MCSE Upgrade

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Hi everyone

I started my MCSE in W2K almost 9 years ago and thought i had passed everything and forgot all about it. For the last 3 years i have been working as an IT Manager in Dubai but just recently i have been thinking about upgrading my MCSE 2k to 2003 as i am the only one who doesnt have it and that is all i deal with now but after looking back through my certifications and pass printouts i have realised that i never passed 70-217. No wonder i have no MCSE certificate

Now here is the problem. Do i have to retake all the exams again from scratch in either 2003 or 2008 or is it still possible in some way to do an upgrade?? I have read that M/Soft have now retired the 217 exam so i can't do that.

Any advice regarding this would be greatly appreciated as i dont want to sit 7 exams again from scratch but if that is the case i guess i will do the 2008 syllabus.

I have tried contacting M/Soft but have got no reply!!

Thanks in advance

 

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unfortunately you will have to start over.

MS retired the 2k - 2k3 upgrade exams at the end of March this year. Along side this they also retired all of the 2k exams.

What you may find though is that some of your exams are still relevant and can be used as part credit for the MCSE 2003 track. take a look here.

You may opt to miss out the 2003 track entirely however and start fresh on one of the new MCITP tracks.

 

Hi, i am sorry to say that because the 217 is retired and it is one of the 3 client core exams needed, i don't think it is posible.

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcp/mcse/requirements.mspx

 

Thanks for the replies.

I thought as much. Its probably be going to be more benficial for me to wait now for the 2008 track to start, rather than taking 8 2003 exams then having to upgrade again with another 2 or 3 exams. What a balls up on my part. All those passes now count for nothing academically

 

You could still list them on your CV as individual achievements and state you're currently studying for 2008 path

 

Well, not all is lost. You allready have taken your client exam (70-210) and probably an elective. You also allready took your design exam, so you do not need to do these again.
I think you need to take 4 exams for the 2003 MCSE cert: being (70-)290, 291, 293 and 294.

 

Hi, the 2008 track is different, it is no longer an MCSE the new cert equivilent is MCITP. It is available to start now. Check this link, http://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcp/mcitp/default.mspx

 

I hope your right Tinus. If this is correct i will be a happy chappy.

I have 70-210, 215, 216, I think these were core, and 219, 220, 221 were my electives and design at the time and i'm sure there was another i passed but i dont have my pass papers in front of me to check. The only one i didn't pass was 217 as i forgot to do it.

8 years to pass it then when i get round to it it has been retired

I also have 224 (Exchange), 228 (SQL) so just wondering whether these would count.

If it is only 4 to get my 2003 cert i will do that, then i will upgrade to 2008 in the next couple of years when the OS has become more mainstay in the work place.

Thanks for the links as well guys, you have been a big help. As this has only come to my attention in the last week or so i felt a bit marooned about how i was going to upgrade my certs but your advice has really helped.

Cheers

 

Believe me I am right. I deal with these kind of questions almost every day. I'm a MCT (Microsoft Certified Trainer) and I need to know these things.

To bad as that was not the most diffucult one (that was the 216)

So you're ok on the elective side.

The upgrade exams from 2003 to 2008 are not the hardest one you can think of. You'll need 3 more for the 2008 MCITP. That will be a Vista exam (7--620 or 70-624), an upgrade exam (70-649) and an administrator exam (70-646 for server admin and 70-647 for enterprice admin).

Stick around a bit a tell us how you are coping with the exams. Beware of the 291...

 

Yes i will do mate. Its been a few years since i was a regular poster on an IT forum. I think once you pass your exams you tend to just drift away into the job and your academic achievements tend to go on the back burner, until like me you a get kick up the ass to upgrade then realise its not that simple. Especially if you never passed em all in the first place

Do I remember 216....god almighty, that was a beast of an exam. I think i got just under 800 for that if i remember right. Totally thought i had failed. I remember reading through the Q's and just staring blankly at the screen wondering if i had the right exam in front of me, haha. I must have read through all of them before answering my first and marked about half of them as well to return to. Over half must have been best guesses as i seem to remember that the Q's had more than one correct answer and you had to eliminate the worst of 2 decent answers...very ambiguous. Most people i knew who took that failed first time.

