorite)
CBT_Nuggets
Trainsignal (Very limited as far as AD Replication & Operation Master Role)
MS-Press 70-294 (Halfway through)

I will be starting Transcender as of today, please let me know if there are other resources I should reconsider, I am booked to take my exam on January 30th, I can say that I am very comfortable with Site Replication & Operation Master Role.

sprkymrk

Did you see royal's post here?

http://www.techexams.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=21744

Otherwise I think you've got it covered. Good luck on the 30th!

jbaello

sprkymrk wrote:

Did you see royal's post here?

http://www.techexams.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=21744

Otherwise I think you've got it covered. Good luck on the 30th!

This link that Royal post is so awesome I can read about almost anything there is to know in regards to 70-294.

What would I ever do, without TE!!!

jbaello

I'm interested in finding out on why only a handful of users are unable to login to the Domain if the Global Catalog server is down, as far as my knowledge goes, Global Catalog holds the Universal Group Membership Information/Universal Principal Name, which is needed to be able to login.

Also do you need to be a member of the Universal Group in AD, to leverage Universal Group Membership Caching (UGMC), to be able to still login regardless of GC being unavailable, also where does UGMC refresh its cache in an event the GC has not been setup at all or has been disabled.

jbaello

Found the answers to my question.

UGMC vs. Cached Credentials

Cached Credentials is stored locally on the computer, if your logging in for the 1st time, you will need a GC or UGMC available, after this when GC or UGMC is unavailable it uses "Cached Credentials" but again if UGMC is enabled "Cached Credentials" is disabled.

As far as UGMC it will always need a GC to refresh it's database, otherwise your newly created accounts are not able to login, since UGMC has stale outdated records.

Please let me know if you have clarification, I'm a little vague with Cached Credentials being disabled when UGMC is enabled.

jbaello

Passed to day with a score of 842

A lot of GPO and GPMC, trusts, OU structure/Delegation, as well as site links/Preferred Bridge Head.

GC and UGMC was all over the place.

FSMOs, NTDSUTIL AD backup/restore.

This is exam is pretty difficult, not to stir potential takers, but I would suggest caution when taking this.

Thanks for the help TE!!!

jbaello

DCPROMO/DNS, domain structure was on the exam as well.

7255carl

congrats on the pass

techster79

Congrats, what is your next step?

sprkymrk

Congrats!

doom969

Congrats !

jbaello

Thanks everyone...

For my next exam it will be the design 70-297 followed by 70-236 (Exchange 2007), I figured that I might as well master Microsoft Active Directory, as far as the security part, I will tackle this later on with MCITP or CCSP.

Please let me know what resources should I get for 70-297.

Slowhand

Congratulatons on the pass, good to hear you knocked it out.

snadam

excellent job jbaello!

keep up the good work!

catkrazy

Congtatulations!! I hope I do as well, I take 70-294 next week.

Can I ask how many questions there were and how much time you had? or is it not PC to ask that? I cant find the information anywhere but 3 or 4 places and its from 2004. I dont know if they have changed anything since then.

I just found this site tonight and everything looks great...

Thanks

techster79

I think it varies, I had 43.

jbaello

39 Questions 3 Simulation = 42 Total

3 Hours of exam time, if English is your Second Language you can request for more.

catkrazy

Thank you very much for the information!

For some reason, the practice questions for this exam are taking me a long time to answer and I'm nervous about running out of time during the exam. I need to figure out how to set up the scenario in my head, pick out all of the variables, and eliminate the wrong answers quicker. It seems that there are a lot more litte picky variables in the practice exams for this exam than some of the others. On a lot of the questions I'm miss one of the variables and end up getting the question wrong because of it. Then I read the explanation and say, I knew that if I had not missed that little thing.

I still have a week so I'm hoping I can get better at reading all of the details of the questions.

Thanks again.

jbaello

You usually spot the tricky question if you know the area very well, plus the question itself has some hints such as "You want to do this with less administrative effort" and such, sometimes there are question where two answers can actually just work, but then you get tricked.

It's pretty tough you know, not like CCNA straightforward, I spend about 5 minutes - 8 minutes on each question, to the point I get exhausted with one question, but also try to break down the question on where you can understand it more easily, English is my second language, so this things are pretty tougher for me, I always have to use a diagram when breaking down questions.

If you really want to nail this damn thing without a sweat, practice labs and make yourself expert with AD, there will be just no way you'll have a hard time, but then that takes sometime.

Goodluck on your exam, I'm trying to prepare my Exchange 2007 as we speak, I'm pretty excited

jbaello

Sweet I guess as soon I'm done with Exchange I will be MCSA and MCTS, lol already counting my chiks...

catkrazy

Thanks so much for all of the information in this thread. I know it helped me a lot. I passed my exam with an 889 which is much better than I thought I'd do.

Do you know who to contact about asking for more time if English is not your native language? I didnt know that you could do that. Thanks for letting me know that you can ask.

jbaello

I've never done it before, cause I think I got all the time I needed, but when you call you request for an application, they send this to you and you send it back prior to your exam, so make sure you do this before your exam comes...

GL and thank you...

catkrazy

I found the information if you are interested in it.

http://www.microsoft.com/Learning/mcpexams/policies/accommodations.mspx

Thanks for all of your help.