I also have the newer (corrected) version of the book (check the copyright page in the beginning of the book, mine lists version: 5 6 7 8 9 QWT 1 0 9 8 7). Despite the numerous corrections, I still find some errors, even those that are unlisted in the errata list. When looking at the four KB articles on the Microsoft site, the errata list shows a gap between part 3 and 4. So I think there is something missing in the errata.

For example: an error I discovered today, on page 712, the second bullet reads:

"One or more PrincipalPermission properties. Use Authenticated to restrict access to authenticated users, Role to restrict access by group memberships, and User to restrict access to a specific user name."

This is incorrect, there is no 'User' PrincipalPermission property. Replace 'User' with 'Name'.It should read instead:

"One or more PrincipalPermission properties. Use Authenticated to restrict access to authenticated users, Role to restrict access by group memberships, and Name to restrict access to a specific user name."

This is in particular a strange error, because on the previous page the authors says:

"Memorize these three properties (Authenticated, Name, Role). Remember, PrincipalPermission doesn't expose any other properties--not a user's full name, phone number, password, or any other attribute."

For the rest of the book, I found the topics are not very well explained. Except for the chapter dealing with Code Access Security, which I found was very clear. In general, I did not like the fact that there are so few images in the book that could clarify the text. Sometimes the text alone is a litte bit boring to read. But then again, it's part of the job, no?

As there is no alternative for this book yet, I hope I will pass my exam by using this book and some internet resources... We'll see.

Good luck to all exam takers!

This books structure makes it very easy to get a chapter a night done and prepare you for the exam. The labs are good and the accompanying DVD contains both practice exams and a trial version of Visual Studio 2005, so you have everything you need in one book.

This exam is only half of an MCTS qualification, so you'll need either the Web Development or Windows Development to go with it if you want an actual qualification.

I only had issue with one or two of the answers given to questions, but I found it quite encouraging that I was able to think 'hey, that's not the best way to achieve that'.

This book is a good start, but you won't pass the test by just reading it. Experience and practice test will go a long way to help.

Comming from the 1.0 and 1.1 framework, this book really helped me get up to speed with 2.0. It covers many new capabilies and enhancements of the new framework (isolated storage, generics, etc...). This is my "MAIN" reference book now... its almost like my programming bible. :)

OK, this book is a little dated, but I got a really good chuckle from an anecdote relayed by one of the authors that is still funny. Early in the book, on page 68, Mr. Wildermuth attempts to assert his expertise to the reader by declaring that he has "written hundreds, if not thousands, of lines of code". I have shown this little blurb around to many of my colleagues and clients. It has turned into somewhat of a euphemism for a n00b. For instance:

Dev1: "How did the interview go with Ted?"
Dev2: "Not great. He's got a good personality, but his skill set is a little weak."
Dev1: "What kind of stuff has he worked on?"
Dev2: "I would say that he has probably written hundreds, if not thousands, of lines of code."
Both: "ROFL!"

or

Dev1: "Holy cow! Come over here and look at this mudball of code that I have to support now."
Dev2: "Wow! You're not kidding. Who wrote this?"
Dev1: "Who do you think? Joe."
Dev2: "Oh man, he's written hundreds ..."
Dev1: "If not thousands!"
Dev2: "... of lines of code."

All that said, this book does the job. It helped me pass the test. I have taken quite a few Microsoft exams and I have usually turned to the Microsoft Press Self-Paced Training Kit books as a first resource. This book lives up to the good name the series has earned for itself.

I see from many of the reviews here that readers are disappointed if the book doesn't spoon feed them all the way through the exam. I would say that, for myself, preparing for an exam includes a multi-pronged approach. It starts with these books and continues to MSDN and Transcender. But most importantly, I think you have to definitely open up Visual Studio and practice. Write some code! Maybe even hundreds, if not thousands, of lines. ;)

Do not expect to pass test 70-536 using this book as the only resource. You will not do it. Do not think this book is for beginner's, it's not. You must have a firm grasp of object oriented programming to understand .NET. Also, don't trust the Practice Exam CD that comes with the book. I've found more than a few questions that have incorrect answers (according to MSDN). Even with all this said, I'm 100% positive I would NOT have passed this test the first take if I did not use this book in my studying.