Everyone at the time said 217 was very easy (or the easiest of the cores) and i must admit after looking at a transcender for it years ago, the questions seemed very straight forward with common sense answers proving correct. How the hell i forgot to do it is beyond me and annoying and perplexing as i cant fathom how i went onto the electives when i hadnt finished my final core. The only reason i can think of is that the place i was learning at went bust and i had to find elswhere to finish my MCSE.
I think also the reason that this was easier was because most admins worked with AD and DNS, DHCP management etc on a daily basis.

I will be starting studying this weekend as i have a week off so i will keep you posted on how i go. If its 70-290, 291, 293 & 294 then i will be hoping to get 2 out of the way before xmas. "Ever hopeful"

Whats the best study material these days. MS official? I used to use Sybex but i found that the Q&A's in their edge tests left a lot to be desired.

Thanks again

 

Get ready, the 291 is harder still. BTW, the number of the beast is 666 and 6x6x6 = 216. That is how it got its nickname.

You must have had a good reason to forget. Most of the time being extremely busy with work and/or family is the culprit. Relax, the upgrade path is close anyhow, so if you had done the 217, you still had to go the same path. Nothing lost there.

Having real time experience is good, but remember to think the Microsoft way.

Normally I would say "dream on buddy" but since you have many years of experience I say good luck.

Sybex or MSPress Self Paced Training Kits are both OK. Be smart, get them both. Reading the same story from a different writer helps a lot in grasping (new) concepts. Make sure you have the latest edition (MSPress is in second edition now).

 

I have just ordered the Core MS Press books, 2nd edition. I have family coming out here in the next 2 weeks so i will get them to bring them out.

Which is the best to start with or does it not really matter. I'd prefer to get the "hardest" one out of the way first if poss, which sounds like 291. Do the core exams overlap like the 2k exams did?

 

I'd suggest loading up the practice questions that come with the books on the cd. Run through without reading anything and you'll get a rough idea of what you already know. You can then pick the course of study with the one that you want based on whether you want to start with something you know a bit about or not

 

A very good advise indeed, however be sure to at least glance over the complete text once.

 

The normal path would be 290, 291, 293 and 294.
There is a great deal of overlap between 291 and 293. 293 is 291 plus PKI and clustering. This is a bit easy and the reallity is a bit more complex, but basically that's the overlap.

 

I tried a Transcender for 290 yesterday and only just failed, which isnt too bad. Like you have both said tho, the best thing is to go over the book first to reaquaint myself with methodology then start the Q&A's, as the exams are geared towards Microsofts way of doing things. I will probably glance over the stuff i know pretty well and go into depth on anything i feel i'm lacking on.

Most of the lab work i can do already and a lot of the theory i will probably know when i go over it but it never hurts to relearn. I've made enough ****-ups over the years to understand that

Going to try for the end of Nov for 290 and xmas for 291. It may be a little optimistic to be honest but i will try.

Also regarding the 2008 track, do you know the procedure for the upgrade from 2003, or has it been radically overhauled incorporating new certs? Been on MS website and cant really tell tbh.

Cheers

 

On the upgrade track, see post number 9 of this thread.

 

What do you mean Tinus?

From what i have gathered from your advice is that i need to sit 70-290, 291, 293 & 294 to upgrade my W2k MCSE cert passes to 2003 MCSE.

I will then have to sit a further 3 exams for my 2008 upgrade which you mentioned in post 9.

Also i should be ready for booking my 290 exam for about 3 weeks time as i have gone through the press book and all the labs are very straight forward. Most of the practicals i knew anyway but it didnt hurt to redo a few of the more obscure labs that i had forgotten.

I had to set up a few VM's on my laptop to do the labs as i couldnt get time to do them at work.

 

Spot on. The track for 2008 is not much different then the 2003 track. You take the exams and that's it. No special needs, or what ever. The only thing is that MS does not give you the title MCSE for 2008, you will be MCITP for a specified track. That is MCITP could be for Exchange 2007, for SQL 2005 or 2008, for Sharepoint server, for server 2008 and then some more. That's all.

 

Hi Tinus. Just a quick one.

Do you know of any issues with the AD command lines? I am just going over a lot of the command line stuff in preparation and i am having a couple of issues with the DSGET command.

Basically it works fine in grabbing stuff from OU's that are "built in" ie..users etc, but will not see anything in any OU's i have created, be they top level or in other containers. Don't get me wrong, i know how to use the command lines albeit open book but i'm just wondering if i am missing something here.