MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-680): Configuring Windows® 7 (Microsoft Press Training Kit) 1st Edition

I originally bought this book to introduce myself to Windows 7 when it first came out, which it helped a lot with. I've understood imaging and troubleshooting Windows PCs for 10+ years and Windows 7 was quite different to me. I never used Vista btw. I started reading through this book thinking I might go take the test later. Cut to 2 years later. Finally started to get serious about studying for the test (now that Windows 8 is out). I originally used this book to help me gain some knowledge about imaging with Windows utilities rather than using Ghost like we'd always done at my company with XP. It was a great help at pointing me in the right direction for that. Not everything is in the book but it does have several links printed in the book for where you can find more info on those free tools. I've been imaging all of our new Windows 7 PCs with the free utilities provided by Microsoft ever since. I now have over 2 years experience doing it and consider myself pretty familiar with the process. That being said, I still struggled studying for this test. After finally reading through the book fully, I started taking the practice exams included in the book. The practice exams are setup like the multiple choice questions you'd get on a real test, however when you answer something wrong you can review why each answer is correct or incorrect with very thorough descriptions. I really liked that part of the practice tests. After taking 3 practice tests, and reviewing chapters of the areas I was lacking in, I finally was able to pass one. I was a little concerned though because I was starting to recognize questions from previous tests since there is only a handful of questions in the test bank. Still feeling good passing a practice test, I scheduled my real test (also taking advantage of the Second Shot, which cannot be used with the 15% off voucher in the back of the book, it's one or the other). I felt very nervous about whether I was ready to take the test so I came to Amazon and stared reading many of reviews on this book to see if people felt it was a good prep book. Everyone complained that the practice tests are not hard enough compared to the real test, and there are several errors in the book (which I myself found several, Raid-5 on Windows 7 is one). There are many one star & two start reviews here that IMO aren't very valid. Many of the people that wrote them are probably people that don't image PCs in their job, or are people fresh out of school that don't really know much about Windows deployments in the corporate world. It's also probably their first MS test and pretty much all of them start with a Desktop test like this one, so take those reviews with a grain of salt. I tried to look for the reviews that listed a passing test score for a real world review of this book. Several pointed to the 70-680 Rapid Review book by the same author, of which all 6 reviews said it was a great companion book to help prep for the test. Feeling I may not be fully prepared for the test and the fact that the other book is only $20 I ordered it with 2-day shipping. It's not a full text book, more of an exam cram pocket book. It goes over all the material in order by asking True/False questions then explaining in more detail about each question. It was a very quick read. I was able read it within the week before my actual test. Even with all that I still failed my first test by maybe a question or 2. A win IMO. There is stuff on the test that is not in either book. Command line utilities for Network Projectors is one (which was easy to guess the right answer but still). I then used my MS print out of the areas I needed work on, one being deploying Windows (Srsly?!? I thought I'd pass that no problem, my issue was with VHDs and the different deployment options with them, none of which I do in my job). The authors are absolutely correct when they say that they are more likely to test over the new features of Windows 7 (BranchCache, AppLocker, BitLocker, VHDs, XP Mode, DISM vs Imagex, WDS, Windows SIM, MDT, Event Viewer Performance counters, Data Collector sets, Resource Monitor, Reliability Monitor, new task manager, & InPrivate Browsing, to name a few). After studying the two areas I clearly failed on my first test for about a month, I rescheduled my free Second Shot (these are the best way to test IMO). I was a lot less nervous the second time around as I knew what to expect. I passed with an 850. I will say this book, the practice tests, the rapid review book, and my job all helped me to pass. If you don't do this stuff in your daily job I'd say actually do the Training tasks in the book (I skipped all of them).

Updated Review in 2020----------------------------Whether it is not enough information. The available information that this book contain still valuable for me until now (2020). I keep this book as a reference and get back to read to the point that I need to accomplish my task as a Freelance IT consultant. Whether technology of windows 7 is out of date but some command and feature still useful in windows 8 or windows 10. Love this book.Thank,KanelReview in 2014------------------I read this book because I want to learn the technology of windows 7, not for an exam purpose. But I feel that the the information from this book is not completely detail as expected. Each lesson from a chapter always include a link of a reference to a full document of the explain feature... Compare to my previous book in Windows XP (exam 70-270), this book has less information than the previous book that I read, Ex. local security policy, wireless security... On the other hand, this book come with only the DVD of the ebook and the webcast of windows. There is no trial version of windows 7 on DVD that it should be include... unlike windows xp that has an evaluation of windows xp on the CD...If you take this book for an exam, you should try to find another book to read more in order to fill up the missing information...