This book formed a great foundation for .NET 2.0. There is a lot of content in the book and I think they put it in a format that is easy to understand. Some of the content such as Code Access Security, WMI, and COM Interopability are a bit thin, but you can make that difference up with MSDN.

My recommendation is to buy this book. Read it from cover to cover. DO ALL THE QUESTIONS, EXAMPLES, LABS, AND PRACTICE TESTING!!! Once you're done with all of this, if you have money to spend, perform the Microsoft learning online content. If you can't afford that, go to online practice test sites, such as MeasureUp and do those. Once this is all done, you should have a grasp of your weak spots. Hit those again and then take the test.

Dieses Buch gibt einen allumfassenden Überblick über das .Net Framework. Es hat Referenzen der wichtigsten Framework-Klassen der einzelnen Themen. Man hat am Ende ein fundiertes Wissen über die vielen Bereiche die das Framework abdeckt.
In jedem Kapitel ein "Realworld Scenario" und Übungsaufgaben. Zudem noch Frage und Antwort nach jeder Lektion.
Der Glossar am Ende des Buches scheint mir etwas klein, deckt aber die wichtigen Begriffe des Buches ausreichend ab.

The practice exams are a great help. I also like the fact that it includes a searchable pdf version of the book.

The pluses:
- It covers the items in the exam and gets you basically familiar with them.
- It has the practice tests CD which is very helpful.

The minuses:
- It doesn't cover the items in the exam enough to pass the exam.
- It has many errors.
- It is poorly written so that you don't always understand fully what can or can't be done with the item you are studying.
- Most of the time you will need to look at MSDN or the Framework help to get the full concept of the item you are studying.
- Some of the lesson test questions are out of order so you get asked about something that isn't covered until the next chapter or lesson.

Overall:
I'm glad I got it. It is going to help me get through the exam, but it could be a much better product if more care had been taken in its production.

So many errors that it has to be done in 2 parts

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/923018/en-us
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/935218/en-us

It looks like I still have ver 1 I'm still seeing the errors listed on the Microsoft website and I just purchased the book 01DEC07. This is really, really bad. This is something I don't need trying to study for this exam.

With an exam as broad as this exam is, it's probably next to impossible to find one author with the depth of knowledge in each topic to write a manual and develop the labs that are found in this piece. However, the employment of an editor and overall UX specialist would work wonders to making the material presented in this book more streamlined, user friendly and less disjointed.

You can tell that different chapters were written by different authors. This goes from writing style in the text itself all the way down to sample code and labs found on the accompanying CD. C'mon, for the amount of effort put into this type of manual, and the perceived 'stakes' involved in passing these tests, give us some materials that are consistent so that as learners, we aren't distracted by the inconsistencies.

The exam simulation software sucks. The user experience there is dismal - dismal on the order of Windows 95 user experience dismal. You would be better off biting the bullet and picking up the Self Test Software exam prep package for this particular exam.

Overall, the material covered in this guide, paired with significant on-the-job experience and supplemental exam prep (like the STS packages mentioned above) should be more than sufficient to pass the exam covered. But don't use this book as your sole preparation tool.

Again, at 1050+ pages, I would like to see electronic only versions of these types of books. Especially considering the extremely short life span that technology books have. If you can find a way to get an electronic-only version and avoid buying the hardback, then go that route instead.

The content in this book is definitely not enough for exam preparation. After reading the entire book word to work I would say It only prepared me 60%. Rest of the information I need to get it from other sources mainly from MSDN help. The good part I found is it outlines exam objectives very well so that you can do you additional readings from other source but that you can also get from exam prep guide in microsoft website. I still recommend this book becuase I don't see any better option.

Some of the reviews for this book are far too harsh. I do agree that the first version of the book had numerous errors, but the second version corrected most of them. I used this book as my primary study guide for the 70-536 exam and I passed the exam easily. I considered using an alternative practice exam solution, but the software that came with the book was adequate, and in some instances, more difficult than the actual exam.

With that being said, I too agree that this book alone will (most likely) not enable you to pass the exam. This book is a *study guide*, not a *cheat sheet*. The goal of the book is to introduce you to exam topics and prepare you to solve exam problems using the .NET Framework App Foundation. This book is intended for candidates that have experience with previous or current versions of the Framework, who wish to condition that knowledge to pass an exam. The authors inform you of what level of skills you should have at the beginning of every chapter.

