# Failed 70-680 :(



## tim19889

Well I took the test today and found it much harder than the practice tests I had taken. I got 90% on the last practice test (came with William Panek's book) I took so I thought I'd be good. Got 628 and needed 700...so not too far off at least. From what I've read it seems you need to actually set up a server 2008 r2 environment and and windows 7 enterprise virtual machine to practice things on (I'm downloading the trial versions of both right now). Reading and knowing the book isn't enough. It was for the CompTIA A+ and Network + but not for this so I'll have to keep studying. The areas I scored lowest on were "Installing, Upgrading, and Migrating to Windows 7", "Configuring Hardware and Applications", "Configuring Access to Resoruces", and "Monitoring and Maintaining Systems that Run Windows 7". 

I don't want to read another 700 page book from start to finish so I am going to practice things in my little lab I am going to create, and then just really go over and review the areas I did poorly on in the book and professor messer's videos, and learn anything I can through researching the topics online.

Anyways, to anyone who is taking this in the future make sure you really study and PRACTICE and simulate what they want you to know. Reading isn't enough to pass this you have to do the exercises as well imho.


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## PinoyIT

That sucks. So, other than the book did you have any other resources?


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## Armymanis

Thanks dude. I am concentrating the bulk of my energy on school, my new contract position, and the N+ exam. Awesome part is I get paid for reading the N+ exam book and studying the material. You were so close to passing the Windows 7 Exam. I am sure you will pass it next time


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## tim19889

I just used William Panek's book and took/reviewed a bunch of notes (the ones I gave you Pinoy), plus I watched and re-watched Professor Messer's videos. I honestly don't feel THAT bad though just because I was about as prepared as I could be using the resources I used to study. You know there are some questions where you are like, "I remember reading about that in the book, but I have no idea what the answer is because I didn't study it enough". And then there are some questions where you are like, "I don't remember seeing/reading ANYTHING about this particular thing". There were a lot of those type of questions on the exam for me lol. Guess I need to find some new study resources and start practicing hands on and hopefully pass next time. I'm gonna wait at least a month to re-take this thing though I want to make sure I really know what I need to know this time lol. I'm not that rich that I like throwing away $125 to fail tests


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## greenbrucelee

Bad luck but apparently all the material currently out for this certs is rubbish at the moment. It will only be through a lot of experience and practice that you will pass it until some decent material comes out for it.

I am going to study this next but I waiting until before christmas as revised material should be out by then.


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## epshatto

Tough luck. But I think putting things into practice is the best way to learn them. I think you'll do better after working with your "lab".


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## tim19889

Yeah I'm just kinda bummed that I did all this work and studying of out-dated materials :/. I remember in William Panek's book he said there would be a lot of questions on the bcdedit commands, so I studied and knew them pretty well. Well guess what. Not ONE single bcdedit question was on the test that I took lol. 

So I'm trying to decide if practicing things in the lab while restudying the same materials will be enough to get me to pass, or if I should buy another book and start over again (not liking that idea, but I've heard a lot of good things about Don Poulton's book), or if I should just wait like brucelee till December rolls around and get some more solid study materials? I dunno, still debating.


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## Amd_Man

Hands on will teach you far more than any book. By doing it hands on the material in the book that you had trouble with will become cystal clear.


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## tim19889

I think you are right on that amd man. I'm running Windows Server 2008R2 trial edition as a virtual machine and working on doing an unattended installation of Windows 7 Enterprise 64 bit. My PC's RAM is going to be maxed out, I only have 6GB in total so I'm thinking I will give 2GB to my real Windows 7 Home Premium operating system, 2GB to Server 2008R2, and 2GB to Windows 7 Enterprise. I don't know what else to do. I'll probably be doing some Paging but oh well.


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## greenbrucelee

yeah increase your page file size for the server


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## dblanco1215

I failed too, by the skin of my teeth : (

Creating a lab environment right now to see if I can pass it next time around. Half of the questions on the exam were sooo off topics in the study guides...I WILL pass it next time, so very close.


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## tim19889

I KNOW DUDE! Glad I'm not the only one, although I'm sorry for you that you failed too . I didn't want to sound like I was whining but yeah I thought a lot of the stuff was very much off topic too from what the study materials were on. For instance, William Panek in his book said, "Make sure you know your BCDEDIT commands, there will be quite a few questions on this on the test". And of course there was not a single questions on it on the test I took lol. And that's just one example.