One of the best references I've used IRT the MCTS 070-680 certification. But... Be advised, to pass the test (assuming you are learning this material for the first time) you need to do all the practice labs, read or review all the "For more information..." links and watch all the webcasts included on the CD. If you've never imaged, modified, remotely accessed or deployed Windows in an enterprise, it is essential to have two or more clients that you can load, wipe, reload and 'futz' with. Reading the text will probably NOT give you enough to pass the exam. The preface section does state "It is assumed you've been working with windows for X years" (and you're already familiar with all the numerous utilities, acronyms, abbreviations and dependencies associated with MS Windows...) The MCTS for Windows 7 configuration certification is not a no-brainer, it takes dedicated studying and focused attention. At least for a Solaris/UNIX guy.UPDATE: On 3 January, I passed the exam. The exam date was impacted/delayed by technical issues at the testing center. I augmented my studies with practice exam questions from the internet. Huge Help!

I must say it's hard to give this book an excellent review. The book is good, when it comes to detailed instruction and "How to". There is just about everything you need to know about Windows 7 and all of its features. Some examples inside this book would be: the different ways of migration (Windows Easy Transfer, USMT 4.0, Side-by-side migrations, Wipe-and-load migrations, WDS, LTI and ZTI), Tools used such as WAIK which uses (Windows SIM, ImageX, Oscdimg, DISM, USMT, and WindowsPE tools) and creating an image with these tools, Group Policy, Firewall, WSUS, SCCM configuration, MMC and loads of Command Line options. I do recommend this book, but beware, there are numerous mistakes such as spelling, grammar and some unforgiving technical mistakes with command line entries. Luckily most of the mistakes are documented in the errata [...], but I found more. Overall it is Good with it could have been Better.

Having read some of the reviews, I was slightly reticent to buy this book, however it does give you a good understanding of the areas with which you need to be familiar, in order to pass the Microsoft 70-680 exam.The book does cover most of the topics in sufficient detail, however I did supplement the material with a free video course, I found on the internet.Bar the grammatical errors, and laboured attempts to use gender specific pronouns, my biggest criticisms of the book are as follows. - The failure to present certain comparison data in tabular form. - The limited number of questions in the practice exams. - The exam discount code was not accepted by Prometric. - Syntax errors. - Missing steps in certain procedures.The upside of having errors in the book was, the sheer fact that I had to do additional research meant that I remembered the topic better.I did not use the virtual machine software, as I have a virtual server running ESXi.Despite all its shortcomings, as I said earlier, the book seems to cover the subject matter sufficiently. Hitherto, I have been an ordinary home user of Windows 7, with no enterprise level exposure, however I passed the exam with the aid of this book.Purely due to the fact that it got me through the exam, I have scored this book highly.

To begin with I have had this book a couple of months now have read it twice; it's good for a reference when you're having one of those days where you forget a topic. But as far as a standalone study material goes I have to question it.The bad:To begin with; it has spelling errors and worst of all it has command line errors; so you often sit there thinking "Something doesn't seem right here..." Instead of learning, you're having to go through the topic looking for errors. Not a major problem as it's not in every single area but there are one too many.The book seems to be very dry; it's often difficult to make a study book interesting to read but this book feels almost robotic. "First do this, then this, and then this, why not do this, then to do that". There is no flavour in-between topics.The good:It's in depth; it explains how and why you would perform these tasks in a small / large company and how the user would benefit. This is one of the areas I like about the book; it shows you real world scenario's of why you would want to implement what you learned.If you're sitting the exam:I would recommend not just taking this book to study with, pick up other test material along side.

A very good study guide, Points you in the right direction for passing the exam. Overall the book is well laid out and follows the exam objectives in a logical order and was easy to follow. However the book does contain mistakes and typo's. Especially in the first chapters, (chapter 2) Page 67/68 creating windows PE CD Rom, the correct information was obtained from Microsoft Technet spring board series of articles. Microsoft press has addressed this issue somewhat, you can download the ammended pages from the microsoft press website.The book does prepare you for the exam but the resources'at the Technet web site were useful to ensure you had the most up to date information and to give the full syntax for the CMD line instructions used in the exam.The practice test included on the cd point you in the right direction for the exam although the chapter tests do not accurately represent the exam.The book is a good reference guide.

Much of the information in this book is very good, but as it was written several years ago now some of it seems a bit dated. A couple of times in the practical sections of the lessons they are giving you step by step instructions to use certain programs but because the programs have now been updated and the new revision are slightly different it gets a bit difficult to follow the steps as described. For example at the time of writing the book MDT2010 was still in development and the steps for using this program are slightly different from using the current version which is MDT 2012.It would have been better if instead of relying on certain versions of programs still being available online they should have just supplied them on the CD that comes with the book.

I'm so far, very surprised at this book. The first chapter I breezed through but I have really struggled with chapter 2 due to the number of errors in the script code or just code that does do what it is supposed to do! Seriously it's REALLY bad! I managed to work most of it out with the aid of Google but just really frustrated. It's so hard to learn something when none of the examples work!Really quite amazed that this book has been published like that. At the end of the day I will continue with the book because I want to pass the exam and if I do pass then I guess I'll have to amend this review accordingly but please be aware - there are plenty of errors in here to "keep you on your toes"!!