As with any technical book, it can use a little work. Chapter 9 'Installing Applications' should be considered for revision to flow better for the reader. But even with it's choppy flow, the information in chapter 9 is quite useful.

In summary; I read it, I passed, I'd recommend it.


-Grant

It's a gr8 product, the only setback was that Microsoft has just one book for VB as well as C# coders, so half of the book is useless for me

I am a Java programmer with no background in .Net, so I thought I would try to get certified as a way to learn the subject matter in a comprehensive manner. This book is not a good introduction to creating applications for Windows for a couple of reasons. First, much of the information in this book is badly out of context. For example, the first lab in Chapter 9 gives complete, detailed instructions on how to create a project in Microsoft Visual Studio. This lab would have been more useful as the first lab in the first chapter (obviously). In addition, many security related items are brought up in early chapters, but discussion of them is deferred to Chapter 11. Second, the book assumes familiarity with Windows concepts or products without explanation (which, in a "Foundation" book, I believe it shouldn't do). A discussion on remote components assumes a familiarity with IIS. I have finished chapters on Application Domains and Services and Installing and Configuring Applications and I still don't have a good idea of what a .dll file is, or how to actually create a componentized application.

That said, the book is not a total loss, it just requires considerable effort on the part of a novice to understand the information.

After reading this book cover to cover and taking the practice test many, many times I was able to pass the test on my first try.

What really pissed me off (along with my co-workers) is the amount of errors both in the book and the practice test. The book has so many typo's and errors the there is 2 (yea TWO) knowledge base articles for the errata. About 15% of the practice test questions (out of 300+) were just WRONG. Either the answers were not correct, or there were no correct answers.

Ok, enough of the rant. Like I said, this book did help me to pass the test, so for that I give it 3 stars. Had i failed the test it would have been more like 1 star.

Take that for what it is. Since this is the ONLY book for the test, you are kinda stuck... Just be ready for errors and frustration.

First, I appeared for MCTS 70-529 (Distributed Applications) and I was able to clear in the very first attempt with 856 score -- not an easy one as it covers complex topics. Then I attempted MCTS 70-536 thinking that it is easier than 70-529. But definitely not an easy one either and I got a score of 771. It is voluminous and a beast as it covers lots of topics, right from types to code access security, collections, threading, interoperability, serialization, instrumentation, internationalization and more.

As you can imagine, a single book is not enough. You need to consult MSDN documentation heavily and frequently as most methods are overloaded with so many variations. And plus I suggest some other question bank (such as transcender, measure up, etc) in addition to the ones provided with the book. Question bank provided with book is good but not enough to cover all the tricks.

You can skip other question banks only if you are extremely .NET savvy. Which I suppose many people will not have exposure to so many topics in their careers does not matter with how many years of IT experience.

This exam is definitely not a breeze. So please prepare seriously if you intend to gain knowledge and pass this exam.

If you have read the reviews, this book is controversial to say the least. Issue #1: there are errors. True, however in my opinion, given the scope of the book and the number of contributors, errors were inevitable. Also note the Microsoft web site has most of the errata documented on their support web site.

Assuming you're ok with fixing up a book with the published errata sheet, the next thing you may have a problem with: this book alone will not prepare you for the 70-536 exam. Sorry.

That is more of an indication of the difficulty of the exam than the quality of the book. The simple fact is no other book will prepare you for the 70-536. This is the only one, and does a commendable job, all things considered.

I put up four stars because I like this book. It is logically structured, and easy to follow. I liked the step-by-step examples and the labs. I actually learned a few things about .NET cryptography, code access security, and serialization. Even if you're not interested in the exam, this is a good book to learn the framework.

Very good book to start your preparation.
But still lot of details are not covered up that
are important for the exam, making MSDN a must along with this book.

This is a very organized study guide for the 70-536 exam. However, even knowing it is a GUIDE I expected it to go into a bit more depth in some areas, and more detailed explanations.

Not only that, but the explanations are really poor, and the english used in this book is just not straight forward at all!

Not to mention all the grammar errors all reviewevers already complained about, erros in the code and simply wrong words in wrong places.

