McSe Windows 2003 Certification Kit

Rating:
Summary: Out of touch
Review: After finishing the 70-290 book in the set and taking the exam, I am shocked at how "out of touch" this book is with the actual exam. Topics that were barely touched upon in the book ended up being huge sections in the test and vice versa. I started buying Sybex cert books because of how well the CCNA book was done and how it actually related to the exam. I'm hoping the other books in this kit are a little more up to par.

Rating:
Summary: Good, but you'll need more to pass the tests...
Review: I'm pretty fond of the Sybex books--They're well written and tend to explain things fairly well, however these books are often lacking in detail. The books don't cover some topics at all (ie: Expect a visual basic question in 70-291, yet it's not covered at all in the book) and the upper level books really rehash some of the earlier topics by a copy and paste methodology. For instance, although some topics in 70-293 overlap 70-291, it focuses on planning, which rehashing the 70-291 material doesn't help with. New topics in 70-293 are barely covered (Just 30 pages for clustering, which deserves much more!) I've taken to reading these books first as an overview, then reading the MS-Press titles for the nitty gritty details. The included questions are weak, expect questions about 5 times as difficult on the actual exams... The 70-294 book is about 420 pages, while the MS Press title for 70-294 is almost twice as thick... Not that MS Press titles are good reading, the assume you already know what they're talking about. The point--I haven't found a silver bullet for these certs, but these are a good start.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent!! A SOLID foundation for a BIG field.
Review: I'm probably unusual, because I bought this kit AND the upgrade book. However, this kit was just indispensible, because there are sooo many topics you need to have understood and integrated in order to become an MCSE: Active Directory --sites, domains, users and computer, replication. IIS, remote desktop, resource management. TCP/IP, routing, DNS, DHCP, IPSec. Clustering, certificates, load balancing....You just can't get that kind of understanding casually, or even just by working with certain parts of the OS...you need a full course. Sybex was recommended to me by an instructor in my first class as having the best reputation and being the bestsellers, and I'm glad he told me.