Failed again. Suggestions on study material. Thanks in advance.

Failed my second attempt at the 70-680 exam today. Slightly bummed out but on a mission to pass it. Just have to wait the mandatory 14 days to retest. Gives me plenty of time to get it right this time around. Scored 628 second time around, so I'm on the cusp of passing it.

So here's what I've read/studied:

Examcram 70-680
MCTS 70-680 Cert Guide - MS Win 7, Configuring - D. Poulton (Pearson, 2011)
Cbt Nuggets

Would like some feed back on what helped you guys pass this exam.

Thanks in advance,

Richard

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Essendon

I havent taken the exam yet so cannot advise on the books but have you been labbing the material as well? Just curious since just reading doesnt cut it unless you have tons of experience with the product.

Subby808

Essendon wrote: »

I havent taken the exam yet so cannot advise on the books but have you been labbing the material as well? Just curious since just reading doesnt cut it unless you have tons of experience with the product.

I was thinking about creating some of the scenarios covered in the exam and testing them on my own machines. I guess some hands on experience will give me a better understanding of the material. Good thing MS provides evaluation copies of their OS's.

Essendon

Subby808 wrote: »

I was thinking about creating some of the scenarios covered in the exam and testing them on my own machines. I guess some hands on experience will give me a better understanding of the material. Good thing MS provides evaluation copies of their OS's.

You absolutely should, just lab as you go. Chuck on those iso's on VMware or VirtualPC or even Hyper-v and lab away.

Excellent1

I'd check out the Gibson 685/686 book, it's got a lot of information that pretty much maps directly to the 680 objectives. I found it helpful. Also, you need to lab some things in order to not only retain the information, but also to pick up the secondary details that go into actually doing something instead of just reading about it. Not every last thing has to be labbed, but it will help.

Also, spend some time looking at all of the monitoring tools that are available. That section tripped me up pretty hard; almost caused me to fail it. I was so focused on deployment and other areas that I missed a lot of what would have been easy questions if I had paid more attention to that particular objective.

Finally, since you have some time to lab, I'd pick up a copy of this lab manual: Amazon.com: 70-680: Windows 7 Configuration, Lab Manual (Microsoft Official Academic Course Series) (9780470875100): Microsoft Official Academic Course: Books

You can get a used copy for 6 bucks. Comes in handy for understanding some of the finer details. Good luck on your next attempt.

Timelord

These videos have helped so many. Here.

Asif Dasl

Timelord wrote: »

These videos have helped so many. Here.

Great find. Rep+

parttimetechie

Are there any community colleges or local classes which can provide labs and explanations? I have used the Sybex book, but don't dare take the test because I know I would fail. Do not have the money to build a lab or use MS training classes, but really need a Microsoft Cert to advance my career. Does anyone know of a good MS cert for a PC Technician who is very hands on with the hardware and knows a fair amount of home use operating systems? Have never done deployments in a company environment, nor have I worked with servers on a company system.

Kinda at a loss here b/c I know the basic Win 7 / XP systems from a home user standpoint very well, but when I get to corporate things like domains and such I have no experience b/c none of my jobs have allowed me that experience thus far.

Any help is very much appreciated.

pzero

Study the 70-640 exam. It will give you a good ground to some of the 'corportate' stuff like Group Policy, Active Directory, User/Group management etc. Some of the stuff you will read will cross over into the 70-680 exam.

Subby808

pzero wrote: »

Study the 70-640 exam. It will give you a good ground to some of the 'corportate' stuff like Group Policy, Active Directory, User/Group management etc. Some of the stuff you will read will cross over into the 70-680 exam.

Thanks for all the advice. I've studied hard the last few days and I'm ready to pass this darn exam. This time I'm confident I'll pass. *knock on wood*

Todd Burrell

I like that you have the Poulton book listed - I would recommend going back through the Poulton book and take detailed notes on every topic. If you map this to the 8 domains and make sure you have covered everything that should help.

Be sure and use this site and the 70-680 sticky and go through all of those links - this will help you with what a lot of the command look like.

Be sure and KNOW the command line commands. There were 6-8 questions where you had to know what the command might display or what it might do...

I would know the following topics in pretty good detail:

VHD
BranchCache
DirectAccess
What versions of Windows 7 can do what
Basic requirements for Windows 7
Understand scanstate and loadstate and when to use hardlink
Understand deployment options
Know BCDBOOT and BCDEDIT and when to use each
Understand basics of IPv6
Understand IPv4 and subnetting and how to get an IP address (DHCP)
Know basics of performance
VPN protocols and ports for different VPN protocols
Understand security and NTFS vs share security
Know what happens when you move/copy files on same/different drives
Know Bitlocker basics and GPO
Know Bitlocker requirements
Know Windows XP mode requirements
Know UAC options and GPO options for UAC

These were the main topics I covered in detail for this test.

Good luck.

Mah Bahls

I took it yesterday and failed it. I had a fairly high score for no recent study. I used the CBT Nuggets videos but only made it through most of the stuff I already knew and then got hit with several (15) questions on automated installation stuff. I am working around a new IT job with a very large company who is about to roll out windows 7. So I will study my butt off and pass it by this weekend I feel quite certain. Just wanted you to know you aren't the only one who is battling with this one and also wanted to take some time to thank the others for the ideas and resources.