New to Microsoft Certifications

What certification track would you recommend for someone new to Microsoft?

What material would you recommend? Does this material teach best practices or just how to pass the exams?

I have very little experience installing/configuring Server 2003/2008 and Exchange 2003/2010. Almost zero experience with SQL Server.

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Ivanr4g63

And you're trying to get the microsoft path because of work requirements or a career change, just to keep yourself markeatable for future job offers or a bit of 'all of the above'?

You can pass the windows Vista certification on a single exam and become MCP (i think they still call it that) that starts you in being microsoft certified, but are you looking for a specific career path?

MCITP will take you the server administrator/Systems admin road, but its a longer road and I believe it'll requiere more experience or lots of lab time if you have very lite experience on servers...

I suppose the question here is Where are you trying to go with microsoft certs?

DPG

This is mostly for work. I want myself and my staff to be more knowledgeable in Microsoft technologies since we are expanding our managed services.

MickQ

DPG wrote: »

This is mostly for work. I want myself and my staff to be more knowledgeable in Microsoft technologies since we are expanding our managed services.

Give me a job.

Seriously though, it depends on what end you're looking for. It's like asking to be more knowledgeable about engineering, science, or IT.

I'm going to guess that you're coming from a mainly network background. The next main step would be into servers (Server 2008R2), then email (Exchange 2010), then depending on your customers, Sharepoint or SQL.

One way to ease yourselves into servers would be to play with SBS2011 standard. It's more point and click than 2k8, and has some email functionality.

If it's for the benefit of the staff, set up a lab environment where everyone can play. Design, build, break and learn from each step.
Material will depend on your goals. Technet will cover the topics of exams and real world requirements. Different books will help you with the exams, others for real world. Personally, I love the Minasi books (I really should get shares in that), but they're for real world learning more than the exams.