This book alone covers about 85% of what you need to know to pass the test. I would recommend a cbt or transender on the topic as well.

great certification tool!!!
but u will need also transcenders for exam preparation. contact me on my gmail account (certstuff). i will send u a list of transcenders i can sell u, 10$ each one. thnks

I have this book because I purchase MCSE Training kit (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0735619530/ref=pd_rvi_gw_2/102-4874099-2083325?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance&n=283155) in order to prepare to take an MCSE certificate. Currently I just finish reading this book. I didn't review an MCSE training kit because I didn't read the other three books.

In my opinion, this book was building only the background of windows server 2003. All of its topic just introduce you to use the feature that ship with windows 2003 only. If you want to take this book and pass an exam, I recommend you not just reading this book. You should read the other book in addition to collect more knowledge and experience. The other solution that you should do is practic as much as possible from the topic in the book. I didn't take an exam yet but I just only take the test from the 2nd part of the book after I complete reading and pract all of the lesson from the first section. After the test, I found that many question are out of scope of the book explaination. If you do not read additional book to gain more information, I guess that you won't be able to pass an exam. My case a good example, i just read and practic all of topic in this book but after I have the test i only get 50% of the score. This will not pass an exam while Microsoft require 70% to pass an exam. The topic that should have addition reading are:

- Disk storage.
- WMI.
- Back up and restore.
- System recovery.
- Software update service.
- Group polocies.
- File and print server.
- Server performance.
- ...

These topic also write in a separate book in much more detail. I plan to have an exam next and now prepare to read additional documentation to fill up my knowledge.

I found this book completely obtuse, peripheral, lacking depth, organization, and insight.

It is written by a couple of guys who probably know what they're doing, but have no clue how to communicate that information to anyone else - leaving out basic information that might actually be useful to the reader.

Multiple readings of the same material does not yield further insights. Overall, I found this to be a frustating, useless book. Get the Exam Cram series book instead.

I would like to give it a zero star if it were there. I read it through but it totally disappointed me. it left so much out, totally uncovered, such as terminal server, which is listed as examinable part. Even the 70-270 book from microsoft press is a total rubbish. The parts covered are not deep enough to help you understand for the exam. For those who work on MSCE, I highly recommend sybex books in stead of Microsoft RUBBISH.

I enjoyed working through this book. It was written in a pleasant administrator to administrator style, and I especially liked the "Why this chapter matters", and "Troubleshooting Labs". Nice touch.

What I especially appreciated, is that the exercises don't take you through every mouse click. They often just say "do this". If you don't know how, you can find out using online help, but it doesn't waste the time of those who (should) know how.

Just the right level for me, coming from Windows 2000 server, and a vast improvement on the Windows 2000 training guide!

I enjoyed working through this book. It was written in a pleasant administrator to administrator style, and I especially liked the "Why this chapter matters", and "Troubleshooting Labs". Nice touch.

What I especially appreciated, is that the exercises don't take you through every mouse click. They often just say "do this". If you don't know how, you can find out using online help, but it doesn't waste the time of those who (should) know how.

Just the right level for me, coming from Windows 2000 server, and a vast improvement on the Windows 2000 training guide!

If it would be possible then I would give this book a 'no star' rate.

The reason why I am so hard with my judgment is that the book does not cover the topics deep enough so you will pass the exam. Some of the topics are even completely missing like for example VBScript. The topic Terminal Services is completed with 20 pages which way to less.

If you rely on this book and you will go to the exam you will experience a huge surprise what questions are waiting for you. With this book there is no chance in my opinion that that you pass the exam the first time.

Another reason why I gave this book one star is that it is from the manufacturer of the software itself and it is more than a shame that Microsoft published such a book.

My recommendation is ... don't waste you time with this book ....look some where else. I put this book away and bought one from Syngess and I passed the exam at the first attempt and believe me it was not because I read this book first.

