Virtual Academy

SamHawkins

I have not used this and was wandering peoples opinions on if this is a good study tool or not?

ITMonkey

I used the Virtual Academy when I began studying for Microsoft certifications. I did not have a PC capable of running the software needed to do labs. I thought the labs were good, although there were discrepancies between instructions in the hardcopy manual and those you were able to download when you entered a specfic lab environment. The later always worked, while it was hit-and-miss with the former. I had two instances where I needed to communicate with a support person. They were always fast to respond and solved the issue on the first go-around.

The other nice thing about the Virtual Academy labs is that they work. You don't have old configuration settings and problems to deal with when you begin a lab. The environment is "clean" and you are ready to rock and roll.

Now that I have a lab machine with the right software and hardware, I'd rather use labs provided in the Microsoft Toolkit series books, or labs found on Technet, the web, and technical books. After doing a few cookbook labs, I experiment with my own configuration settings. I learn from my successes and failures.

SamHawkins

Thanks for your thoughts

RomBUS

Definitely a useful tool to supplement your studying. The videos are packed full of information and the demos give you a nice idea of how to configure things you haven't done before.

gabypr

i recently tried it and was very cool. i just did the windows 2012 licensing course which only consisted of a pdf explaining the new licensing model, a video, and an assessment exam. its very similar to a cbt and it simply just works. im planning to pursue the new MCSE 2012 Server Infrastructure maybe next year and i could definitely use