The key to passing 70-680?

Hi guys I was tidying up my room tonight when I came across my 70-680 MS Press book, it has been a few months since I last opened that book, So I decided to have a quick read and is it just me or is this book all over the place? What I mean is the second chapter on deployment just branches off in all sorts of directions doesn't make any sense there is no fluid step by step plan of how to achieve something to me it looks like a cut and paste job of random crap all over the place.

I now understand why I decided to hide that book away and not touch it Geez does it give me a headache, Did the authors actually proof read this?

How the hell someone could pass the 70-680 just by using this book is beyond me, when I initially set out to undertake my studies for the Windows 7 deployment exam I originally invested in the MS Press book but reached the conclusion something wasn't right when I got through chapter 2-3 and further online research suggested that I wasn't the only one who thought this book was a joke. errors? errata thread you mean I have to proof read and decipher the book myself what a pain in the ass.

So I thought great Sybex book lets by that, well this book is playschool in comparison, just seems to be really lacking in details and again I tossed this book aside and it also got locked away in the cupboard for a few months lol.

So I have yet to pass my 70-680 and I have two crappy books

How did you guys pass this exam? everytime I hit chapter 2 in the MS Press book I go meh sod this and it's game over.

Are there any new books out or in the pipeline or maybe I should sit another exam beforehand? your thoughts please are they going to update the Press book, Am I the only one who thinks that book is a Heap of S**t

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Comments

Repo Man

The best advice I could give is to skip the deployment sections altogether until the very end. When you are done gather as many resources you can on deployment and read everything and after a while enough will sink in to get by the deployment questions on the exam. Labbing is also a must for those chapters. The best thing is once you pass the 70-680 the 70-685 seems to be a breeze as it's pretty much the same content.

I also wouldn't worry about becoming a deployment master as most companies deploy images using other utilities.

apena7

NOLAJ posted a similar question about the MS Press book a few days ago. That thread might help you out.

But honestly, I think the key is rote memorization. For my previous attempts, I found that I understood the concepts, tools, and methods, but missed the mark because there were a few questions that listed answers with the most minute differences. Soon, I was second-guessing myself and ended up with fails. My advice is to go through each exercise or lab 3-5 times before moving on to the next. Make sure you memorize everything down to the tab and button names because you never know...

ehnde

I had alot of trouble with the reading part of deployment, but it made more sense to me when I labbed through the deployment stuff. You need to know dism and imagex well. You don't necessarily need to memorize all of the command line switches if you can see one of the deployment CLI tools being used and guess what the intent is.

Repo Man is right, though. There is more to the exam than just deployment. Give the other material a read through...it's easier and just as likely to be on the exam

Cisco Inferno

heheh you said sod this. anyways im gonna embark on studying the 680 this spring and im hearing pretty good reviews on Pearson's 680 book by Dan Poulton. though there arent any reviews yet on Amazon, since it was published in Nov 10', there has been various users on here who purchased it and praise it. maybe look into that?

Psoasman

I used the MS Press book. Aside from the numerous, silly errors, it's alright. You might try reading the MS Press 685 or Darril Gibson's 685/686 book. These will complement the 680 material you already have.
Are you doing any labbing? It's essential for this exam.

michaelcox

I just don't get this deployment stuff... I'm reading Poulton's book.

za3bour

The key to passing this exam and most MS exams is labs and not of labs and specifically for delpoyment you need to do it your self so that you know how it's done and all steps and by this you will be ready to answer any exam.

70-680 is not an easy exam but if you do all the labs you should be just fine.

ally_uk

When you say labs do you mean the ones in the Press book?, I haven't actually really got hands on with the material yet I have had a read of the deployment chapter numerous times, it's not so much not understanding the material that is being presented it's trying to get my head around the order of doing things just seems like it's all over the place. One minute he mentions VHD's then he is banging on about DISM, MDT 2010 it's like whoa slow down and get some kind of order in here

Then there are pages of commands and switches that don't relate to anything it's just a mess.

Psoasman

ally_uk wrote: »

When you say labs do you mean the ones in the Press book?, I haven't actually really got hands on with the material yet I have had a read of the deployment chapter numerous times, it's not so much not understanding the material that is being presented it's trying to get my head around the order of doing things just seems like it's all over the place. One minute he mentions VHD's then he is banging on about DISM, MDT 2010 it's like whoa slow down and get some kind of order in here

Then there are pages of commands and switches that don't relate to anything it's just a mess.

I would skip the labs for the MS press book at first. I had to make a lot of notes on setting up windows PE, using the AIK, because A LOT of the syntax is wrong. I spent hours trying to figure out parts of chapters 2-3, until I saw the syntax corrections on this site and in the errata thread on Amazon.
I went back and did the deployment exercises off of Darril's 686/686 book and technet. He explained the concepts well, in order, and they made sense. His book has a nice CD with some video training as well.
You might try practicing one of the concepts several times until is makes sense. You could make a bootable USB device, a bootable CD, etc.

za3bour

That's remind me that you should take a look at this

MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-680): Configuring Windows® 7 comments and corrections

There are many commands that are wrong and a lot of type mistakes in MS book

I don't mean only the labs in the book I mean having your own environment (Client/Server) and doing all the work yourself.

ally_uk

Is the Pearson book anygood? has anyone used it yet? Did anyone else actually use the deployment chapter in the MS Press book? still can't make any sense of it.

kriscamaro68

ally_uk wrote: »

Is the Pearson book anygood? has anyone used it yet? Did anyone else actually use the deployment chapter in the MS Press book? still can't make any sense of it.

Try watching these free videos and see if it helps. There are some in there on deploying windows: Professor Messer's Free Microsoft 70-680 Certification Training | Professor Messer - CompTIA A+, CompTIA Network+, Certification Training

Also when capturing a windows image using imagex make sure that you capture the d: drive for the system as the system reserved space that is created during windows setup is mounted as the c: drive which is only 100mb. Something he explained in one of his videos and actually really helped me out in a job interview.

fly2dw

I remember getting my head around all that Windows 7 deployment (Eventually), went and passed the exam, and round about the same time moved jobs.

My new manager set me my first task of creating a Windows image deployment for Windows XP and Windows 7........... Wait for it......... Using SCCM 2007.

I didn't even have to use the MDT or AIK. I suppose you can if you want, but I haven't had to touch it.

SCCM can pretty much do it all.