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## dblanco1215

Deploying Windows 7 and Monitoring seemed to have been my weakest points, but I have to tell you, a good 15-20 questions on that exam were concerning content that I hadn't even come across when studying. Not to mention I am enrolled in a bootcamp and am scheduled to take the 70-686 tomorrow. I feel as though I might have gotten all the extremely difficult questions in the pool. I also wonder if the survey I took before the test had an impact on the type of questions that were selected for me??? I've gone through other forums in which people have stated that there are rumors that Microsoft does use the responses in the survey as a basis to select questions. But of course, no one can prove any of it. I feel about 50/50 right now. I don't know if to retake the exam early tomorrow or if I should postpone. I'm confused. My biggest fear is that I do take it tomorrow and fail yet again. Someone in my current bootcamp has taken it 4 times already. I asked him what motivates him to continue, I think he's taken it personal and will keep taking it until he passes. I'm trying not to make too much of this, but it has affected me as it's the first MS exam that I've ever failed. AARRRRGGGGHHHHHH!!!!:upset:


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## greenbrucelee

as I said the majority of the study guides at the moment were rush jobs so they do not cover everything, this is why I am waiting until the revised content comes out near christmas.


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## Armymanis

greenbrucelee said:


> as I said the majority of the study guides at the moment were rush jobs so they do not cover everything, this is why I am waiting until the revised content comes out near christmas.


Revised content from which publisher? 

I got the MCTS: Windows 7 Configuring book training kit from Microsoft. After consistently failing the practice exams, I went to go study the N+ instead.


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## greenbrucelee

Armymanis said:


> Revised content from which publisher?
> 
> I got the MCTS: Windows 7 Configuring book training kit from Microsoft. After consistently failing the practice exams, I went to go study the N+ instead.


most of them because they were written before sp1 especially the MS press books and Sybex books will be re-done.


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## Armymanis

greenbrucelee said:


> most of them because they were written before sp1 especially the MS press books and Sybex books will be re-done.


Ok, I used the MS press books yet I still failed the practice exams. Most of those questions are way too hard. I think studying the N+ is my way to go right now.


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## Gotchaz

Hi guys and gals, don't feel bad I failed this exam as well. Taking it again next Thursday. The stupid thing is that it's supposed to be on configuring and deploying win 7. I would say 70% of the exam was on server stuff, permissions and printers, wireless, and local and group policies. What the hell does that have to do with deploying lol Anywho now I know what to brush up on. My advice is brush up on the basics and don't just study the new stuff in windows 7. 

Funny how MS thinks everyone uses win 7 in a server 2008 r2, active directory infrastructure lol I have yet to work in one.


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## tim19889

Just keep studying everyone and especially working with the "lab". We will all pass eventually. Sure would help to have relevant material to study with though lol.


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## PinoyIT

Gotchaz said:


> Funny how MS thinks everyone uses win 7 in a server 2008 r2, active directory infrastructure lol I have yet to work in one.


That's how it should be, in a business environment.

Finally got my lab setup just need to do some wiring. I got my main PC running Server 2008 R2 Enterprise, another PC running Windows 7 Pro, and another one running Windows XP Pro. Just waiting on a switch and a box of cat 6. I figured I might as well run the wiring that I've been meaning to do for a while.


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## greenbrucelee

not all businesses have the money to invest in a new OS every time Microsoft decide to release one. I know a lot of companies still use xp and win2k3 and they will do for many years to come even after MS stop supporting xp in 2014.

The reason for this can be because of budgets and because its trusted.


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## Gotchaz

IBM still uses windows XP and they don't use a domain infrastructure.


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## PinoyIT

Are you saying IBM uses a workgroup?


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## tim19889

DOH. I can't believe you don't know these things Pinoy


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## PinoyIT

Sorry, I'm a noob. I wasn't aware that I have a better setup at my house than some giant company.


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## Gotchaz

LOL yeah they just use a workgroup, anyone can walk into a building and get onto the IBM network. Wireless you need an account tho. They don't use Exchange Servers either they use Domino servers. I write my exam on Thursday, round 2!! lol


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## PinoyIT

I thought their mail server was USPS and their phone service is VoPC (Voice over Paper Cups).

