Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)This a very good book to prep for the exam. I'm surprised that there aren't more reviews for this book. This is one of the better IT books that I've read. If you have MCSA/MCSE-level knowledge of AD 2000 or 2003, this book is the only book that you'll need to prep for the exam. I'm talking about knowledge in actually designing and configuring AD, DNS, GPOs, and security; not simply managing AD. AD itself has not changed very much from 2000 to 2008.
The book does a great job of covering pretty much all the exam objectives in an easy to read manner. The only annoying thing about the book was that it put all the references at the end of the book in an appendix instead of at the end of each relevant chapter. I can see how that is a matter of preference, so other readers might like that. But overall, one couldn't ask for a better exam prep book.
I'm not sure what the other reviewer meant about some of the terms used in the book not matching up with MS terminology. I didn't run into this inconsistency at all. I also took the MeasureUp exam included on the CD and the terminology seemed to match. BTW, the MeasureUp exam is very easy to use and was pretty tough (it looks like you only get one 50 question exam on the CD, but can pay for the full version to get more). For the Exchange exam that I took last month, I actually bought a full Transcender exam and that was terrible. The Transcender interface looks like it hasn't changed in 15 years and for a paid product, I found a few errors. Anyway, I think if you really want to purchase a practice exam, use Measure Up (MS actually has them listed on the preparation materials section of the exam site).
The exam number is now 083-640 for English only. I had no indication that the exam number was renamed, and Prometric's site didn't have anything to alert me of this. So now I know why I couldn't select English as the language for 070-640. Duh!
Anyway, half of the exam consisted of two labs using fully functional VMs to do eight tasks each. I then had thirty regular questions for the rest of the exam. The lab caught me off guard because I didn't prepare for it, but it was actually easier than the questions after I got over the initial shock. The lab used real VMs, so you could actually go to the help system to find answers to the questions or browse the file system to look for a certain file name for a command or file if you couldn't remember the full name. I don't know if they deduct points if you use the help system. I'm not even sure how they grade the lab since I didn't get a breakdown of the scores for each section, but overall I got 916/1000, so I think the labs helped me a lot.
You definitely need hands-on skills and practice, not that you couldn't get by with some of the ridiculously easy lab tasks such as changing a group scope from global to universal. The keys to passing this exam are the following:
1.) Previous design and configuration experience with either AD 2000 or 2003. Can you set up AD from scratch and configure a child domain and DNS?
2.) Read all the chapters in this book and take the MeasureUp exam on the CD. I didn't take the big exam at the end of the book, but I did take each end-of-chapter exam.
3.) Set up a lab. I used Hyper-V and had 1 root domain with 2 DCs and one child domain with 1 DC. I also had 1 XP VM. I also installed a stand-alone CA on one of the DCs.
4.) Some supplemental materials on AD FS and possibly CA if you haven't worked with either before (which I think many sys admins haven't since these aren't the most common roles in use). You can just read a few short articles on MS on these topics--I don't think you'll need to go in depth and start reading white papers.
5.) Give yourself about a month to read the book and practice on your lab. I could have taken the exam in a month but I got real busy at work and then had an issue with scheduling with Prometric (BTW, this is one of the worst commercial Web sites. I consistently got the "Web site is down" messages on several occasions and navigating through to find a test center was not the most user friendly). Anyway, it ended up taking me 6 weeks from the start of reading this book to taking the exam, but I was pretty much ready in 4 weeks.
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MCTS Exam Cram Windows Server 2008 Active Directory, ConfiguringExam 70-640Don PoultonCovers the critical information you'll need to know to score higher on Exam 70-640!Utilize new features of Windows Server 2008 related to Active Directory Install and configure Active Directory forests and domains Plan and implement an Organizational Unit structure Plan and manage Active Directory infrastructure components, such as operations masters, global catalogs, read-only domain controllers, and sites Plan, implement, and manage Active Directory using Group Policy Plan and manage Active Directory roles, including Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services, Active Directory Rights Management Services, and Active Directory Federation ServicesDeploy software in Active Directory using Group Policy Utilize Active Directory features to manage users and groups Back up and restore Active Directory, and rebuild an Active Directory domain controller from backup Deploy and manage a public key infrastructure using Active Directory Certificate ServicesCD Features MeasureUp Practice Questions!Detailed explanations of correct and incorrect answersMultiple test modesRandom questions and order of answersCoverage of each 70-640 exam objectiveWRITTEN BY A LEADING EXPERT:Don Poulton, MCSA, MCSE, A+, Network+, Security+, has been involved in consulting with small training providers as a technical writer, during which time he wrote training and exam prep materials for Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, and Windows XP. More recently, he has written or co-authored several certification volumes on Security+, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Vista, published by Que Publishing.informit.com/examcramISBN-13: 978-0-7897-3791-5ISBN-10: 0-7897-3791-4
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