I am shocked by all the bad reviews for this book. This book covered all the exam objectives front to back and was very thorough taking the reader through each topic.

I do believe that any test taker should combine any book with a good set of practice questions to ultimately prepare you for the exam. The questions supplied with the book are excellent and to me were very difficult.

I passed the exam and was very happy with this book and it's test prep content.

I used this book to study for the 70-290 exam and passed with a 930/1000.

I notice that most folks complain about the content of Microsoft Press books, but I have a strong feeling that they went in knowing nothing about the material they were studying.

The book clearly states that you should have 12-18 months experience with Windows technologies in a network environment and and understanding of Active directory and group policy. If you dont have the experience, use the trial version of server that comes with the book and dig around, become familliar with the basic concepts and do all the tutorials in the book, you WILL pass the exam if you study.

It IS possilbe to easily pass the exam using this book alone, despite what others have said in other reviews.

This book was one of the WORST test prep books I have ever used, across ALL fields.

The book skims the surface of various topics, and if indeed all the test wanted you to do was have a superficial knowledge of how to "sort of" get things done, you'd be set.

However, the 70-290 test requires you to have an in-depth knowledge of how to get around the 2003 environment, something which this book IN NO WAY prepares you for.

DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK if you want to pass your test! It will give you a false sense of security and knowledge.

Oh, and the CD that's included WITH the book? It references ANOTHER book throughout all 400 test questions! Want to look something up from the test review to study it better? TOO BAD! It's in ANOTHER book!

Again, let me state, do NOT buy this book if you want to prepare for the 70-290. Perhaps buy it if you're preparing to prepare for the test, or want a generalized overview of Server 2003.

I always read the Microsoft books for the exams and they usually do not have enough information to pass the exam. This book is better than other books for other exams. The book comes with a CD with more than 400 questions on it. It includes in the book at least 100 questions in the book too. Older books used to contain basic and dummy questions. This book contains questions more complicated than the exam questions. It tries to cover most of the chapters, but not all. You will need to buy or read the books or references recommended by this one to pass the exam.

This book also includes real scenarios and important recommendations. Anyway the book is a little boring for me, but to be honest is the best book published by Microsoft that I've read.

Another thing that I do not like is that the CD uses another book (the administration companion book) as a reference for the questions on the CD. :-\ People expects to pass the exam reading one book, but it seems that Microsoft likes us to buy many many books for the exam.

The first thing I'll point out is that Craig Zacker is not even an MCP! This is a poor atempt at an exam preperation guide for the 70-290 exam by a man who could not pass the exam himself if he tried. I've studied for exams on nt 4.0, server 2000, SQL, and rarely have I seen such a lack of understanding of the material by an author. For as thick and heavy as this book is there should be three times the information in it.

I'm tired of people saying microsoft is trying to make the exams harder to add legitamacy to the certification. After reading the entire self study series it is apearant that Microsoft has attempted to make it harder to achieve the MCSE by limmiting students access to good information. Quite frankly the exam questions haven't gotten any better, it's the study materials that are getting worse. The sad thing is unless you have already mastered the technology how are you going to notice?

RT
MCT, MCSE, MCSA, MCDBA, Master Instructor MS Office

If you are familiar with working in an Active Directory domain then this book can fill in the blanks. I wouldn't recommend it to a beginner in server administration, one of the Sybex books might be a better starting point, but this book gets in depth with the "need-to-know" information for the 70-290 exam.

The format works for me, the first section goes step-by-step through configuring a Windows Server 2003 system with lessons followed by open-ended sample questions and follow-along labs. This approach works as it walks you through from the very beginning of installing the OS (included on CD) to configuring a variety of services and performing administration tasks. You learn the topic, you quiz yourself, then you do a practical portion. Getting the hands-on and seeing it work is key to success.

The second portion goes over the exam objectives. This helps to gauge the areas in which you are strong and those which need improvement. It also details all the "subject domains" you are expected to know for the test, and is shorter than the first, making it useful as a cram guide to keep the topics fresh.