Good luck on your exam!


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## Gotchaz

Nah the use Domino servers for Lotus Notes and they do use VoPC it's pretty funny when the isp goes down, no one can make any calls to report it lol


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## tim19889

How did setting up your lab go Pinoy? I set up server 2008R2 yesterday as a domain controller and dns server, and created two Windows 7 Enterprise virtual machines that I connected to the domain. I have each system set up with two NICs, one for internal networking between the virtual machines and the other for Internet access. I just started practicing some things today like setting software restriction policies through Group Policy Editor. Also bought another 2GB of RAM for my laptop so I can run things a little more smoothly (8GB total I'll have now).


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## PinoyIT

Haven't done the wiring yet. I'm a little low on funds. Had a little impulse buy and I'm depleted until next week.


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## lfcgeorge

I never use books, when I revise I just set up a Lab and do tests/practices and watch Videos for example Videos from CBT Nuggets which are effective then I do all different types of practice tests!


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## Gotchaz

Well failed this stupid exam again today, after spending $200 on books and going through the videos, also spent money on ****, none of those questions were even on it. This exam is just to broad, there's just too much content to go over to have crammed into one exam and hope you know the 50 you get. The questions were harder the second round lol. I also heard they are closing up the testing station we have here. I have one more voucher that ends in June any suggestions of what I should use it on? I really don't feel like tackling this again to be honest. I don't even need it for my job.


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## PinoyIT

That sucks. I would just retake it again, you've already spent money on the material for it. Which books did you read? Don't they give you a print out of what you did bad on so you can focus your studies on those parts?


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## Basementgeek

If you don't have the desire or need you will not pass it. Desire is the key to me.

BG


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## tim19889

Sorry you didn't make it Gotchaz. I agree with you the test subject matter is VERY broad. You really have to know (and remember) everything which is tough. I'm going to give this thing one more shot in about 1-2 months. If I don't pass or get pretty darn close (withing 10-20 points) I won't take it again until some better material comes out to help prepare for it. 

Btw, does anybody know of some cheap or free practices tests I can get that are actually the same type of questions I will get on the test? The practice tests I used from sybex were terrible for this exam, I got 90% on most of them but didn't do so well on the actual exam.


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## greenbrucelee

Gotchaz said:


> Well failed this stupid exam again today, after spending $200 on books and going through the videos, also spent money on ****, none of those questions were even on it. This exam is just to broad, there's just too much content to go over to have crammed into one exam and hope you know the 50 you get. The questions were harder the second round lol. I also heard they are closing up the testing station we have here. I have one more voucher that ends in June any suggestions of what I should use it on? I really don't feel like tackling this again to be honest. I don't even need it for my job.


I have deleted the site you mention because its a braindump site. Secondly the question you get have nothing to do with the test center all they do is host the exam for microsoft.

When you take a certification exam there is a large pool of questions sometimes it can be around 500 questions and your questions for your exam are picked out at random from this pool. The pool then changes after a couple of months where some question that were beta questions become real questions and some real questions are dismissed. By the way no one gets the same exam so the person next to you may get 45 questions whilst another may get 61 questions.

I am not sure how you failed with the site you mentioned unless you actually didn't download their whole pdf because their pdfs usually have the entire exam pool in them.

Watching videos and reading books is not how to pass an exam you must practice the concepts involved. Ideally for the majority of certifications you should actually do a job that is related to them.


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## Gotchaz

I've done my A+ N+ and security + and my CCNA this is my first Microsoft exam. They don't tell you want you got wrong they just give you a useless graph showing if you were strong in one area or another. So technically for all I know they could give you a fail score just to milk you for cash.

Yeah I'll probably try again, just annoyed lol alot of the questions have nothing to do with configuring and deploying Windows 7. Can I take Exams 70-685 and 70-686 befor 70-680 the website says 70-680 is a prereq.

The books I used are as follows, I also used Messers Video and got notes from this site.

Amazon.com: MCTS Windows 7 Configuration Study Guide: Exam 70-680 (9780470568750): William Panek: Books

And Amazon.com: Windows 7 Desktop Support and Administration: Real World Skills for MCITP Certification and Beyond (Exams 70-685 and 70-686) (9780470597095): Darril Gibson: Books


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## Gotchaz

> I am not sure how you failed with the site you mentioned unless you actually didn't download their whole pdf because their pdfs usually have the entire exam pool in them.


