Book Windows 7 Desktop Support and Administration

RobertKaucher

Amazon.com: Windows 7 Desktop Support and Administration: Real World Skills for MCITP Certification and Beyond (Exams 70-685 and 70-686) (9780470597095): Darril Gibson: Books

Any of you used this one? Looks like a good intro to the topics. I can't imagine it would be comprehensive enough for both the desktop support and desktop admin exams. I loved the SQL Server book in this series and I know other TE members love the author's work...

apena7

Amazon finally shipped my copy today

It just might help with my 70-680 studies as well.

DoubleD

apena7 wrote: »

It just might help with my 70-680 studies as well.

I cant see how it would help you for that exam

Psoasman

I got Darri'ls book a few weeks ago. What a refreshing read. He explains a lot of the 685/686 concepts very well. The exercises are well-written and the syntax is correct.
I will probably still get the MS 686 book for later on. I have the MS 685 book and together, they cover the material fairly well.

As far as helping with the 680, it will help you. The 680 is an enterprise level client exam and Darril's book covers deploying, using CLI, networking, security, accessing resources, etc.

DoubleD

Well nice one then I got this book but not really looked at it it seems to be a good book
but im looking at the 70-680 so want to keep reading my MS Press Book. I will use this book more as well then to help with my studies

QHalo

Anyone done both of these tests in the same day? Since the material is pretty close to the same, I can't imagine that the tests are that much different or that someone wouldn't be able to knock both out back to back.

The 70-685/686 are the two tests I'm talking about.

RobertKaucher

QHalo wrote: »

Anyone done both of these tests in the same day? Since the material is pretty close to the same, I can't imagine that the tests are that much different or that someone wouldn't be able to knock both out back to back.

The 70-685/686 are the two tests I'm talking about.

I cannot really talk about the EDST exam as I have not taken it. But let me warn you right now against in any way underestimating the EDA7 exam. While I did not find it exceptionally difficult, it was relatively detailed in its expections in what you know about GPOs, a little less so with deployment. In my opinion if I had not prepared for the MCSE and MCITP EA exams I would have tanked on the EDA7 test. And at least in my experience witht he MCDST/MCITP:EST GPOs are only treated very lightly.

I'm not saying you are wrong, I'm just urging caution as I really think this is a heavy exam unless the candidate already has a good deal of experience with GPOs. JMO. But to be honest I barely studied for this one an- I took it in beta and passed with like an 850.

QHalo

I appreciate the candid comments. I'm still finishing up my studying for the 70-680 and after seeing some of the comments around here about it's difficulty I'm not taking it lightly either. So I appreciate your comments about these other two exams as I'm definitely moving to them after I'm done with 70-680. I have the Darrils Gibson book and I see that the other two books recently came out as well. I was hoping Darrill's book would be enough but as I've found with MS Press books, more than one source is absolutely needed to pass these MS exams. No offense to Darrill in any way. I just think that MS exams are all over the place and its tough to create a book when even MS documentation is wrong.

gandalph

I used this book to study towards the 686 I think the content is good but not good enough to cover both exam concepts (i had already taken the 685) the 686 focuses a lot on deployment and group policy and this book is better for GPO stuff compared to the 685 MS Training kit (which I used for 685)

QHalo

I picked up the MS Press books for both the 685 and the 686. I'm hoping those combined with Darrill's book and some decent labbing should be enough to pass these two bad boys.

RobertKaucher

Well, no certification worth having will ever be fully covered by a single book. I think the lab work is what makes the differnece in any exam prep. Best of luck!