The book includes Microsoft Windows 2003 Server Enterprise Edition 180-day trial on CD for following along through the labs, as well, the second CD includes a test engine to gauge your subject matter knowledge and preparation readiness. It also includes the book in PDF format, as well as two other full eBooks, Security Encyclopedia and Networking Encyclopedia, both from MS Press, and both are great for reference with excellent content. CD 2 also includes sample chapters from other MS Press books which can help explain some concepts further and are really worth the read.

I am very pleased overall with this package, the book is well layed out, the content is in-depth, and the extras go above and beyond was is typically expected of a certification guide, inluding extra eBooks and chapters of eBooks pertinent to the subject matter.

I have a good deal of experience with a Server 2003 environment and I found I learnt a lot regardless, but this book may be a bit overwhelming for new administrators. Again, if you are new to Server 2003, the Sybex 70-290 guide might be the best start, but this book is a great value and easily my favorite from MS Press to date.

This book will act as a guide to teach you concepts and introduce you to the technologies of Server 2003, not teach you all of the specific technologies in depth.

Long gone are the days of read book, take test as far as the MCSE is concerned. Microsoft is determined to add credibility to the MCSE certification and when you take this test for the first time you will see just how true this is.

For every 10 NT MCSE's I know, I know about 1 2000 MCSE, and for every 10 2000 MCSE's I know, I know about 1 2003 MCSE. This is a very difficult certification to obtain now. Plan on taking at least a year to achieve it unless you already have 2+ years experience with Active Directory. I have over 6yrs now in the industry and this track took me almost 18 mos. If you are not ready to make that sort of a commitment then this certification is not for you.

"Ed"

MCSE/MCSA/MCP/MCT on Server 2003

Ok guys.....Let me begin by saying. I am working on my MSCA, and just purchased a simliar book. I have read all of the reviews on all of the MSCA or MSCE preparation books and have yet to read a good one. It seems that no one has written anything to help you pass the MSCE OR MSCA...but somehow people seem pass these exams?

I just recently just pass my A+ exam. Neither Jean Andrews or Mike Myers ( after reading them both) gave me actual preparation for either the hardware or software test... but still passed the A+ .

Before going and forming a conclusion based on what someone else thinks. Think about this... Bottom line is people want to be spoon feed the information, and go pass a test. IF that were the case, the test would be easy, and then everyone would be certified. Then the being MSCA or MSCE would be useless and crap.

Chapters are very informative and a must read. However, answers of the Objective review questions in the book are not matching with the answers of the same questions in the CD.
Example: Objective 5.3 Questions section, question #3 has "(A)THe server will continiue operating and no data will be lost." as correct answer.
The same question on CD is answered as (B) All data will be lost, a stripe set rather than RAID-5 is required for fault tolerance."

And the erreta has no correction to that along with other mistakes.

CD has also incomplete question lines and poorly constructed questions.

I'm not sure what problems the other reviewers ran into, but the MS Press book I read was an excellent prep guide for the 70-290 test. I passed it recently with a score of 850 and relied on this book and the included Readiness Review Suite CD for 90 to 95% of my preparation for this test. The exercises were clear and straightforward, and the explanations were pretty thorough. I wouldn't recommend this book to an absolute beginner - but then again, if you know little about server management or sys admining, you shouldn't be taking this test anyway.

The sample test questions towards the back and the MeasureUp tests (while prone to the occasional error) do give you a realistic feel for how hard the MCSE test is and how complex the questions are.

As with all guides, this book should hardly be used as a sole source of material - but combine this with another prep guide (I used the ExamCram book) and you are well on your way to passing. Again, I achieved a score of 850 on my first attempt at taking this test.

Minus a few errors and lack of detail on a few areas (IIS as someone else mentioned) this is a great book for prepping for this exam.