Yeah I got their material and was scoring easily in the 90% not one of their questions was on the exam.


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## Gotchaz

Okay so after surfing around and seeing posts of people failing I found another resource you guys might want to check out.

MCTS: 70-680


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## tim19889

Thanks Gotchaz. I came across this as well, looks REALLY good.


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## greenbrucelee

checkout Professor Messer, CompTIA A+, CompTIA Nework+, Microsoft Certification Training he does videos for the A+,N+ and 70-680 he is 100% legit and his videos are great.

Never heard of the other one.


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## Gotchaz

Yeah I did Messers videos as well they were helpful for sure, the exam is more indepth tho.


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## Gotchaz

Just curious where are you getting the OS for VM's? I have the 2008 server, it's trial tho for 30 days.


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## greenbrucelee

with a technet subscription you can download operating systems all day long. Or if you use one of the versions of VMware you can just choose which versions you want and it will mimick them.


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## tim19889

Google "Windows 7 Enterprise trial" and "Windows Server 2008R2 Trial". The Server trial is good for 180 days and the Enterprise trial is good for 90 days. You have to activate them though of course or else they're only good for like 10-15 days.


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## Gotchaz

thanks lads.


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## tim19889

This might be VERY useful for any of you studying for the 70-680. Knock yourself out 

Windows 7: Increase Productivity, Improve Security, and Streamline PC Management


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## PinoyIT

Microsoft Exam Cram Marathon


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## tim19889

Scheduled the exam for next Monday the 13th. Probably shouldn't have done it on the 13th...but that's when it suited my schedule lol. I've been doing a lot of labbing and feel much more comfortable with it now than I did when I first took it. Hoping to pass this time around, but we'll see. I'm gonna keep pounding away at studying until next Sunday, give my brain a rest, then try and nail the test the next day.


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## PinoyIT

Good luck! I'm sure you'll get it this time.


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## Gotchaz

Good luck you can do it


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## tim19889

Thanks guys, I'm really really hoping to pass. I want to get this thing out of the way . I'm just dreading failing with a score of like 680 or 690 or something. Think I'd rather totally bomb the exam than just miss the passing score lol. Hopefully I'll pass with good marks though. Shooting for 1000.


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## greenbrucelee

doesn't matter if you get 1000 as long as you pass and BTW its a common misconception that the exams are out of 1000 I know people who have scored more than 1000 in MS exams. I never have though.


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## SamLea72

I find that testing software is the best, it forces you to really focus on what you know or dont know more so than just reading and studying notes. I mean, everyone learns differently but it is something worth considering. I use interactive software that adjusts to me from technologycerts, videos from professor messor and practice tests from knowledgebuster, those ones are free so that helps lol and I found the software and test to be the most useful

13 is my lucky number, so I take that as a good sign!


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## tim19889

SamLea72 said:


> I find that testing software is the best, it forces you to really focus on what you know or dont know more so than just reading and studying notes. I mean, everyone learns differently but it is something worth considering. I use interactive software that adjusts to me from technologycerts, videos from professor messor and practice tests from knowledgebuster, those ones are free so that helps lol and I found the software and test to be the most useful
> 
> 13 is my lucky number, so I take that as a good sign!


I've been doing the practice tests from mywindowsclub.com..most of the questions are pretty good but the grammar on some of them is so bad that I can't even tell what it's trying to ask. I think that's why they added the "skip" option for some of the questions there lol.


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## greenbrucelee

you want to buy some proper reputable exams from known good exam providers such as boson, transcender, preplogic and measure up.


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## tim19889

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARG!!!!! FAILED AGAIN AND I GOT THE EXACT SAME SCORE!!!! 628. The weird thing is I thought I was doing great, the questions seemed a lot easier for me this time around, but no I still failed.....really don't know what to do at this point. 

My areas of weakness for the first test were:

1. Installing, upgrading, and migrating to windows 7
2. Configuring Hardware and Applications
3. Configuring Access to Resources
4. Monitoring and Maintaining Systems that run windows 7

The second exam it was:
1.Installing upgrading, and migrating to windows 7
2. Deploying Windows 7
3. Configuring Access to resources (the bar graph on this was just under the halfway mark) 

All the rest of the categories I was fairly strong in. 