I did not enjoy reading this book at all, in fact it's the book I've least enjoyed out of all books I've read in the last 7 or 8 years ...

I'm obviously aware at this point that, when sometimes reading about a technology that is not 100% familiar to you, you have to read quite a few times to get it.

This is a very organized study guide for the 70-536 exam. However, even knowing it is a GUIDE I expected it to go into a bit more depth in some areas, and more detailed explanations.

Not only that, but the explanations are really poor, and the english used in this book is just not straight forward at all! It's already hard trying to memorize and comprehend all this features for the exam, so why not use basic and easy english when you can?

Not to mention all the grammar errors all reviewevers already complained about, erros in the code and simply wrong words in wrong places.

I did not enjoy reading this book at all, in fact it's the book I've least enjoyed out of all books I've read in the last 7 or 8 years ...

I'm obviously aware at this point that, when sometimes reading about a technology that is not 100% familiar to you, you have to read quite a few times to get it, but this is just too much!

I read "C# 2005, step by step" from John Sharp, also from Microsoft Press, before reading this book. And when I go back to it sometimes when I'm coding, it is such a HUGE difference, it is such a relief to get a clear, good, and easy to understand explanation!

The following are my pointers about the book and exam. I hope they'll help calm someone's nerves, because I was a nervous wreck before my exam yesterday.

First, about me:

> I studied in earnest for three weeks, using only the book and accompanying practice exams until the last three days
> I used Transcender during the last three days, and never scored above 60% on the full practice exam
> I am relatively new to .NET (four months exp. writing production-level apps), but not new to software development (working with Java for over four years)
> I passed the exam yesterday, on the first attempt, with a score of 859

With that said...

1. To anyone sadistic enough to take a Java cert exam (like my moronic self), the MCTS is a cakewalk. Unlike the ferocious Java exams which try to bait you into picking the wrong answers, 70-536 seems to do the exact opposite. I'll elaborate on this in point 2.

2. Remember taking the SATs and being given the advice to first eliminate clearly wrong answers before analyzing the ones that might be right? Do that on this exam, and you'll immediately cut your answer choices in half on nearly every question. For the vast majority of the questions, Microsoft practically GIVES you the answer - almost like they're trying to sell you on how intuitive their framework is. These questions are multiple choice, with one answer choice being cartoonishly incorrect, another answer being kind-of-correct but clearly too convoluted, then two or more other answers that are extremely similar, except for some minor detail.

3. You do not need to go into the MSDN and know every object mentioned in the book like Adam knew his wife. You should, however, be very familiar with the methods and signatures of Stream objects, Serializer objects (XMLSerializer, especially), AppDomain, and Culture/Region Info. As for the rest, just pay close attention to the methods and objects used in the book's examples.

4. The Transcender exam is WAAAAAAAAAAAY HARDER than the actual 70-536.

5. The MeasureUp exam that comes with the book is slightly easier than the actual 70-536.

6. On my particular exam, there were no questions whose material hadn't been covered by the book. Be careful, though, because from the Transcender exams it seems the book's authors left out at whole lot about interoperability.

Seriously folks, this exam isn't that bad if you're a seasoned software pro and familiar with OOP. Get a solid grasp of the stuff in the book (the labs really help), use Transcender for some details that the book misses, take the exam, and pass that sucker.

Good luck!

The following are my pointers about the book and exam. I hope they'll help calm someone's nerves, because I was a nervous wreck before my exam yesterday.

First, about me:

> I studied in earnest for three weeks, using only the book and accompanying practice exams until the last three days
> I used Transcender during the last three days, and never scored above 60% on the full practice exam
> I am relatively new to .NET (four months exp. writing production-level apps), but not new to software development (working with Java for over four years)
> I passed the exam yesterday, on the first attempt, with a score of 859

With that said...

1. To anyone sadistic enough to take a Java cert exam (like my moronic self), the MCTS is a cakewalk. Unlike the ferocious Java exams which try to bait you into picking the wrong answers, 70-539 seems to do the exact opposite. I'll elaborate on this in point 2.