Want to have some fun? Get (notice that I said "get" and not "buy") this book and install the included MS Press Readiness Review suite (powered by Measure Up). Go into "Objective Review" mode and start a test. The questions are truncated, thus missing critical information needed to answer the questions, and are therefore COMPLETELY USELESS!! This happened on virtually every question, until I gave up in disgust. And this is not a window sizing issue. This happens on a 1280 x 1024 display with the window maximized. There are no horizontal scroll bars present. The text simply runs off the edge of the screen in incomplete sentences into never never land. Unbelievable. I'll be contacting Amazon and insisting on a refund for DEFECTIVE PRODUCT.

Frankly, I'd embarked on the certification path because I thought it would be a good career move. But based on the practice exams I've seen (which all vary wildly in content), I now regard the whole process as a joke. The degree of minutiae that one is apparently expected to memorize in order to pass these tests is absurd, especially with regard to the new Windows 2003 command line commands and options. I've been a successful sys admin for the past 15 years, and people don't work this way. Why memorize some obscure command that you may need once in a blue moon, when on-line help is a mouse click away? It's all a moneymaking scam, courtesy of the people in Redmond, WA.

The book is bad enough - it does not cover all the topics needed to pass the exam, and on those it does cover it does not go into sufficient depth. Somehow the authors expect you to have access to stacks of hardware and software licenses in order to complete the "practice" exercises, and the objective review questions in the book are minimal.

Then you get to the test suite, which comes on a CD with the book. The software design is fine, with an interface similar to that of the actual exam, but the questions are mediocre, the explanations (for study assistance) are insufficient, the references are to more materials that they want you to purchase, and some of the answers are flat-out wrong! I had two consecutive questions on a practice test whose answers contradicted each other (specifically, regarding "Account Logon" vs. "Logon" events in the System log) and the references were not to the text of the book, but to a separate Administrator's Companion that Microsoft wanted me to spend an additional $70 to obtain. Also, the questions in their practice test focus excessively on unimportant details like where to click to achieve certain results and not enough on comprehension of Active Directory hierarchy and policy.

I passed the exam on the second attempt, no thanks to this book. The first time I took it, I was under-prepared, even after taking many "practice tests" and reading the book cover to cover. I recommend seeking additional resources if you intend to pass on the first try. The only reason I give it more than 1 star is that the writing in the book itself isn't horrible, and it contains some useful information - on backups and disk management, for instance.

One would think that purchasing the official Microsoft Press self-study guide would be the best way to study for MCSE Core Exam 70-290 without taking expensive instructor-led courses. Apparently, this is not the case. Of course, Microsoft has no other recommendations for supplementary study for this exam, only this book. So here you are, this is your only choice.

After reading some of the reviews here, I had my reservations but decided that they were unfounded because Microsoft wrote the book and Microsoft wrote the exam, it didn't make sense to go to a third party for information for the exam.

I am extremely disappointed with the quality of this title. The lessons are not organized and skip steps, apparently assuming that the reader has the ability to read the author's mind. There doesn't appear to be a logical progression from chapter to chapter, lesson to lesson. Or perhaps they expect you to already know the content, but then this begs the question: What is the point of a study guide? Just go test out.

Out of the world's largest software company that makes hundreds of millions of dollars annually, I would have expected a top-notch title complete with though lessons and real-world information. I also would have expected a toll-free number where I could request a refund if I wasn't happy with the purchase. I have yet to locate the quality lessons a handful of reviewers speak of, and no telephone number to speak of - toll free or otherwise.

Regardless, this title most definitely should not be considered to be the excellent study aid Microsoft has billed it as. At best, it is someone's shorthand notes published as a hardcover book with a shiny cover with a 15% off coupon taped to the inside back cover as a come-on.

This book had a lot of promise - lots of lab activities, a sample copy of Server 2003, a CD with sample test questions, and even a 15% coupon off the cost of your certification exam. But I only made it to chapter 3 before giving up in frustration. The lessons are disorganized and hard to follow, the labs skip steps, and some of the review questions at the end of the chapter don't cover stuff discussed in the chapter. I think the final clincher was the lab where I had to create user accounts from a command line for "Danielle Tiedt" and "Lorrin Smith-Bates". With all the text I had to type, why not use a simple name such as "Bob Smith" so I don't have to worry about typos?

