I picked up a free voucher to complete a Microsoft Certified Technical Specialist exam and I didn’t have any immediate study plans for Cisco exams so I decided to give it a punt. I flicked through the MCTS exams they offer and the MCTS for Windows Server 2008, Configuring Network Infrastructure caught my eye. I deal with quite a few sites which have Windows Servers to handle things like DHCP, & DNS so I thought this would be the ideal Microsoft Certification to complement my existing Cisco qualifications.

I used a free trial of Amazon prime to get free next day delivery and ordered this book MCTS 70-642 Exam Cram: Windows Server 2008 Network Infrastructure, Configuring (Exam Cram (Que)) I have seen a few exam cram books sitting on some peoples desks and heard good things about them. The content was pretty good and it skipped alot of the basic details which might not benefit the inexperienced reader, but the book desperately needed to be proof read there were lots of errors in it. It was an easy read so I was able to cover around 80 pages each evening without much difficulty.

The voucher had a short lifetime and the furthest date I could find a testing center date in the vouchers validity was 9 days away, which gave me 8 days to prepare from when I received the book. I used the exam cram book as the method of study and had a couple of Sever 2008 VMs running using Virtual Box.

I was really disappointed in the quality of the exam, I don’t wish to break the NDA so wont discuss the contents but it was entirely multiple choice there were no simulation or drag and drop type questions.  There were 50 questions and you would have to practically take a nap to run out of time, I finished with around 50 minutes to spare. The exam was easy and even with only a week to prepare I managed to get 833 out of 700.

One of the reasons why I value my Cisco certifications is that it takes real time and commitment to study for them and pass, also Cisco works hard to make the test difficult to pass without real understanding. In my eyes this test doesn’t carry any weight and I wouldn’t recommend it unless your looking for an extra line on your CV or get hold of a free voucher.