2. Remember taking the SATs and being given the advice to first eliminate clearly wrong answers before analyzing the ones that might be right? Do that on this exam, and you'll immediately cut your answer choices in half on nearly every question. For the vast majority of the questions, Microsoft practically GIVES you the answer - almost like they're trying to sell you on how intuitive their framework is. These questions are multiple choice, with one answer choice being cartoonishly incorrect, another answer being kind-of-correct but clearly too convoluted, then two or more other answers that are extremely similar, except for some minor detail.

3. You do not need to go into the MSDN and know every object mentioned in the book like Adam knew his wife. You should, however, be very familiar with the methods and signatures of Stream objects, Serializer objects (XMLSerializer, especially), AppDomain, and Culture/Region Info. As for the rest, just pay close attention to the methods and objects used in the book's examples.

4. The Transcender exam is WAAAAAAAAAAAY HARDER than the actual 70-539.

5. The MeasureUp exam that comes with the book is slightly easier than the actual 70-539.

6. On my particular exam, there were no questions whose material hadn't been covered by the book. Be careful, though, because from the Transcender exams it seems the book's authors left out at whole lot about interoperability.

Seriously folks, this exam isn't that bad if you're a seasoned software pro and familiar with OOP. Get a solid grasp of the stuff in the book (the labs really help), use Transcender for some details that the book misses, take the exam, and pass that sucker.

Good luck!

This book is really a good one, for people who are not familiar with programming computer applications.
It's starting from the beginning and is explaining very well all the examples of code used in the book.
Sometimes there is too much theory used in the book, but the reader of the book, gets also a lot of practical exercises to test your knowledge.

I read this book in preparation for the 70-536 exam. As the other reviews say, the latter chapters start to show a breakdown in editorial skill and in-depth description. The bottom-line is that if you have over a year of good concentrated (not college classes) programming AND you read every chapter of this book to familiarize yourself with the fundamentals covered in the test, you will probably pass. The practice tests that are included leave a little to be desired as well, while they do get you familiar with the concepts of the questions that will be asked on the actual exam, the practice test questions will not contain any of the actual questions on the test (you'll need some supplemental brain-dumps for that).

I brought this book in order to learn how to program. I wanted to take the exam. I had to get a dictionary to make it trough the text. The author seemed to take a very complicated issue, and make it even more complicated by the use of the types of words like antithesis, and obfuscate. While I know what these words mean, it would have been a much easier read if he would have used plain english. I have a bachelors in CIS, and 2 masters degrees. An MBA, and a masters in project management, and I still had a hard time making it through this text. As the other reviews have suggested, I had to purchase 2 other texts to learn the language. I have since been designing web pages for a year, and I have never, ever, opened this book again. It was a waste of the $49 bucks I paid for it.

I've been so frustrated with this book that I finally decided to write my first review. It's incredibly hard to read due to the ambiguities and laughable inaccuracies; and this is the "revised" copy. I went to the errata link and found that even the most obvious problems were not addressed. For example, there is 3 line code snippet on page 46 dealing with event handlers that was "corrected" and the revision on the first statement invalidated the third. The review questions often cover topics out of order or ask questions that are simply not covered anywhere in the book. You don't have to be an expert to see the problems here, but you'll have to become one to make sense out of this book.

The book is my first contact with another IT world. I mean the [..]. It guides you through all the important parts of [..]technology. I especially appreciate a lot of working examples and way of explanation. It leads you to self-motivated learning. I mean you become courious how all the described functionality in reality really works and if IT really works :-) Thanks to the book I have found out a lot of useful functionality. It is really a good book for certification exam too.

Nowadays MS and SUN are together trying to standardize themselves in order to have one standard interoperable communication, especially in the field of web services. So I think every developer should take care about provided technologies from both IT worlds. I mean Java and .NET platform. After long time working with Java technology MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit is my first entry into .NET. I am very delighted how the book is organised. I appreciate working examples, questions and especially their explanations. The book is written in a cool style so that you are not overloaded by much details and you can enjoy your progress by writting simple programs during the reading. Thanks to the book I found out very useful classes like for instance FileSystemWatcher or Isolated Storage. Chapter Threading reveals very rich thread library even in comparision with my favourite Java technology. So far I am just in the first half of the book and I already know it gives me complete survey about .NET framework. I am really glad I have bought this book.