This is, by far, the worst preparation book I have used. The exercises in the book are misleading, and oftentimes wrong causing the reader to be lost and having to look for answers on their own. I defintely would not recommend this book to anyone much less a newbie trying to obtain their 2003 certification. I unfortunately bought this book in the Core Exam pack, so the jungle of certification will probably not end once I pass this exam and move on to the others. If I were to give a word of advice to the authors, it would be to please go over your material again. Readers who bought this book would be better off not to use any of the exercises that are in here. I feel terrible giving this book a rating of 1 star. That is too much praise for a book that is so terribly written.

After 5 weeks of studying, I passed this exam.

Overall, the book did a pretty good job. The chapters/lessons that lack the most, when relaying the information presented in the book to the test, are the chapter concerning managing disks and the lesson on IIS 6.0. Real world experience is the best I could find to help me when presented with many of the disk management questions. (In case you're wondering, I had the fixed length test.) There just wasn't enough "meat" in that area. The lesson on IIS 6 was just a bit shy of a teaser. It's on the CD... install it. Everything else in the book was covered rather well.

If you want to pass this exam, start reading section one, then move on to section two and do all of the related readings. Keep in mind that no book is absolutely flawless. Anything that you don't know like the back of your hand, research on Technet. Most importantly of all... an evaluation version of Windows Server 2003 (Enterprise Edition) comes with the book; install it, use it, and push yourself to your limit. Then push some more.

I've yet to find this book to be any help. It makes it sound simple and easy but there are a lot of easy examples and a lot of filler. I've done the real test twice, making worse the second time even after buying Measure-Up practice tests and re reading the books I have. Microsoft makes the test even harder the second time and have the nerve to claim that they don't. The manager at the testing center admitted that they do but he doesn't know why.
I'm beginning to understand why a lot of people don't really like Microsoft.
I'm disappointed in much of the so called training material that is being offered for this test and am beginning to think that it's all a big plot to relieve poor slobs of their money, me included.
Read and use this book at your own risk.

What do you get when you take the Exam Objectives off the Microsoft site and add a bunch of random filler? Another disappointing MS Press title. I use to be able to rely on a MS Press book to get me through an exam (along with my extensive experience). I remember when MS Press meant something. Here I am with a NT4 and 2K MCSE and after reading this book fail the test. I knew something was wrong as I read the book. There is/was NO DEPTH. If you are studying for the 70-290 go elsewhere.

I achieved my MCSE/NT4.0 primarily with the use of Alan Carter's MCSE Study Guide and some hands-on experience in the work place. I was able to successfully install multiple W2K servers for a client with Carter's Windows 2000 Study Guide. Now I figure it's time to upgrade the cert and read the best book I could find --- The MCSA/MCSE Windows Server 2003 Environment Self-Paced Training Kit by Microsoft Press. Wow, this book is NOTHING compared to Carter's books. I DO NOT recommend solely relying on this book. First, it starts off with some cockamamey directions on installing W2K3 Server (180-day version comes with the book). The instructions throughout this book (AND other MS Press books) have been written BACKWARDS. In the REAL WOLRD, we tell someone, "Click on Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Defrag..." --- in these books they say, "Use the {tool} in the System Tool Folder, from Accessories, in Programs, Start." No joke. The next chapter doesn't deal with configuring the Server, but rather jumps to "Administering" it with Tools (MMC, Remote Assistance, Terminal Services) BEFORE there is anything there to administer. Service Packs and Licensing aren't addressed until CHAPTER 9 --- AFTER Printers. Where's the logic in this presentation? FINALLY, to make matters worse for those who desire to pass the exam, try using the "MeasureUp" testing software that comes with these books. There are 132 questions in the Objective Review / 300 in the Practice Test mode. By the time I got to the 21st question I had already found THREE errors in the answers they presented --- and one of those answers even said it was incorrect! I DO NOT recommend MeasureUp as a reliable testing tool. Double-check all your answers against mulitple resources, and check out other products (like selftest/transcender). Be wary, nothing is perfect, but geeze, with as much cash as MS has you'd THINK that they'd be able to hire some logical book writers and pay some technical proof-readers before giving MeasureUp their stamp of approval???

