I never got my MCSE before so I didn’t go the upgrade path, I started from scratch in the middle of May.

Here is a quick rundown of the exams I took:

Exam 70-640 (earns MCTS: Windows Server 2008 Active Directory Configuration)

This exam was pretty easy as I spend most of my days working with AD. Be sure to know the new features of AD in 2008, as well as what is required to make them work. If you already have enough AD experience but you’re lacking on the 2008 side of things, reading the AD chapter of this book should be enough for you: http://www.amazon.com/Introducing-Windows-Server-M…

Exam 70-642 (earns MCTS: Windows Server 2008 Network Infrastructure Configuration)

There isn’t that much new networking stuff in 2008, but NAP is a big one. Make sure to learn how NAP works.

Exam 70-643 (earns MCTS: Windows Server 2008 Applications Infrastructure Configuration)

This is the exam I found the most interesting of all 5, because it got me reading about new Terminal Services features and IIS7 which has some new cool stuff. I read this book to prepare for it http://www.amazon.com/MCTS-Self-Paced-Training-70-… . Make sure you concentrate on the new features. If you already know IIS and Terminal server you should be fine by reading about only the new stuff. Oh, I also got my Charter Member certification on this one. Can’t wait to get my Welcome kit.

Exam 70-620 (earns MCTS: Windows Vista Configuration)

The hardest exam, to me. Yep.

Probably because I don’t use it, and because a lot of questions revolve around Internet explorer, Windows media player, Media center, Windows Defender, and various crap that any sane person doesn’t use. Why did I take this exam instead of Exam 70-624 (earns MCTS: Business Desktop Deployment)? Because I didn’t have any book to prepare for desktop deployment, and this isn’t an area I’m too specialized into, and I wanted to be one of the firsts with the MCITP:Enterprise Admin. However, I think it is ridiculous for a certification that calls itself “Enterprise Admin” to have this option.

70-624 should be required, and 70-620 shouldn’t even be proposed. I didn’t read any book, never used Aero (well I did, for 4minutes), and yet I still passed, just with common sense. The exam was easy because there was never a single question with 4 options that made sense. Sure, I had a crappy score, but I’d rather score 700 and pass without wasting time reading about something I don’t enjoy/don’t need to know when I could be reading about something useful than score 1000 after wasting hours of my life reading books to learn by heart stuff that anyone can figure out in seconds of clicking around the GUI

/rant

Exam 70-647 PRO: Windows Server 2008, Enterprise Administrator

If you have passed the previous exams, especially the one about Active Directory and Networking, you should have no problem passing this one easily, as it is almost a review of the theory learned previously. It seems to focus more on design than actual “doing”.

Conclusion

Maybe it’s because this is the first revision of the exams, but I feel they are too easy. With Microsoft introducing a very high level Master certification, I feel there should be something between MCITP:EA and Master of Windows Server/Directory services. Also, the whole idea that every single exam = a MCTS certification seems to be designed for 8 years old who can’t work towards a long term goal and need immediate reward for their “hard” work.

Ned Pyle at Technet has a great article about verifying on his blog

You could only set one for the domain..any other policy defined at the OU level would be applied to local accounts only.

How many times did I wish I could set a different password policy for service accounts ! I had to decide between relying on people to use good service account passwords or forcing end-users to use insane passwords. So we had to trust the people creating the service accounts..

Different departments requiring different policies for auditing purposes were also a reason to setup a separate domain. That means at least two new servers, more management time..ew!

In 2008, if you are running AD in Windows 2008 Native mode, you can now create PSOs (Password Settings Objects)  and therefore apply different password policies to different security groups!

This is absolutely awesome and is a very good argument to migrate to 2008.

See this Technet article about Password Settings Objects/Fine-grained password policies , and use this great tool (PSOMgr from Joeware) to play with the settings, instead of using Adsiedit.

I wonder when Microsoft will have a nice interface to create these..

Oh yeah, and my other favorite reason is Read-Only DCs..let’s say they both rank as #1 reasons

I prepared by reading Configuring Windows Server 2008 Applications Infrastructure in diagonal, really quickly.

If you already have OK knowledge (and I don’t mean GOOD by any means, I’m not GOOD with Sharepoint services or even IIS..just OK) of Sharepoint, IIS, and Terminal Server, you should be fine by just learning the new features of IIS7, Terminal server in 2008, as well as KMS and MAK activation. There will be a few questions on DRM and Windows Media server, but nothing really complicated.

4 exams to go for the whole MCITP:Enterprise Admin..