What did you use for 70-680?

I kinda know what books to get on this after reading some helpful posts but what's the recommended method of practicing for this exam? i.e. will it be OK to install win 7 ultimate on something like Oracle vitualbox? or is it best to have a proper dedicated PC instead of running it as a guest OS?
Will i also need server 2008?
Sorry if this has been asked before. I couldn't find much about this.

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kriscamaro68

Running the OS in a vm is perfect for this type of studying. Just make sure to take snapshots of the computer before any changes so you can always revert back to it. You dont technically need server08 running for any of this but it wouldn't hurt to set it up. I setup server08 and then setup wds so that I knew how it all worked. Its up to you though. You can get trial editions for both.

Psoasman

I would set up a lab with Server 2008 R2. The 680 references a lot of server material, so it helps to get some practice with it. Don Poulton's book is good for this. Darril Gibson's book for the 685/686 is also good, especially the 686 portions.

I've been using Virtual Box for a while now and it's pretty solid for labbing.

MrXpert

Psoasman wrote: »

I would set up a lab with Server 2008 R2. The 680 references a lot of server material, so it helps to get some practice with it. Don Poulton's book is good for this. Darril Gibson's book for the 685/686 is also good, especially the 686 portions.

I've been using Virtual Box for a while now and it's pretty solid for labbing.

Can I run both the server 2008 R2 and Win 7 on the same PC as virtual OSs? what i mean is, would they still be able to interact with each other? as in making the win 7 client part of its domain or whatever its called in MS world
sorry if my question sounds kinda ignorant.

ally_uk

Way I do it Server 2k8 r2 as main O/S then run hyper V and have windows 7 enterprise running

Psoasman

MrXpert wrote: »

Can I run both the server 2008 R2 and Win 7 on the same PC as virtual OSs? what i mean is, would they still be able to interact with each other? as in making the win 7 client part of its domain or whatever its called in MS world
sorry if my question sounds kinda ignorant.

Yes, you can. Install virtual box ( or whatever else you have ) make sure you have enough RAM for the machines. 1 GB will work for the DC and 512 MB for clients. I set the NICs to internal network, as I do most of my labbing at work.

Load a DC and a client. The book will have walkthroughs as to how to do this, it's good practice.

ally_uk's methods works great, too.

MrXpert

Psoasman wrote: »

Yes, you can. Install virtual box ( or whatever else you have ) make sure you have enough RAM for the machines. 1 GB will work for the DC and 512 MB for clients. I set the NICs to internal network, as I do most of my labbing at work.

Load a DC and a client. The book will have walkthroughs as to how to do this, it's good practice.

ally_uk's methods works great, too.

Thanks, I must get hold of Darrill Gibson's book. His sec+ was excellent so i'm sure this will be too.#
How long does it take for someone to study+take exam for the mcts win 7? i mean on average...a ball park figure?

ptilsen

If your host PC has at least two physical cores (Core 2 Duo or better) and 3GB of RAM or more, you'd be fine to run one copy or R2 and one copy of 7 in VirtualBox and use those as your lab.

As far as studying, the MS Press book and possibly Technet are really the only needed study materials. Depending on your experience and how well you take to the material, you are looking at an absolute minimum of 20 hours to a maximum of around 80 hours to to study for and pass 70-680.