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| Johnno 2003-10-30, 2:29 am |
| Tackled the 292 today and passed. Hopefully not violating the NDA but these were my feelings:
No score given. I had 2 hours to answer 56 Questions. Finished with about 15min to spare. Probably the hardest MS exam I’ve done, although I have only done about 10.
I attended 2209 and 2210 courses and the 2209 definately doesn't cover enough for the exam. Heaps of questions with simulations. Drag and Drop stuff into the right places and that kind of thing.
Heaps of questions on GPO management and restrictions. Quite a few on troubleshooting Terminal Services.Heaps of simulations.Heaps on DNS hostname resolving. Some EFS & DFS. A couple on SUS.There was a simulation question on VB scripting as well where you had to place a the correct line of code in the correct place in a script file. I have no doubt that I got that wrong.
Did I mention there were heaps of simulations?
I am looking at the 296 now as most here would. Other trainers I know that have taken it said that it was a real demon. As yet I don't know anyone personally who has passed it. I guess some of you in this forum would have and all I can say there is Kudos to you.
I think I'll wait for a few weeks until some good reference material comes out. I have the MS training kit at the moment and am obviously running Win2K3 on my machines as well as VMWare machines.
If anyone who has studied and passed 296 could recommend references I would be most appreciative.
Take Care | |
| B4yaman3 2003-10-30, 7:48 am |
| Congrats on a job well done. Keep it up!! | |
| JohnnyBeGood 2003-10-30, 6:00 pm |
| And welcome to the 296 club.
JohnnyB | |
| jeff_j_black 2003-10-30, 6:42 pm |
| Congrats!!! | |
| Dee0719 2003-10-31, 12:50 pm |
| Congrat Johnno, What is the best study material for this exam?. | |
| Johnno 2003-11-01, 4:47 am |
| quote:
Originally posted by Dee0719
Congrat Johnno, What is the best study material for this exam?.
G'day mate,
I used the MOCs from the 2209 and 2210 courses. Also using the MS Self PAced TRg Kit: isbn 0-7356-1971-9. I also have a lab network setup running Win2K3 enterprise servers.
If you do the CTEC courses though, there is not enough info in the curriculum to cover the exam. Clustering is not even covered. Oh, at home for clustering I use Multiple Virtual Servers set up in VMWare. If you don't have this software I highly recommend it. You need buku amounts of RAM though.
For the 296 I will confinue to use the MS SPTK book, but am always on the lookout for other books that people here and on usenet newsgroups recommend.
The 292 isn't too bad, especially if you work with the tachnology. Just have to watch out for nebulous questions is all. You probably already know that a lot of these exams don't really test knowledge properly, but test exam taking skills. Practical Labs would be more realistic. But alas, I am but a little sprat in a big sea.
L8r. Good luck. | |
| btroadman 2003-11-01, 10:34 pm |
| Looks like you are in the same boat as the rest of us here. The 292 was relatively simple, made me feel confident on taking the 296 until I stepped into the latest forums. My confidence has been shaken down to that of the Cowardly Lion. | |
| Johnno 2003-11-02, 3:11 am |
| quote:
Originally posted by btroadman
...made me feel confident on taking the 296 until I stepped into the latest forums. My confidence has been shaken down to that of the Cowardly Lion.
Apparently MS got quite a bit of flak from CTECs at a trainers conference in New Orleans earlier on. The were a bit miffed that the courseware to prep MCSEs for the 296 was inadequate and didn't nearly cover enough.
So I guess there are a couple of options, MS change their exam/course content, or we memorise every single nebulous detail and command line switch option we can in order to pass when in reality we would access reference material. ( or hit /?  )
I certainly hope that they change the course content in the MOCs, as IT personnel pay about $500 a day here in NZ to attend the training.
Now what we really need is labs... | |
| genocyber 2003-11-02, 3:40 am |
| Johnno,
I have VMWare GSX Server and I need some advice on how I can setup VMWare to run a number of clustered Windows 2003 servers.
Any advice will be appreciated.
Also how much ram do you need per virtual machine. I currently have 1 GB of RAM.
Regards Genocyber | |
| Johnno 2003-11-06, 5:07 pm |
| Hey genocyber,
Getting a little off topic here. If you email me with your concerns I'll help you as best I am able.
As for the RAM you will need enough to allocate sufficient RAM to each VM. As an example you will need to allocate 512Mb minimum to each 2k3 server that runs SUS. You no doubt know what all the min specs are. Also when you allocate RAM it takes it away from your host system and cannot be used there.
At the end of the day you need heaps of grunt to run decent VMs, but man what an awesome tool.
Stay safe. | |
| drhixson 2003-11-07, 1:10 pm |
| I just passed the 296, on my second attempt. it is hard, very hard.
I used mspress, technet, and I upgraded all my servers to work to 2003 several months ago. With all that, I felt like i had a shot.
This exam is not for the faint of heart. There are some really difficult questions. | |
| jeff_j_black 2003-11-07, 10:32 pm |
| Congrats! I am inspired by your efforts. | |
| drhixson 2003-11-07, 11:16 pm |
| Hey Jeff, when are you planning to take yours? | |
| jeff_j_black 2003-11-08, 1:19 pm |
| It will be a while, maybe early in the new year. | |
| Tarzanboy 2003-11-08, 3:47 pm |
| A little late, but congratulations gentlemen.
Cheers,
TB |
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