Rating: 
Summary: Without experience you are sunk
Review: If you don't know the product, you will not pass. This book will help you pass. If your only experience with Windows Server 2003 is installing it twice and running a few applications then you WILL fail the 70-290 exam no matter what book you buy! The MCSE is not like it was back in the NT4 days when you could train your parrot to pass the exams. You need to know what you are doing. This book is reasonably good at building on the exam objectives, but in some cases you will need to look at Technet. If you buy this book and fail the exam, don't blame the book - have a good look at the amount of experience you had going into the exam with Windows Server 2003. I passed this exam and this book helped (though my experience with the product, and prior Microsoft server operating systems did as well).
Rating: 
Summary: useless for veterans or newbies
Review: If you get handon experience with Windows admin, you will pass even without this book. If you don't have experience, you will fail for sure with this book.So this book is useless for both. As a reference book for exam, I think this book is not well target at all! consider the contents in this book and what covered in the real exam.
Rating:
Summary: Studying for MCSE
Review: If you have no experience with Windows 2000 or 2003 you will not pass the exam regardless of which text you buy. I am studying for the MSCE in Windows Server 2003. This text covers all of the objectives for the 70-290 exam. This book also includes a Prometric exam discount voucher and a set of practice questions on the CD in addition to those in the text. The exam objectives listed on Microsoft's site are covered by this text. The coverage is not deep, but is adequate for those that are attempting the exam who have experience with the operating system. Unexperienced candidates are wasting their time on the new MS certifications and should get some hands on before heading off to the testing center. The questions in the second part of the book appear well written. They mirror some of the lengthy questions on the actual exam and this aspect of the text was refreshing. Most certification textbooks skimp on the practice questions adding them as an afterthought rather than a feature. To many books ask questions like "what does DNS stand for" and "where would you use DHCP". The first time I tried many of them I got them wrong. When I was getting them right I tried the exam and passed. Until the Transcenders are released, finding good questions will be difficult. Resources like this text are quite valuable.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent
Review: Many books routinely cover "what" to do. Dan teaches us "why". It's a resource written by professionals and intended for professionals, an investment that will pay dividends long after you pass the 70-290 exam. When I see Dan Holme's name on a seminar, I go. When I see his name on a book, I buy.
Rating: 
Summary: Disorganized, Haphazardly Assembled
Review: One would think that purchasing the official Microsoft Press self-study guide would be the best way to study for MCSE Core Exam 70-290 without taking expensive instructor-led courses. Apparently, this is not the case. Of course, Microsoft has no other recommendations for supplementary study for this exam, only this book. So here you are, this is your only choice.
After reading some of the reviews here, I had my reservations but decided that they were unfounded because Microsoft wrote the book and Microsoft wrote the exam, it didn't make sense to go to a third party for information for the exam.
I am extremely disappointed with the quality of this title. The lessons are not organized and skip steps, apparently assuming that the reader has the ability to read the author's mind. There doesn't appear to be a logical progression from chapter to chapter, lesson to lesson. Or perhaps they expect you to already know the content, but then this begs the question: What is the point of a study guide? Just go test out.
Out of the world's largest software company that makes hundreds of millions of dollars annually, I would have expected a top-notch title complete with though lessons and real-world information. I also would have expected a toll-free number where I could request a refund if I wasn't happy with the purchase. I have yet to locate the quality lessons a handful of reviewers speak of, and no telephone number to speak of - toll free or otherwise.
Regardless, this title most definitely should not be considered to be the excellent study aid Microsoft has billed it as. At best, it is someone's shorthand notes published as a hardcover book with a shiny cover with a 15% off coupon taped to the inside back cover as a come-on.
Rating:
Summary: Look elsewhere
Review: Poorly written and way out of context. My advice to anyone wishing to learn the real ins and outs of 2003 server would be to buy Mark Minasi's book - he offers much better advice geared towards the real world and his chapter on DNS is far superior to the drivel written in this publication.
I particuarly dislike the monotonous tone that so often is the down fall of Microsoft publications.
On the upside - this book is given it's blessing by *Microsoft* - so it must have something going for it. The section on Group Policy is not bad.
However - just go to Borders and compare the difference - Minasi's book on 2003 server is *the* bible to have with regards to decent technical writing and explanantions of real world situatios with regards to 2003 server.
Rating:
Summary: Weak Textbook, Poor Test Suite
Review: The book is bad enough - it does not cover all the topics needed to pass the exam, and on those it does cover it does not go into sufficient depth. Somehow the authors expect you to have access to stacks of hardware and software licenses in order to complete the "practice" exercises, and the objective review questions in the book are minimal.
Then you get to the test suite, which comes on a CD with the book. The software design is fine, with an interface similar to that of the actual exam, but the questions are mediocre, the explanations (for study assistance) are insufficient, the references are to more materials that they want you to purchase, and some of the answers are flat-out wrong! I had two consecutive questions on a practice test whose answers contradicted each other (specifically, regarding "Account Logon" vs. "Logon" events in the System log) and the references were not to the text of the book, but to a separate Administrator's Companion that Microsoft wanted me to spend an additional $70 to obtain. Also, the questions in their practice test focus excessively on unimportant details like where to click to achieve certain results and not enough on comprehension of Active Directory hierarchy and policy.
I passed the exam on the second attempt, no thanks to this book. The first time I took it, I was under-prepared, even after taking many "practice tests" and reading the book cover to cover. I recommend seeking additional resources if you intend to pass on the first try. The only reason I give it more than 1 star is that the writing in the book itself isn't horrible, and it contains some useful information - on backups and disk management, for instance.
Rating:
Summary: A complete waste of money
Review: This book had a lot of promise - lots of lab activities, a sample copy of Server 2003, a CD with sample test questions, and even a 15% coupon off the cost of your certification exam. But I only made it to chapter 3 before giving up in frustration. The lessons are disorganized and hard to follow, the labs skip steps, and some of the review questions at the end of the chapter don't cover stuff discussed in the chapter. I think the final clincher was the lab where I had to create user accounts from a command line for "Danielle Tiedt" and "Lorrin Smith-Bates". With all the text I had to type, why not use a simple name such as "Bob Smith" so I don't have to worry about typos?
Rating:
Summary: I'm not sure what book everybody else was reading
Review: This book was terrible. It was disjointed, and very difficult to follow. The organization and flow made no sense to me, and I felt the author, as it typical with MS Press, was long winded. In addition, the additional study tools were useless, unless you had some additional background. Needless to say, I failed this exam, and this book is to blame.
Rating: 
Summary: Use another book as well as this one.
Review: This is probably the tenth Microsoft Press book I've purchased, and it is no different than the rest of them. While the technical aspects of the material seem adequate, I think there needs to be more detail. The exams always seem to contain a few questions that only Technet can help you answer. An exeption to this was the Microsoft Press MCSE study guide for 70-216, which was very detailed. Another bad thing about this publication (70-290) is the CD, which contains a few typographical errors and what I believe to be wrong answers on a few of the Readiness Review questions; namely a claim that a RAID-5 array isn't fault tolerant, which it clearly is. If you are considering purchasing this book, please do yourself a favor and check it out first. Read through some of it, and verify its accuracy with other publications or online material. The 2003 Server Administrators Guide is much better written and contains more real world scenarios than this book. Use it as a backup. Hope this review helps, and good luck on the exam.
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