Well, I should say 71-649, because I sat the beta-exam. But how would I rate my preparations (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8) and the exam?
Let me start with the exam, 88 questions on:
Mapping my preparation to the beta-exam, I can say IIS and Networking were well covered. Though there is one flaw on my IIS prep: .NET Trust Levels… I totally forgot about them.
My feeling on WDS and AD in general is okay, though I should have spend more time on Federation Services and Rights Management Services and gotten some hands-on experience with WDS. Towards Virtual Server, I can say I underestimated it a bit, thinking that my daily usage of Virtual Server 2005 for test and development would cover it. Not, you’ll need to invest in your skills to manage a production environment of legacy OS-es hosted on Virtual Server, including securing (the level of) access to specific machines and scripts.
And then there were Terminal Services, well actually my exam started with them and I was shocked (or maybe stunned) with the level of depth and detail in the questions. Maybe, like with Virtual Server, I underestimated TS. But with VS, I had at least the feeling the questions were fair, some the TS question however were IMHO based on look-up facts, not skill. If the spread of the exam will be the same as on my beta, prep deep and hard at ALL topics on Terminal Services.
That said about my preparation, but will I pass? Hard to say, first of all it’s a beta exam, so it’s also a test for the question pool (and some won’t make the cut). There were errors in at least two questions (which I commented) and I have my doubts about a couple of others (I’ll review what I can remember and answer that on Microsoft’s follow-up mail on the beta exam). Until then, I’ll anxiously await the result.