Passed 70-680 on 1st try

universalfrost

I did a lot of prep work and labbing for this exam due to the reputation it has on this forum and in the end I was giving a serious WTF : when I actually sat for the exam.... very easy and other then having to reread the questions to weed out what was actually being needed to answer was the most difficult task.

this is seriously over hyped as being difficult... maybe if you had zero desktop support experience it would be challenging, but if you have any desktop support experience with vista, than just know the changes to win 7 and you are good to go....

swild

I passed this on my first try with a 700 but I have never been in an environment that had anything but XP. Windows 7 Inside Out was a lifesaver but I think I just went through it all a little too fast. I went in to the test feeling under prepared.

Congrats and welcome to the club of nearly 3 million MCPs!

universalfrost

already an MCP from my windows 2000 and NT days a long time ago....

Thanks for the welcome back to the club though...

ptilsen

Congrats! I also passed on my first try after some serious study, must have been 30-40 hours over almost two months. My MCSA upgrade exam, 70-648, was much easier, despite the fact that it covers both 70-640 and 70-642. I had a co-worker fail it twice before narrowly passing, and another who has failed twice and not completed it.

It's definitely one of the tougher tests of the EA/SA tracks. I have to say that 70-643 is a fair amount harder, though, so plan to spend even more time on that one.

altjx

Congrats on the pass!

I have a few years of desktop support experience, and have passed many certifications prior to the Windows 7. I guess I underestimated the exam especially considering I've been using Windows 7 since beta and even in corporate environments. It took me 3 tries and coincidently, I had the same score the first 2 times even with different answers, lol. I figured Windows 7 would be the easiest but came to be one of the more challenging ones. Being that it's required for Enterprise Admin, I can understand why now.

jmritenour

I would say that it's pretty hard for a client exam. Mainly because of the focus on things that are really server technology, you just need Windows 7 clients to leverage them.

But I took it after 1 read through of Poulton's book, and a few days of labbing the different deployment methods and VHD deployment. Really, about 60% of it was generic Windows client stuff that would've been just as applicable to 2000, XP & Vista.

whatthehell

Congratz on the pass (I can't remember if I said congratz in another thread, but either way, double congratz is better than single )!

What did you feel was extraneous studying or material that you didn't need to review? I am planning to take this after the Security +, in the next month or two.

Psoasman

Congrats on your pass!

universalfrost

if you have vista support experience than , basically everything outside of the deployment and mobility pieces was not worth studying for. and if i had more experience with deploying in an enterprise environment for Vista, then I would ahve not paid attention to that section... basically know the new additions to windows 7 enterprise/ultimate (branche cache, applocker, etc..) and you would be good to go....