Starting mcse

ivlatt

Hi.. first of all thx for reading
I have been looking at doing mcse for almost 12 months now and finally got round to starting it and learning
I recently setup and configured a server (2003) in my house and have great hands-on experience with 2003 now .
I've found this awesome website (luckily) and will be using this throughout my msce certification persue!
Just got a few questions for some of you experts! Which exam(s) did you personally find the most difficult, easy and is there an exam I'd benefit by, by studying for first?
Thanks in advance

Megadeth4168

I took the route of going 2000 then upgrading to 2003. So I can't speak from experience on the pure 2003 track. However, just from taking a quick look around the forum here, it would seem that the 291 exam "The Beast" is the toughest one to worry about.

Good luck and welcome to the forum.

ivlatt

cheers for ur reply m8
Im leaning towards 70-270 as that's the one I probably have most experience with.

Thiassi

A lot of people here recommend doing the exams in order: 270, 290, 291, 293, 294, 297/8 because each exam has overlap from the previous.

Of course, you should do whatever suits you best. Best of luck.

ivlatt

thx again for ur replies!
Yeah i was hoping 270 as that's the one I probably have the most experience with!
cheers

Sie

Yeah i would take the 70-270 first, just make sure you know XP and not just from using it everyday. Theres more under the hood than it seems.

Good luck!

Megadeth4168

Sie wrote:

Yeah i would take the 70-270 first, just make sure you know XP and not just from using it everyday. Theres more under the hood than it seems.

Good luck!

So true! The 270 was the first MS exam that I had taken, I only took it to take advantage of the second shot promotion that was running back when I took it.

I did not study for it, and I failed it. So, I picked up a Sybex Book and read cover to cover and I admit that even though I had been using XP for a while and supporting it, I learned more than I thought by reading the book.

On my next attempt on the exam, I did great.

ivlatt

Thanks for your replies!
I have a great understanding of XP (I would like to think) even though I currently have no working experience within IT, I have setup and maintained a number of computers over years of experience. I won't be taking no pot-luck chances at the exams, I'm going to study as hard as human-mind will let me , using this awesome website, and soon I am going to acquire the 270 exam book.
I've started reading the exam guides (for 270) and have covered a few topics so far. I was reading the topic about xp installations and it talks about unattended installations. Now I have very little experience with unattended installations, is it worth me partitioning one of my comp's hard drives and going through an unattended installation to gain some hands-on experience? Like I say, the only experience I have is with a torrent I downloaded a long time ago which was an unattended installation, with some extra built-in settings and accessories.
Anybody give me any advice on unattended installations and how I go about them?
Cheers!

Sie

Ok for your study I would recommend using Virtual PC or VMWare, these allow you to run virutal machines rather than need to partition / change current system setup.

(What spec is your current machine by the way?)

Info on Virtual PC and VMWare can be found in many post on this site, try the search opition.

As for your torrent.... I will advise you to obtain the Evaluation Version of XP from the Microsoft Site as torrents / warez etc is not legit and would not be advised by anyone on this forum.

As mentioned there are many posts on this site about setting up new labs etc just take a browse, read up a bit and if you have any more questions dont be afraid to ask.

Good luck in your study!

(No disrespect but you may find your experience is not so 'great' if you dont understand something like unattended installs yet, I just dont want you to under estimate the exam and find out too late)