I did the exam 2 weeks ago (passed) after using this book along with Trancenders but struggled in the exam.

You would need to have a second book to give you a rounded view of the subject areas. Also the exam is based on a lot of real world examples not covered in the text (a lot of stuff on backing-up) also a lot of areas in the book were not in the exam.

If you are new to 2003 spend some time working with the material before tackling the exam.

This is probably the tenth Microsoft Press book I've purchased, and it is no different than the rest of them. While the technical aspects of the material seem adequate, I think there needs to be more detail. The exams always seem to contain a few questions that only Technet can help you answer. An exeption to this was the Microsoft Press MCSE study guide for 70-216, which was very detailed. Another bad thing about this publication (70-290) is the CD, which contains a few typographical errors and what I believe to be wrong answers on a few of the Readiness Review questions; namely a claim that a RAID-5 array isn't fault tolerant, which it clearly is. If you are considering purchasing this book, please do yourself a favor and check it out first. Read through some of it, and verify its accuracy with other publications or online material. The 2003 Server Administrators Guide is much better written and contains more real world scenarios than this book. Use it as a backup. Hope this review helps, and good luck on the exam.

Poorly written and way out of context. My advice to anyone wishing to learn the real ins and outs of 2003 server would be to buy Mark Minasi's book - he offers much better advice geared towards the real world and his chapter on DNS is far superior to the drivel written in this publication.
I particuarly dislike the monotonous tone that so often is the down fall of Microsoft publications.
On the upside - this book is given it's blessing by *Microsoft* - so it must have something going for it. The section on Group Policy is not bad.
However - just go to Borders and compare the difference - Minasi's book on 2003 server is *the* bible to have with regards to decent technical writing and explanantions of real world situatios with regards to 2003 server.

If you get handon experience with Windows admin, you will pass even without this book. If you don't have experience, you will fail for sure with this book.

So this book is useless for both. As a reference book for exam, I think this book is not well target at all! consider the contents in this book and what covered in the real exam.

I thought that Holme and Thomas did an excellent job of writing a book designed to help students prepare for and pass the 70-290 exam. They provide a credible alternative to memorizing the thousands of pages in the win2003 Admin Companion, Deployment Kit, Security Guide, etc. The authors were able to distill it down to a dozen or so chapters, plus additional recommended readings before taking the test. Some other reviews seem to criticize it for being disjointed, but the book is clearly designed to help you pass the test, not administer a server (there are lots of other good books for that). Two weeks after buying this book I passed the test on my first try. 'Nuff said.

I bought the whole set of MCSE. I took the first one 70-290. I found that it is difficult to follow.

If you don't know the product, you will not pass. This book will help you pass. If your only experience with Windows Server 2003 is installing it twice and running a few applications then you WILL fail the 70-290 exam no matter what book you buy! The MCSE is not like it was back in the NT4 days when you could train your parrot to pass the exams. You need to know what you are doing. This book is reasonably good at building on the exam objectives, but in some cases you will need to look at Technet. If you buy this book and fail the exam, don't blame the book - have a good look at the amount of experience you had going into the exam with Windows Server 2003. I passed this exam and this book helped (though my experience with the product, and prior Microsoft server operating systems did as well).

This book was terrible. It was disjointed, and very difficult to follow. The organization and flow made no sense to me, and I felt the author, as it typical with MS Press, was long winded. In addition, the additional study tools were useless, unless you had some additional background. Needless to say, I failed this exam, and this book is to blame.

