Questions about MCDST

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Hi everyone, I was looking at the MCDST and am thinking about studying for it. But, I have heard alot of people saying it is being "retired." Is this true? Is getting this certification still a viable option?

 

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Considering how prevalent XP still is (and will continue to be) in the world, the MCDST certification will be valuable for years to come.

Just because the MCDST is about to retire doesn't mean that our MCDST certifications will expire. It simply means that people will no longer be able to get the certification after June 30, 2011. In truth, that should make the certification even MORE valuable.

 

what he ^ said.

 

Not saying the OP said this, but I find it amusing how people generally think that because something is new it automatically replaces the older technologies. There's a lot of misconception in regards to this, especially in other certification forums, from what I have seen. Many people are getting the mis-information that they should jump on the MCITP bandwagon and skip the XP and 2003 certs because they're "sure to be old news". The fact is that in the business (and especially government) newer technologies aren't always taken up right away. I remember the in the military we were still running Windows NT up to 2004 before switching over to 2000.

 

I agree with what you say Boson, that XP is still very prevalent, which is why I'd still like to get this certification. I wasn't so much asking if I shouldn't because of the newer tech that is out there, but more along the lines of asking "is it still available and for how long, does it still hold weight" kind of thing. Thanks for your responses!

 

If you can get these two exams learnt and passed before the retire date then it will put you in good stead for the future. as windows may change the names but alot of the stuff you will learn from these 2 books are still the same in vista or at least very similar.

As said it is still well used in the workforce and with money tight for most companies they arent going to waste needed funds on upgraded OS and inhouse apps just cause microsoft retire an exan or say thay are going to stop supporting it.

 

Well, I think it's because many techs (particularly newer ones) don't understand that the rest of the world doesn't upgrade to a new OS as quickly and as readily as they do. It comes as a surprise to them when they discover that companies don't upgrade to the latest-and-greatest OS as soon as it hits the shelves... and it absolutely blows their minds to discover that many don't upgrade even years later! Over time, good techs start learning the business side of IT, and that's when they finally begin to understand the logic behind the management and financial decisions that companies make regarding IT.

All that said... I don't think any of this applies to Tarheel's concern.

 

Please can you come and explain this to our IT partner?

The company I work for are going to windows 7 after only migrating to vista 2 years back. They dont care abnout the problems we had migrating to vista they just wanted the newest thing. We also tried to get the iphone 3gs rolled out but we culdnt due to different reason and £m's was spent on this and it failed, so now they are trying the iphone 4 instead.

 

Every company is different. Some have the time and energy to upgrade even if it costs them massively in license fees, other companies that have Software Assurance Enterprise Agreements which are renewed on a yearly basis and gives them automatic access to the latest software, simply cannot upgrade due to the effort involved.

 

Pay for the airfare across the pond, and I'll be there! ;)

 

For the record, I never wanted to say that tarheels was of this school of thought. I didn't get that impression at all. Just an observation I wanted to share as it is linked to this subject in a way.

I think two of the reasons for this school of thought are the fact that in this age you have a lot of young techs who have grown up downloading software for free, and haven't an understanding of licensing and the true cost of upgrading software/hardware ("What do you mean you can only install it on one computer per license!?!?!?"). To them it's come natural to upgrade to every OS that comes out, so they transfer that school of thought to the professional work. Another reason is obviously the people who think that new MUST mean better, as j1mgg seems to be experiencing.

BUT... I'll end it here as it's straying from the main thread. Like others have said, MCDST will carry over nicely to the newer OS's. There are tons of things in Win7 that are different from XP only in how you access them in the GUI. Things such as the command line, admin tools, and even configuration options on programs are still the same. So learning the things in MCDST will easily be carried over to Win7 and most likely (unless ms does a MAJOR overhaul of the guts of windows) into the next version of Windows.

 

Thank you all for your responses. I definitely understand that the majority of companies out there don't upgrade when a new OS comes out and I do understand about licensing and how much that costs a company looking to upgrade. One of the great things about my school is that they try to teach us what is like in the real work force when it comes to this type of thing. Several of my instructors are part-time and work as full-time technicians elsewhere and bring this knowledge with them. So, thanks again. I will be adding this to my list of certs to attain.