Devilsbane wrote: » Congrats. I would guess that the 70-291 is up to bat next?
GosU-TecH wrote: » You got it. Probably will take a week off from studying and then back on the grind to wrap up the MCSA.
Devilsbane wrote: » Sounds like a plan. Are you intending on MCSE as well or are you going to be content with the A?
varelg wrote: » Awesome! Congratulations on the achievement! Any details on the lab setup that you used for preparation of 290 and will use for prep on 291? If you virtualized your lab completely, how many virtual machines did you run simultaneously and how much RAM did you have on that physical machine?
GosU-TecH wrote: » I used VMWare Workstation and setup a team consisting of 2 servers setup with just the eval version of Server 03. One server was set as a DC and the other was just a standard server (not a DC, but didn't bother to install any additional roles). The physical machine has 2GB of RAM. I will probably just use the same setup for the 291 as well. Might add a 3rd for a client workstation (XP), but wasn't really needed for the labbing I did for the 290.
xmalachi wrote: » Congrats! Just curious, how is the 401 exam? I may end up taking that eventually.
GosU-TecH wrote: » The 401 exam IMO was real easy, but it was also the exam I was the most prepared for. I had an advantage there as I use SCCM on a daily basis at work and work sent me to the 6451A course for training. A few weeks after the training I decided to go for the exam. Also overdid it and used the Admin Companion book and watched the CBT Nuggets videos. There's no sims, but you'll definitely want to get your hands on the product if you haven't or don't use it already. The virtual labs on TechNet are pretty good too.
ssampier wrote: » If you're going for the full MCSE, you may want to study 70-291/70-293 concurrently. I hear they are a lot alike.
ssampier wrote: » Congratulations! I passed this morning too.
earweed wrote: » With only 2 GB RAM that third VM is gonna slow your performance way down. The comp I used while studying for the 70-640/642 only had 2GB and anything over 2 VMs and you're slowed down to a turtles pace. I've got a new comp now (just for labbing) that is a lot better and I'll be upgrading from 4GB to 12 GB on it soon. I've gone over to the dark side completely and I'm using Hyper-V for all my VMs and once again labbing is fun.
varelg wrote: » Alright people! We have a 290 party here, candidates passing the exam left and right! Good show, congratulations! I noticed ssampler got 3 out of 4 exams necessary to get the MCSA. Which one did you attempt at first?
ssampier wrote: » You don't want to know. My cert path was less than ideal (fueled by arrogance and ignorance). I first tried 70-299 because I figured it shouldn't be that hard I studied the book top and bottom for months and failed. Two weeks studying later I took the 70-270 Windows XP. After passing that for some reason I purchased a 70-291 book before 70-290. So I studied again for 2 weeks and (barely passed) 70-291. Again, 2 weeks studying later and I passed 70-290. The moral of the story: while you can take MS exams in any order they do build on each other (and I have seen 70-290 type questions on 70-291).
varelg wrote: » Interesting story ssampier, thanks for sharing.:) Now, if you can go back in time and start all over, which of the 4 exams would you start with?