Many books routinely cover "what" to do. Dan teaches us "why". It's a resource written by professionals and intended for professionals, an investment that will pay dividends long after you pass the 70-290 exam. When I see Dan Holme's name on a seminar, I go. When I see his name on a book, I buy.

Having worked in the training industry for several years, I've found that learning through questions (i.e. the Socratic method) is one of the most effective methods of knowledge transfer. That's one of the reasons why I enjoyed the Self-Paced Training Kit. In addition, I thought the questions were very appropriate. By that I mean that they were very similar to the actual exam in format and difficulty. However, unlike some of the illicit practice exams floating around the Internet, they aren't word-for-word rip-offs of the actual exam (a practice I abhor).

The treatment of the material is certainly adequate and given the relative lack of Server 2003 information currently in existence, actually quite a pleasant surprise. The references provided are also sufficient and other readers will enjoy the fact that many of them are available free of charge. In addition, I thought there was a good amount of value-added provided through the CD (e-book is great because it is searchable making for easy location of key concepts) and the discounted exam voucher.

It'll be a while before we can judge how this book will stack up against its competition but given the fact that there is relatively little competition out there right now I'm pretty certain this book is the best of what's currently available.

I hold an MCSE in NT4 and 2000 (and soon 2003). This text covers all of the objectives in a good, if occasionally dry, fashion. Including an exam discount voucher and the book in ebook format was a good idea, though reading such a long text on a PocketPC is a bit of a strain.

The objectives themselves are covered, though not at a level of detail higher than is required to pass the exam. If you are looking for a straigh reference on Windows Server 2003, rather than a reference for the 70-290 exam, you would do better waiting for the Resource Kit to be published. Good pointers are given on where to seek further information if you wish to drill down into a particular topic, but when trying to cover so many topics some readers might find them a little brief. This isn't really a criticism of the book itself as all certification texts suffer from this problem. This particular title suffers less than most from this particular issue.

The questions supplied in the latter chapters are sometimes a little long, though I found them to be of similar length to what I actually encountered in the exam. Some of the questions are harder and some are easier than what you will face on test day. It is fair to say that if you can pass the questions in the written chapters you are in good shape. Some of the questions provided on the bonus test CD are simpler are simpler than the real exam questions. Unlike the questions in the book, passing the questions on the companion CD won't give an accurate indication of your readiness to face the real exam.

Overall I found no glaring errors and I'd recommend this text to other students looking to pursue Windows 2003 MCSA/MCSE certifications.

If you have no experience with Windows 2000 or 2003 you will not pass the exam regardless of which text you buy. I am studying for the MSCE in Windows Server 2003. This text covers all of the objectives for the 70-290 exam. This book also includes a Prometric exam discount voucher and a set of practice questions on the CD in addition to those in the text.

The exam objectives listed on Microsoft's site are covered by this text. The coverage is not deep, but is adequate for those that are attempting the exam who have experience with the operating system. Unexperienced candidates are wasting their time on the new MS certifications and should get some hands on before heading off to the testing center.

The questions in the second part of the book appear well written. They mirror some of the lengthy questions on the actual exam and this aspect of the text was refreshing. Most certification textbooks skimp on the practice questions adding them as an afterthought rather than a feature. To many books ask questions like "what does DNS stand for" and "where would you use DHCP". The first time I tried many of them I got them wrong. When I was getting them right I tried the exam and passed. Until the Transcenders are released, finding good questions will be difficult. Resources like this text are quite valuable.

I'm a current MCSE in Windows 2000, but as a trainer, I decided to get caught up on the current 2003 titles. I recently picked up this book, after taking this exam already. I can tell you without a doubt, this book does not dig deep enough into what you will need to prepare for the exam. The questions themselves are way too easy, there are a number of topics not touched on, and in geneal, this book is very dry. Personally, I feel this book was rushed out the door.