MCSE Windows 2000 Certification Preview - Pasta blanda

The Windows 2000 upgrade exam promises to be brutal by MCSE standards--and even if it had been planned as a lightweight exam, massive changes in the infrastructure of Windows NT would still cause headaches for 4.0 veterans. Active Directories, required DNS servers, OUs, new NTFS permissions... as an MCSE, be warned that everything you know now is wrong. As such, it's probably a good idea to get a head start before the exams hit this summer; and getting this head start isn't a bad idea.

A weighty tome even by the standards of certification books, the MCSE Windows 2000 Certification Headstart is an all-encompassing and technically complete reference on Windows 2000 features, aimed squarely at the already-certified professional. The book assumes that you have already passed the Windows NT core exams--and as such it skips over the basics and gets right to the meat of the matter, focusing in on what's been upgraded.

The chapters are thorough and no-nonsense, often including warnings of real-life problems that may not come up on the test but are serious concerns when deploying Windows 2000 into actual networks. The book also relies heavily on hands-on exercises--in fact, at times the exercises are the explanations, with little else in the way of clarification. (This isn't nearly as bad as it sounds, though--since MCSE-certified pros, who are this book's main audience, should already be on the Microsoft TechNet mailing list, it can be assumed that they have easy access to beta or trial versions of Windows 2000.)

Concise, well-written summaries of what's new in Win2K are presented at the end of most chapters in the form of "Accelerating to Windows 2000" text blocks, which is a shame, frankly, since it would frequently be better to have these at the beginning of each chapter so the reader could get an overview before diving in.

There are chapter summaries (in the form of short essays), short drills (bullet-pointed summaries), and tests. The tests are reasonably tough, but not horrifically so. One of the truly glaring flaws of this book is that there are several exercises intended for the reader, giving sample companies with sample problems, and asking questions on what kinds of solutions would be best. Answers, or even discussions of, the possible solutions are not given anywhere in the book.

This book is tough but fair. The explanations of conceptually difficult topics like Active Directories and DFS are adequately explained but will probably require a few rereadings by techies unfamiliar with other LDAP services like Novell. Also, since it was written at a time when nobody really had any idea what might be on the upgrade exam, the book is very in-depth, throwing in everything that Microsoft might conceivably have put on a Win2K exam. At times, it delves into topics almost guaranteed not to be on the exam--IIS 5 has its own exam already--and gives fairly brief explanations of topics that have proven to be exam-worthy, like getting pre-Win2K printers to work with Windows 2000.

Still, this is a technical reference that is thorough and worthwhile, and given Microsoft's warnings that the upgrade test will be harder than anything that has come before, a little overkill in your preparation couldn't hurt. The Headstart gives you a good, in-depth familiarity with the concepts behind the exams, leaving it up to later post-exam books to tell you where the Win2K exam hot spots are. In this it succeeds very well. --William Steinmetz

Topics covered: The lowdown on all the major changes in Windows 2000, from the new Directory Services and DNS management to VPNs, proxy servers, and the new IIS 5.