Nowadays MS and SUN are together trying to standardize themselves in order to have one standard interoperable communication, especially in the field of web services. So I think every developer should take care about provided technologies from both IT worlds. I mean Java and .NET platform. After long time working with Java technology MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit is my first entry into .NET. I am very delighted how the book is organised. I appreciate working examples, questions and especially their explanations. The book is written in a cool style so that you are not overloaded by much details and you can enjoy your progress by writting simple programs during the reading. Thanks to the book I found out very useful functionality like FileSystemWatcher or Isolated Storage functionality. So far I am just in the first quarter of the book and I already know it gives me complete survey about .NET framework. I am really glad I have bought this book.

Simply unbelievable. For those of you who have not heard, the "first edition" of this book had a ridiculous number of errors in it. In fact, I originally had a copy of it from my work, and I had to print off the errata (list of corrections and fixes) and it was OVER 60 PAGES. Yeah, it was really fun trying to read the book on one side of my desk, and having a 60+ page document on the other side trying to find all the errors and bad code examples.....so anyway, I bought the "second edition" from Amazon. While it looks like the 60+ pages of errors that were found in the "first edition" were all corrected, there ARE STILL MORE OBVIOUS ERRORS IN THE BOOK. I cannot express in words how amazing this is to me. Did ANYONE with a technical background actually proof-read this book the first time? If not, shouldn't someone have done it before printing a second edition that was made because ONLY because there were 60+ PAGES OF ERRORS in the first edition? This to me is inexcusable. And how Microsoft could put their stamp on this book is baffling.

Anyway, other than the errors, the book is fine.....it just makes it hard to read this book for an exam, because can you really trust the content 100%? I say no. And, to top it all off, this (to my knowledge) is the only book out there for the 70-536 Exam. Good luck.

This book explains about the most used classes on .net framework, and explains the most common methods, properties, members and enumerations. You can't use this book alone to pass the test - you must supplement with another book.

[...]

This book explains about the most used classes on .net framework, and explains the most common methods, properties, members and enumerations. You can't use this book alone to pass the test - you must supplement with another book.

[...]

Simply unbelievable. For those of you who have not heard, the "first edition" of this book had a ridiculous number of errors in it. In fact, I originally had a copy of it from my work, and I had to print off the errata (list of corrections and fixes) and it was OVER 60 PAGES. Yeah, it was really fun trying to read the book on one side of my desk, and having a 60+ page document on the other side trying to find all the errors and bad code examples.....so anyway, I bought the "second edition" from Amazon. While it looks like the 60+ pages of errors that were found in the "first edition" were all corrected, there ARE STILL MORE OBVIOUS ERRORS IN THE BOOK. I cannot express in words how amazing this is to me. Did ANYONE with a technical background actually proof-read this book the first time? If not, shouldn't someone have done it before printing a second edition that was made because ONLY because there were 60+ PAGES OF ERRORS in the first edition? This to me is inexcusable. And how Microsoft could put their stamp on this book is baffling.

Anyway, other than the errors, the book is fine.....it just makes it hard to read this book for an exam, because can you really trust the content 100%? I say no. And, to top it all off, this (to my knowledge) is the only book out there for the 70-536 Exam. Good luck.

Despite the harsh reviews, including one from one of my co-workers, I went with this book for 70-536 preparation simply because there isn't anything else out there. I was waiting on Amit Kalani to come out with his highly anticipated book, but I'm starting to wonder if that will ever see the light of day.

In any case, it seems that this book has had corrections made to it since the earlier reviews. I've noticed that more recent printings have a slightly darker cover and that the errata listed at Microsoft's website has been corrected in the book. I could find no mention of a 2nd printing on the inside cover or anything else to suggest a reprint. This doesn't make up for the missing content but does at least make me feel a little better in that I don't have to constantly reference the 33 printed pages of errata while reading.

Some of chapters (specially at the beginning of the book), are quite good and I found interesting information in them. But the rest are very poor, and can do more harm, than good to one who reads them.
Some code snippets, even if they work, are very good examples how you SHOULD NOT WRITE programs.
I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone, who doesn't have some experience in .NET programming and expects to learn from it. But it is quite good reference for the exam. I don't think, you will be able to pass exam using this book alone (unless you know .NET so well, you don't need any book to pass it :-)).

