Scheduled 70-643

I set this up for a few weeks from now.

Ive got the trainsignal videos for this, and the MS press book. Though i hear the TS videos are a little weak.

Anyone have any experiences or advice to share on this one?

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alokin123

Hyper-Me

Wow thanks Alokin.

I am pretty darn familiar with WDS. Ive installed and configured it about 10 times and probably deployed about 750 machines with it. Including XP, Vista, 7 and using multicast transmissions and unattend files for boot and system images.

Terminal Services i know nearly nothing about, so thats the part that worries me.

IIS i know a little about. I have a some experience with failover clustering, as we run a Hyper-V Failover Cluster at work. But ive never set up an NLB before.

Hyper-Me

Well this exam bit me in the a$$. This one should be the new "Beast" for the MCITP: EA path.

I made a 658 so i almost got there, although I felt like i was guessing half the time. I swear only about 30% of the Terminal Services or IIS stuff that was on the exam was actually covered in the prep materials i used (Trainsignal and ExamCram)

In fact, dont use trainsignal for this test. Terrible. Doesnt even begin to prepare you for it.

I also strongly feel like the weighting of the questions was highly wrong. For instance Deploying Servers is 24% of the exam, and Configuring Network Apps is 14%, but i had about 6 WSS questions and ONE WDS question. One.....I would hope that MS thinks you should be able to answer more than one stinkin question to deploy stuff using WDS. The Hyper-V questions were also terribly terribly worded and made no sense to me, someone who has passed the 70-652 Hyper-V exam itself.

This test wouldnt be that difficult if they fairly covered the domains they say they will. The test went off on odd tangents (although technically in the knowledge domains).

Oh well, I have to give it another shot soon to try and get this EA done.

BradH

I haven't gone the EA path yet however I think waiting for the CBT Nugs 70-643 would be a wise move. Due to be released 4th quarter 2009 and when comparing Trainsig to CBT, CBT is the winner every time!

So much more relevant information over the trainsignal vids.

Hyper-Me

BradHosking wrote: »

I haven't gone the EA path yet however I think waiting for the CBT Nugs 70-643 would be a wise move. Due to be released 4th quarter 2009 and when comparing Trainsig to CBT, CBT is the winner every time!

So much more relevant information over the trainsignal vids.

Trainsignal wasnt THAT bad for the 640 or 642. I mean they get you about 75% of the way there, and they even tell you that you need to consult some other resources. But their 643 video didnt even begin to cover the test I had today.

I really think i got a bad draw of questions from the question bank, though. There are always 4-5 questions on a MS exam where you say "where the hell did that come from", but this one was loaded to the gills with them.

How the hell am i supposed to know how to use WSS 2.0 when 3.0 was all thats covered?

Thankfully i borrowed trainsignal from a friend. Although I will say that examcram missed the mark on most of their "EXAM ALERTS!". When i see something that says Exam Alert!! I expect at least a large portion of them to be on the exam, not the case here.

alokin123

Bad luck dude

Hyper-Me wrote: »

In fact, dont use trainsignal for this test. Terrible. Doesnt even begin to prepare you for it.

As i have already said, TS is very bad for this exam. I started watching a video on IIS and he has already dived into Sharepoint in the same video. Sure you can link the two but logically if you are trying to introduce someone to IIS you would wait until you have thoroughly explained IIS before you incorporate something else. In fact at one point in the video he says "it would be best to set up IIS yourself and play around with the console" huh? We know that but we didn't fork over our money for you to tell us that. I can see why he needed to re-record sections of the 70-640 video series.

If i could get my money refunded i would but I have had the video for ages, plus they have a 1 video return policy and i returned the Vista video and let me tell you getting my money back wasn't easy. 2 weeks after they received it back it took me emailing them that the US Postal website showed they got it 2 weeks ago and all of a sudden they refund my money.

On a brighter note their 70-642 and 70-646 videos cover things well. Problem is they don't cover everything.

I am going to wait until CBT nuggets releases its video series for this exam.

alokin123

Hyper-Me wrote: »

I made a 658 so i almost got there, although I felt like i was guessing half the time. I swear only about 30% of the Terminal Services or IIS stuff that was on the exam was actually covered in the prep materials i used (Trainsignal and ExamCram)

Oh yeah, examcram has several typos. In fact it still says to use the /console switch with mstsc but its the /admin switch in W2k8. They have really dropped their standards for the W2k8 series.
If you can, get a hold of the MSPress book for this exam. It is very good. Better yet, see if you can get measureup or selftest/transcender. Measureup has 30% discounts like every second month.

And dont forget these discounts:

Career Campaign: Certification Exam Offer

Hyper-Me

I have the MS press, and the measureup practice exam. Im reading through parts of the MSpress that i didnt feel good about on the exam and I can already see its covering stuff i didnt know for the exam.

I may try again Saturday, if Prometric would get off their arse and email me my score sheet from the "non-pass"

Hyper-Me

Well i just took this test again this morning. I atleast got TWO WDS questions this time.

Test was still difficult as hell, but i managed a 769. So its in the past, and now i can focus on 647 and finish out the Enterprise Admin.

Bl8ckr0uter

Hyper-Me wrote: »

Well i just took this test again this morning. I atleast got TWO WDS questions this time.

Test was still difficult as hell, but i managed a 769. So its in the past, and now i can focus on 647 and finish out the Enterprise Admin.

Great job. You are really knocking these down!