Exam Feedback 71-686

RobertKaucher

A buddy and I have been prepping for this exam and he took it today. I met him by chance at a gas station near work on the way home... He said the following:

Study deployment hard
Make sure you know Bitlocker/app locker
Make sure you understand MAK, KMS, etc
Typical AD stuff.

Interestingly he did not mention anything about VDI, Branch Cache, etc...

mr_zzz

hehe, I was just studying VDI ... APP-V, MED-V etc, but that is just a small part of the studying, I guess only 2 or 3 questions, if any, will be on VDI indeed.

mrmcmint

Thanks for the heads up Robert!

RobertKaucher

mr_zzz wrote: »

hehe, I was just studying VDI ... APP-V, MED-V etc, but that is just a small part of the studying, I guess only 2 or 3 questions, if any, will be on VDI indeed.

Well, we did not get into details because of the NDA, so I can't say for sure... I think it's always healthy to study based on the objectives and not what someone else says about the test. But I would make sure you know the items he mentioned very well, just don't ignore the rest!

Hyper-Me

Just sat this exam.

77 questions, you get plenty of time to answer them.

There was a good amount of deployment but not the core workings of deployment like I would have preferred to see. It was mostly "what tool do you use here" or "this prevents this so why cant you use that" or something.

i had a decent amount of questions on VDI/MEDV/APPV and related stuff.
The exam was very group policy and application deployment heavy.

The IE8 stuff threw me for a loop because i didnt get a chance to go over much of it, but there werent THAT many questions on it.

All in all Id say if you used every resource i posted in my thread you will pass this easily. If you read the MOC that was posted, you have a very good chance at doing well (just supplment it with some IE8 reading, as that chapter was missing?)

This test has some difficulty but is very passable so don't let it intimidate you too much.

alokin123

Hyper-Me wrote: »

If you read the MOC that was posted, you have a very good chance at doing well (just supplment it with some IE8 reading, as that chapter was missing?)

Where is the MOC?

mr_zzz

Thank you for the feedback Hyper-Me!
I think I'll need to go through the group policies .... not easy to study, not sure what policies to focus on, there are so many ....


About the MOC:
I've posted it somewhere, but here it is again:
hxxp://www.4shared.com/file/135740834/d5ffcc0d/MOC-6294A.html

mostly focused on Deployment, don't forget to study IE8.

mrmcmint

Once again - thanks Hyper & Robert!!!

Hyper-Me

mr_zzz wrote: »

Thank you for the feedback Hyper-Me!
I think I'll need to go through the group policies .... not easy to study, not sure what policies to focus on, there are so many ....


About the MOC:
I've posted it somewhere, but here it is again:
hxxp://www.4shared.com/file/135740834/d5ffcc0d/MOC-6294A.html

mostly focused on Deployment, don't forget to study IE8.

You actually have to have a pretty good understanding of HOW group policy functions in regards to an AD layout. So if you arent familiar with how an AD structure is laid out and how policies function, youll need to brush up on that in addition to new GPOs for 7.

MentholMoose

Hyper-Me wrote: »

All in all Id say if you used every resource i posted in my thread you will pass this easily. If you read the MOC that was posted, you have a very good chance at doing well (just supplment it with some IE8 reading, as that chapter was missing?)

This test has some difficulty but is very passable so don't let it intimidate you too much.

Thanks for the feedback, it's very useful. So do you think reading the MOC is enough (plus IE8 stuff)? Did you do any of the MOC labs?

mr_zzz

the MOC covers mostly the deployment part, which is about 60% of the exam, which I heard from people who already took it.
Just make sure you know the new windows 7 enterprise stuff, IE8, group policies and deployment.

about GPO's:
http://4sysops.com/archives/windows-7-and-windows-server-2008-r2-group-policy-new-features/

Hyper-Me

I'd say its a bit more than 60%, but the other stuff does need to be learned as well.

mr_zzz

just took the exam, as said before, 70% on deployment.
Alot of questions on single/multiple images.
Also some APP-V questions.
WSUS, GPO related suestions and IE8 (not that many).
77Q in total.
I have almost no experience in windows 7 deployment for large environments, so it was hard for me, even after studying alot on deployment, it's very interesting to have some in field experience.

mrmcmint

Thanks for the feedback mr z! I'm sure you did fine

Piers

mr_zzz wrote: »

About the MOC:
I've posted it somewhere, but here it is again:
hxxp://www.4shared.com/file/135740834/d5ffcc0d/MOC-6294A.html
.

scanning through after completing the first modules, I noticed on page 18 the Course Outline lists 12 modules, but the document you posted only goes up to 8.. Are there 4 missing modules out there? :

Hyper-Me

Piers wrote: »

scanning through after completing the first modules, I noticed on page 18 the Course Outline lists 12 modules, but the document you posted only goes up to 8.. Are there 4 missing modules out there? :

Yeah for some reason they arent in there. I dont know if they were never written yet (its a beta courseware not intended for true classroom use) or if they just didnt make it into the PDF.