I purchased this kit (book and sample tests) primarily as a study guide to prepare for the 70-536 exam. Due in large part to this kit, I was able to pass the exam on my first attempt. Beyond being a great tool for exam preparation, the book provided a great deal of information and "how to" details for key .NET topics. I do agree with a few other reviewers that there are some topics covered in the actual exam that are not addressed in the kit. I recommend this product to anyone preparing for the 70-536 exam.

Any book that intends to give an overview of something as large and varied as the [...] framework is going to gloss over some areas. This was no exception. It did provide a fairly detailed overview of security (over 150 pages in total).

Since I used this book to study for the exam I (extensively) used the practice cd that comes with the book to test myself as I read (and re-read) chapters.
As others have mentioned there are several typos in the book and exams. There are several questions which are frustratingly ambiguous and there are (at least) two answers which are absolutely incorrect. The editor needs a performance review...
I thought that these questions would appear in the final exam and if I could memorize them then I would pass the exam. Wrong. NONE of the questions in the practice exam were in my final exam. In fact, there were questions in the final exam that weren't even covered in the book (yes, I went back and checked...). I passed the exam only because I had familiarity with the subject from my hands on experience as a developer and from (lots of) extra research on google i did away from the book.
The moral: You can't use this book alone to pass the test - you must supplement everything you learn in this book with your own investigation and hands on practice. You have to know your stuff to pass the exam. And if you're serious about being a developer this should be a problem...

Good luck!

Any book that intends to give an overview of something as large and varied as the [...] framework is going to gloss over some areas. This was no exception. It did provide a fairly detailed overview of security (over 150 pages in total).

Since I used this book to study for the exam I (extensively) used the practice cd that comes with the book to test myself as I read (and re-read) chapters.
As others have mentioned there are several typos in the book and exams. There are several questions which are frustratingly ambiguous and there are (at least) two answers which are absolutely incorrect. The editor needs a performance review...
I thought that these questions would appear in the final exam and if I could memorize them then I would pass the exam. Wrong. NONE of the questions in the practice exam were in my final exam. In fact, there were questions in the final exam that weren't even covered in the book (yes, I went back and checked...). I passed the exam only because I had familiarity with the subject from my hands on experience as a developer and from (lots of) extra research on google i did away from the book.
The moral: You can't use this book alone to pass the test - you must supplement everything you learn in this book with your own investigation and hands on practice. You have to know your stuff to pass the exam. And if you're serious about being a developer this should be a problem...

Good luck!

Es una ayuda imprescindible para el examen. Obviamente, tambien pesa la experiencia, pero la verdad es que el libro me guió muy bien.

Muy recomendable para quien desea dar el examen 70-536 o profundizar acerca de todos los aspectos del framework 2.0

This book is better than nothing but there is a lot of room for improvement regarding quality. It went a long way towards helping me pass the 70-536 exam. This book has an alarming number of typos in it, tends to gloss over some important items, and is missing some key exam items. I bought this because I didn't want to wait months and months for other resources to become available. If you can wait I suggest you do.

This book seems to cover all the necessary topics for the 70-536 exam, but the errors/typos are totally unacceptable. This is probably the most poorly edited book I've ever read. Repeated paragraphs, copy-and-paste errors, code that doesn't compile....you lose confidence in the book and when something doesn't make sense, I find myself wondering if I don't understand the concept or if it's just another error.

Again, if you can get past the errors, the book does cover all of the necessary topics.

In my humble opinion this is very good book. I didn't take the exam yet so I don't know if it works but after reading over the 50% of this book I can surely say that the way this book is written is the one of the best (for me of course :) ) there are some typos but I can surely recomend it to all who wants to learn new MS technology and of course who wats to take the 70-536 exam :)

For a purpose built training kit, the MCTS serves it's purpose as a reference book quite well, not only giving examples of What and How to perform tasks, The MCTS Training Kit has exam based questions show you can see where many common mistakes can be made. The lack of "Real World" examples can be forgiven, given that most developers are after a code snippet, rather than how to re-design the wheel.
A good all-rounder, a must for anyone wishing to further their skills.

Achei realmente um excelente guia de estudos, com muito exercícios e um ótimo simulador de provas, customizável.

O livro é bem organizado e segue a risca o conteúdo da prova. Estou gostando muito. Eu recomendo.

