When to abandon 2003/XP Certifications?

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Hi All,

I'm new to this forum so hello to you all. Just wanting to get some thoughts on when people advice to stop studying for 2003/XP exams. I am MCSA 2003 and working towards MCSE 2003 which hopefully I should have completed in a few months. I am also training for MCT Status as well and was wondering if the uptake of people wanting to study for exams on 2003/XP might start to slow down in which case I should hurry up and get some Vista/2008 exams in the bag so I can teach those.

Any thoughts?

 

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From what I know the exams (2003) will be around for quite some time yet.

Welcome to CF

 

I agree with GBL. Lots of businesses are still using Windows 2000 Server, and haven't even moved to Windows Server 2003... yet.

 

I think it depends on the company you work for, our company only went to XP last year, so for me working here, best to keep going the w2k3 track. (its a government place so uptake is very slow, like the users)

 

There are various scheme's afoot now to extent the life of XP so it can still be bought installed on a new PC for a fairly long time to come. I certainly think it will be around for a long time in terms of it needing support, as will Server 2003. Oh and welcome to CF.

 

Microsoft's new three year release cycle is a bad idea IMHO. People are going to start skipping two versions at a time instead of just one. Windows 7 should have been called Vista R2 so IT departments could sneak it in without getting everyone and their mothers to approve. Worked with Windows Server 2003 R2 anyways. ;)

To answer your question though, version specific certs seem to be usefull for ~8-10 years, or two major release cycles. Of course, if MS has their way that'll become ~6 years.

 

Until recently, Microsoft has *always* had a 3-year (or less!) release cycle...

MS-DOS 1.0: 1981
MS-DOS 2.0: 1983
MS-DOS 3.0: 1984
MS-DOS 4.0: 1988
MS-DOS 5.0: 1991
MS-DOS 6.0: 1993

Windows 1.0: 1985
Windows 2.0: 1987
Windows 3.0: 1990
Windows 3.1: 1992
Windows 95: 1995
Windows 98: 1998
Windows Me: 2000
Windows XP: 2001
Windows Vista: 2006/2007

Windows NT 3.1 Workstation: 1993
Windows NT 4.0 Workstation: 1996
Windows 2000 Professional: 2000
--> to Windows XP

Windows NT 3.1 Server: 1993
Windows NT 4.0 Server: 1996
Windows 2000 Server: 2000
Windows Server 2003: 2003
Windows Server 2008: 2008

How is this any different from the past 26 years? You're simply used to the last 5-year cycle, which is really an anomaly.