Thats why i said brush up on IE8 because it isnt to be found in the MOC.

tbgree00

I just took the test and feel like I was in the wrong one! I had very few questions on IE or deployment. Around half of my test seemed to involve how Microsoft System Center 2007 R2 worked. I didn't see it on the objectives so I figured I would give some heads up. Thanks to that I feel like I bombed it but hopefully it will help you. Also know general group policy stuff!

RobertKaucher

tbgree00 wrote: »

I just took the test and feel like I was in the wrong one! I had very few questions on IE or deployment. Around half of my test seemed to involve how Microsoft System Center 2007 R2 worked. I didn't see it on the objectives so I figured I would give some heads up. Thanks to that I feel like I bombed it but hopefully it will help you. Also know general group policy stuff!

WOW! I take mine tomorrow, so I am very glad for the heads up. I'm going to do some research and see what they have for virtual training right now!

tbgree00

RobertKaucher wrote: »

WOW! I take mine tomorrow, so I am very glad for the heads up. I'm going to do some research and see what they have for virtual training right now!

I honestly felt like it was an advertisement for System Center Configuration Manager since I was like "I need to look at this it seems to do some neat stuff". Good luck tomorrow! I'm also jealous you have test centers with Saturday hours.

veritas_libertas

tbgree00 wrote: »

I honestly felt like it was an advertisement for System Center since I was like "I need to look at this it seems to do some neat stuff". Good luck tomorrow! I'm also jealous you have test centers with Saturday hours.

I use to be near one that had Sat. hours. Man, I miss that...

Hyper-Me

Do we not all get the exact same set of questions when its in beta?

I wont say i didnt have questions on SCCM, but i dont think it was as involved as you made it out to be.

tbgree00

I am guessing that it was the same set of questions. I wasn't ready for the application deployment stuff and didn't know what SCCM was before I set down. Perhaps that made it stand out as more involved than it was. It's still a concept that I didn't see in the objectives or come across in my studies.

jrobb259

I took the 686 on Monday. I was surprised at the difficulty. I didn't expect the level of detail that some of the questions on IE8 that were covered. Lots of deployment questions mainly on ConfigMgr but I got cert'ed in SCCM in May so I had my bases covered from that standpoint. Know how MED-V and APP-V work. Study up on WSUS too.

RobertKaucher

I took the exam on Saturday at about 1:00. I'm not sure how I did. I would say it could go either way. I did not prepare well. I took a lot of time on deployment and my test seemed very ballanced in the objectives. I would say that the questions I got did not reflect the same sort of questions mentioned by those who took the test, say a week earlier than me. So I wonder if there are two question pools.

All in all I found the test very interesting and would call it a mini-MCSE. If I did not pass, I may actually attempt it again.

aaronchristenson

I just got back from taking it and I think that it was a good exam. I am not sure if I would take it if I had to pay for it. If I pass then I will go back and take 70-680 to complete the MCITP track. I also can use the 680 for the EA client exam. I had several questions about GPOs, IE, WSUS, and Deployement. Good luck to others.

MentholMoose

I just took the exam. I feel pretty confident that I passed, but I wouldn't be too surprised if I didn't. I read the MOC and did most of the MOC labs, so I did OK on most of those questions. I may have missed a few questions regarding in depth functionality of specific tools. I also may have lost some points on some of the stuff not covered in the MOC, like BitLocker, AppLocker, BranchCache, and IE8.

Anyway, I did my best and it was free so no regrets. Now I'm back to studying 680, which thankfully seems to have some overlap with 686!

jamesp1983

I took the 686 this morning. WOW! This was intense. They asked questions on so many different topics. I probably should have studied for longer than an hour and a half, but I found out about these beta tests a little late and I had my MCITP:EA test to worry about in addition to prepping lesson plans. The EA took up most of my study time. I had that last week, the 685 Tuesday, and this test today. This test even covered CAs and NPS.

mrmcmint

It certainly did! I wish I had wrapped up the MCSE before I did this, I think you stand a better chance with MCSE as the content of the 686 covered little bits of everything. Those CA questions killed me - something I think I would have done better at if I had done the 293!