I am really not sure if anybody could make this book better or easier to read. It is fairly easy to follow; the problem is that there is just a lot of material to go through here. Many of which is probably not appliciable to most programmers BUT apparently is all applicable to the exam, which is why you bought the book, right?

I used this book as my initial source of preparation for the 70-536 and would recommend it not only for the content, but also for the perks the book contains which include a MeasureUp practice test, a 15% off voucher for any Microsoft Certification exam (expires 2010), and a 90-day trial of Visual Studio 2005 for the few readers who would need it.

The book itself does a good job of introducing though not comprehensively explaining each subject area covered by the test. I felt that some of the content was more instructional filler than study guide (e.g. sections such as "What Is Inheritance?" or the verbose "Case Scenarios" which I just skipped over) but all in all I'd say the book is a pretty handy resource.

After having taken the test, I can't recall a question pertaining to a class or concept that this text didn't at least introduce you to.

That said, I wouldn't rely on the book alone in preparing for the test. As mentioned, the book is a good introduction, but I'd highly recommend using the included practice tests and even supplimentary tests (like those from Transcender) to identify any weak areas requiring deeper study.

I personally used the book, its test, and the Transcender tests and Google as preparation material. On the day of the test, it took an hour of answering questions and some pretty fervent prayer, but I was able to pass the exam quite comfortably on my first attempt.

I used this book as my primary resource for the exam, backed up with a transcender for additional practice tests. I passed the exam on the first attempt. Based on that, I'll rate it as 4 stars (more like 3.5).

Yes there are errors - so make sure to get the errata. Do the practice tests on the CD (several times!). I can't imagine not using this book, given that it's the only one at present. If you look at the exam topics on the MS web-site, you could spend weeks or months on MSDN chasing down the relevant information. This book brings it together in one place, and avoids you spending loads of time on irrelevant topics. I think the book covers just enough to get you through the exam - provided you know the content very well. This is not an easy exam.

As for a general .NET book, the various chapters provide a useful introduction to each topic, but don't go into that much depth - just enough for the exam. Part of the issue is the exam covers a very wide range of topics, so it's difficult to go into much more depth without making the book 2,000 pages long.

At the end of the day, it got me through the exam, which is ultimately what matters.

While this book did help me to study for the exam, I've never read any computer book with so many errors.

For example:
- pieces of text copied & pasted from other chapters, then forgetting to change the text
- Wrong headings, e.g. Chapter 9 Table 9-1 and Table 9-2 are both "ConfigurationManager Properties and Methods"
- Bad sample code (e.g. variable declared but not used)
- Bad information, e.g. Chapter 5 (Serialization), section "How to Control SOAP Serialization" is wrong: The SOAP serialization attributes (Table 5-1) applies to the XmlSerializer, not the SoapFormatter being discussed.
- Wrong usage in samples, e.g. chapter 10, lesson 1: EventLog.CreateEventSource overload used in sample deprecated, lesson 2: author claims you need a DefaultTraceListener for Debugger.Log, and lots of other cases.
- Unnecessary "cute" personal stories, e.g: "Practically every application I have ever developed has used collections extensively. For example, I have used collections to store lists of e-mail messages that I am ready to process in an e-mail system I wrote some years ago". Some years ago? No recent development? "The generic LinkedList class is a type of collection that is new to .NET, though the concept is well worn and tested. In fact, I remember writing a LinkedList in college". Not necessary to tell the readers you've never written a linked list in the real world.

I found Chapter 9 (Installing and Configuring Applications) particularly bad in terms of the usefulness of the content. The topic isn't that difficult, but the samples just don't demonstrate the ideas very well.

The typos etc are acceptable, but when it appears that the authors know less about programming than the reader, then it creates a really bad impression for Microsoft Press.

I'm sorry I didn't rather wait for Amit Kalani's book instead.

Good book. Gives us a good overview of various topics covered in the exam. Has a few errors. But, we could figure it out. It comes with 300 exam practice questions, answers and links to MSDN. If you cover all the topics in the book, and go through the MSDN links provided in the CD, it will help us give a good shot at the exam. I used this book and transcender practice test. I passed the exam in my first attempt. The MCTS exam is tough. That makes it covetable.
RJ