XP versus Vista and beyond!

Clarky321

I'm busy studying up for my 70-271 exam and a thought crossed my mind:-

With MS Vista replacing XP as the newest OS, then does the value (the learning value) of the certificate/s decrease. I'm hoping a lot of the skills i learn can be transferable to the newer OS instead of becoming unfeasible.

Any thoughts/ideas?

Slowhand

I wouldn't worry about the cert not being valuable. XP is still in use pretty much across the spectrum, (hell, even Windows 2000 Professional is still out there,) and I don't see it going away anytime soon. Vista will become the predominant desktop environment eventually, but your current studying is definitely not being wasted. A lot of topics are going to be similar, a lot of concepts on security and functionality are going to be similar between XP and Vista. The devil's in the details, right?

My suggestion, is finish up your MCDST certification, since you've spent the time studying for the exams. After you've got it, take a look at the upgrade-path to MCITP: Enterprise Support Technician. which is the Vista-equivalent of the MCDST.

dynamik

Slowhand wrote:

My suggestion, is finish up your MCDST certification, since you've spent the time studying for the exams. After you've got it, take a look at the upgrade-path to MCITP: Enterprise Support Technician. which is the Vista-equivalent of the MCDST.

Great advice.

Clarky321

Yeah, once you know everything you need to get a MCP and then a MCDST - it would be transferable, as you would just look for the different methods of performing the simular tasks - ie, there would be new methods of working in Vista but the how and why should be the same that applies to XP. So, once you know XP inside out the advantages are transferable.?

Progression to the MCITP is an idea because im looking to progress my knowledge after i get my MCDST. Anyhow, i'll let you know how i figure in my exams for the MCDST.

Cheers.

Slowhand

Clarky321 wrote:

Yeah, once you know everything you need to get a MCP and then a MCDST - it would be transferable, as you would just look for the different methods of performing the simular tasks - ie, there would be new methods of working in Vista but the how and why should be the same that applies to XP. So, once you know XP inside out the advantages are transferable.?

That's exactly right. That's the reasoning behind upgrades from on cert to another, especially now with the next-gen certs from Microsoft. Once you've learned both the technical details, the syntax so to speak, the best-practices and the methodology of doing the work on one platform, you can transfer a lot of that knowledge to the new one. Once you've learned "how to be a tech" on XP, moving to Vista is simply a matter of learning how the new tools do the same type of work you already know how to do, and what's brand-new, as opposed to learning everything from scratch.

This is also true with broader concepts. Like, for example, if you're a Windows admin for many years, then you decide to learn Unix, a lot of the admin-concepts carry over, and the challenge is really more how to accomplish a lot of the same tasks in the Unix enironment, and figuring out (a relatively small amount of) differences between Windows administration and Unix administration. You can think the same way about going from working with Cisco networking equipment to something like Juniper, almost all the networking concepts and protocols stay the same. Programmers will also tell you that this is a very common way of thinking when learning a new language. You learn to program in one, then it's a just a matter of learning new syntax when you want to learn another, while already knowing a large chunk of the underlying concepts.