I just don't even know what to study for or how to study. Really not happy right now. Some of the questions seemed so arbitrary and felt like there was more than one possible answer. For instance, the one question went like this:

"You are using branchcache in distributed mode in your domain. Computer1 is experiencing performance issues. You need to disable computer1 from caching files for the other computers to access" I forget the first two possible answers but I remember I knew for sure that they were incorrect. But the other two answers came down to either changing the amount of disk space that computers use for branchcache or changing the settings so that nothing is cached unless your network speed is below a certain threshold. Now it seems to me that you could prevent computer 1 from caching and files both ways. You could make it so that the network speed threshold for caching files is so low that nothing would ever be cached, or just tell the computers not to use any disk space for caching. Either would prevent computer1 from caching files right? Not according to Microsoft's twisted thinking.


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## greenbrucelee

I would prevent because you do not want the network dropping speed this would indicate other issues.

Cisco Network Simulation Software | IT Practice Exams | IT Training | Boson practice exam will help you alot because in study mode you have links to technet etc which discusses the above issue and will teach you about the other stuff you are weak on.

good luc next time.


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## tim19889

No one of the solutions was not to drop the network speed but to lower the threshold for the network speed at which branchcache kicks in. So say you have branchcache set up to kick on only if your WAN link is running slower than 100kb/sec. You could lower it and say "dont use branchcache unless the WAN link is running slower than 5kb/sec." And if you know it would never run that slow that would effectively disable branchcache from kicking in and running.

By the way what do you think of this to help prepare me for the test? I'm liking it because it is specifically from Microsoft so (maybe) they'll actually have what I need to know on these study materials? 

Learning Plan Details


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## greenbrucelee

tim19889 said:


> No one of the solutions was not to drop the network speed but to lower the threshold for the network speed at which branchcache kicks in. So say you have branchcache set up to kick on only if your WAN link is running slower than 100kb/sec. You could lower it and say "dont use branchcache unless the WAN link is running slower than 5kb/sec." And if you know it would never run that slow that would effectively disable branchcache from kicking in and running.
> 
> By the way what do you think of this to help prepare me for the test? I'm liking it because it is specifically from Microsoft so (maybe) they'll actually have what I need to know on these study materials?
> 
> Learning Plan Details


If you have taken that from your Microsoft transcript page then it will be accurate for what you need to study. The problem with this exam is that the material for it at the moment is very weak this is why I am waiting for revised books to come out in the second half of this year.


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## Gotchaz

Sorry to hear that Tim, the answer to that question would be netsh branchcache flush to prevent other computers from receiving cached content from computer 1. That command will delete all the cache in the PC.


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## tim19889

Thanks, I'll know now if it comes up next time around . I know I can pass this thing because if I would have scored the same the second time as what I scored the first time on Configuring Access to Resources and Deploying Windows 7 I would have passed. I improved significantly in other areas that I didn't do very well in on the first try, but for some reason this time I did lousy on the Configuring Access Resources and Deploying Windows 7. Installing, Upgrading, and Migrating to Windows 7 was also weak too. I am going over all the technet articles on USMT and other tools and hoping to pass next time. Also memorizing all netsh branchcache commands and what they do. I have twelve pages of hand-written notes detailing all of the commands for the different tools you need to know for windows 7 so any questions revolving around knowing a command I should definitely get right.


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## Gotchaz

Well took the exam today and third try is the lucky one. Finally passed and can put this behind me


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## greenbrucelee

Well done


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## tim19889

Awesome! Congrats dude. What materials did you use to study for and what did you do to prepare for the...

Installing, Migrating, and Upgrading to Windows 7
Deploying Windows 7
Configuring Access to Shared Resources sections

These were my weakest areas. I take the test next Monday so any quick study tips would be greatly appreciated. I am reading carefully over all the technet articles on the subjects and re-watching the Messer videos as it's been awhile. Also labbing of course.


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## tim19889

just passed


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## Gotchaz

Congrats mate!!! all that hard work paid off


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## tim19889

Thanks man, yeah I'm quite excited about it . It'll be nice to not have to study for awhile now too lol. I'm going to focus on getting that first entry-level job now and reviewing the things I've learned from my other certifications.


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