Just bought the 70-410 ms press book but worried about the lack of practice labs in i

zehudson

Should i be concerned about this as the 2008 ms books always had multiple practice labs at end of each chapter...the book is the Craig ZAcker exam ref

hexem

Yes you should, it definitely covers very briefly over power-shell commands after a GUI walk through using server manager but doesn't give you a good idea of practical implementation, I'm using CBTNuggets video series as it gives you a good walk through of more than one possible scenario that you can follow along with in a virtual machine and see it happen for yourself.

MSSoftie

The Training Guide is a companion to the Exam Ref and it has all the labs you are looking for. I recommend using both because the training guide doesn't go as deep into the concepts but gives you the hands on the exam ref lacks. Maybe just a way to sell more books but I have found it effective to use both.

zehudson

Thanks guys appreciate your advice

it2b

I also used the TechNet virtual labs for my MCSA and found them very useful.
TechNet Virtual Labs

SteveFer

I thaught that there was just the exam ref series of books for the 2012 and planned on using that for each 2012 exam , but reading this thread I see there is also the training guide. Reading this blog post I get the impression that the exam ref is for people who are more experienced in the technology and doesnt go into as much detail, as the training guide, but there seems to only be one training guide for all 3 2012 exams, as someone who has little experience with servers and was planning on taking the 410 soon, which book should I use, if you use both is it easy to see what applies to the 410 in the 2012 training guide?

Announcing the Exam Ref series from Microsoft Press - Microsoft Press - Site Home - MSDN Blogs

MSSoftie

There are a few options out there for books. Sybex currently has one book that covers all three of the MCSA series. It is not my favorite as I prefer to have the information for each exam separate. Microsoft Press has both the Exam Ref and Training guide series. They do not currently have both for all of the Server 2012 exams. There are more on the way some release dates have been published. I prefer to use the Exam Ref and the Training Guide in tandem when available. I feel the Exam Ref gives me better theoretical understanding and the Training guide gives me more hands on exercises. There is also the Microsoft Official Academic Coursework series. I have used these too. They are also very good. They have a good mix of the theory and the hands on lab but because they were designed for a classroom setting, you miss some of the needed information that is only available in the Trainer's guide for this series so it is not always the best choice.