Exam dumps
Unfortunately I’ve received numerous requests for an exam dump of 74-409 which really upsets me.
For those that are not aware of it, you are not allowed to share or use exam dumps. “If Microsoft learns that a candidate used a “brain dump” site to prepare for an exam, this candidate will be permanently banned or prohibited from taking any future Microsoft Certification exams and may be decertified from the Microsoft Certification Program. In addition, test scores and certifications, if applicable, may be revoked. These actions may be taken even if the candidate did not intend to defraud the Microsoft Certification Program.”
For more information, see:
http://borntolearn.mslearn.net/btl/b/weblog/archive/2013/01/02/why-brain-dumps-are-bad.aspx
Preparing to take the exam
This is generally what I do for preparing to take the exam:
- Determine the skills that are measured in the exam 74-409
- View the online course Server Virtualization with Windows Hyper-V and System Center at Microsoft Virtual Academy (MVA)
- Reflect how confident you are that the online course has provided you with sufficient skills to take the exam.
- Optionally enhance your knowledge using:
- If you (know someone who) attended the course for this exam (20409A-ENU), then be sure to take a look at the book. It contains a lot of details that are missing from the jump start videos.
- Windows Server 2012 R2 Private Cloud Virtualization and Storage Poster and Mini-Posters
- Community/user created content for taking the exam
–Study resources 74-409 Server Virtualization with Windows Server Hyper-V and System Center
–Born To Learn wiki
–Veeam Study guide
–Free MCP Training study guide (in progress)
- Blogs by people that already took the exam, to see how they prepared.
- Recordings and slides of the Virtualization IT Camp
- Additional Hyper-V and Server 2012 R2 related courses on Microsoft Virtual Academy (MVA)
- Real life or virtual meetings, presentations and user groups. Microsoft has started a Microsoft User Group Portal wiki, but unfortunately it’s not widely being used yet. Therefore I suggest searching the internet or taking a look at the Microsoft Events website.
- Your own lab to work with the products. You can use the existing Microsoft Test Lab Guides (TLG) or if you don’t have the hardware for your lab, just browse the document.
- Technet library documentation about Hyper-V. This can also be downloaded here for offline use.
- Technet TechCenter
- Training videos. By example on YouTube, or from commercial companies like CBT Nuggets and PluralSight. Nowadays you can get monthly subscriptions or just get trials for a couple of days to help you get a good start.
- Great TechNet Blogs.
- Guided labs / guided experiences like by example the Microsoft Private Cloud Guided Labs. Note: these might not be updated to 2012 R2 yet, but they should provide you with a better understanding.
- Virtual labs (search for hyper or virtual machine manager)
- Twitter by following people with interesting information on Hyper-V, by searching for tweets containing hyperv or hyper-v or by connecting with the community.
- Forums to discuss and share information. Since I’m from the Netherlands I use Tweakers.net a lot and can be found discussing Microsoft Certification related stuff in the topic “[Microsoft Certified] Ervaringen en discussies”.
- Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Best Practices (In Easy Checklist Form)
- Free e-books:
–Introducing Windows Server 2012 R2
–Microsoft System Center Microsoft System Center
–Windows Server 2012 R2 Overview White Paper
–Windows Server 2012 R2 Server Virtualization White Paper
- Printed books, but as far as I know there are no specific books yet for 74-409 and most books covering Windows Server 2012, Hyper-V or System Center 2012 have not yet been updated to the R2 release.
- Channel 9 to search for relevant content.
- Technet Video to search for relevant content.
- Server Posterpedia Windows store app or component architecture posters.
- Infrastructure Planning and Design (IPD) Guides
- Survival guides
Specific topics and resources I used while studying:
Read the rest of this entry »
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As some of you might know, the Windows 8.1 Preview and Server 2012 R2 Preview (code name Windows Blue) will become available on the 26th of June. Personally I’m looking forward to both of them and can’t wait for it. Also for those who missed it, The Windows 8.1 / Windows RT 8.1 update will be free. The final RTM version of Windows 8.1 is expected to be available August 1st.
When you’re planning to install a new version, you might want to prepare for it. Even though I tried to keep it as generic as possible, some of the steps described are not applicable to Windows RT but you should be able to understand what the goal is. You can probably also re-use these preparations when you want to update from the Preview version to the RTM version.
Preparations could include, but are not limited to:
- Determining if you can/want to install the update.
- Determining how you are going to run the Windows 8.1 Preview. Some functionality is best tested on hardware installations, but virtualized installations can be more convenient/flexible.
- Virtualized (by example using Client Hyper-V)
- Install Windows 8 already and wait for the 8.1 Preview to become available.
- Will consume more space.
- Will allow you to install the 8.1 RTM.
- Wait for full Windows 8.1 Preview ISO to become available.
- Will consume less space.
- Might not allow you to install the 8.1 RTM version.
- Physical
- Create a new Windows To Go (WTG) installation.
- On an officially supported WTG certified storage device.
- On an unofficial non WTG supported storage device.
- Create a dual/multi boot environment on a physical disk.
- Create a new installation.
- Gather required drivers and store them in an easy to access location.
- Gather applications you want to install.
- Install.
- Installation directly to disk.
- Use the boot from VHD method
- Update your existing installation.
- Ensure your important data is safe prior to updating. Even though the update should not destroy data, there is always a chance that it might.
- Ensure you have recovery media and/or create a USB recovery drive.
- Move/backup your data.
- Verify if the new location / backup contains all your data. With backups, verify if you can restore
- Sync to cloud services (Skydrive, Dropbox, Google Drive).
- Realize this is not the same as a backup.
- Document the installed applications (using PowerShell):
- For Modern/Metro applications:
Get-AppxPackage | Export-Csv -NoTypeInformation -path “C:\MyMetroApplications.csv”
- For regular applications:
Get-ItemProperty HKLM:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\* | Select DisplayName, DisplayVersion, Publisher, InstallDate, HelpLink, UninstallString | Export-Csv -NoTypeInformation -path “C:\MyRegularApplications.csv”
- Check if your current Windows 8 installation is healthy and if it is not, make it healthy again before installing the 8.1 Preview.
- Install 8.1 Preview when it is available through the Windows Store
- In the past I’ve seen issues with Service Pack updates caused by anti-virus solutions. So you might want to disable it until the installation has completed.
- If you get an error “The windows 8.1 preview isn’t available right now. Please try again later.” take a look here.
With TechEd Europe 2013 in Barcelona and the Microsoft Build 2013 in San Francisco this week there’s probably a lot more news coming. So you might want to keep an eye on news on all websites. You can also check live streams on Channel 9.
I hope this was informative. If you have any other questions, suggestions or just want to share what you’re looking forward to the most, please leave a comment.
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As most people working with Microsoft products, I was not able to attend the Microsoft Management Summit 2013 unfortunately.
These sessions have been recorded though and are available now at Channel 9 and a great overview of sessions can be found here. This means you can watch them wherever and whenever it is convenient for you.
You can also use this great PowerShell script created by Stefan Stranger to download the MMS 2013 videos.
Enjoy.
Tags: Channel 9, management, management summit, Microsoft, Microsoft Management Summit, Microsoft Management Summit 2013, MMS, MMS 2013, video, video recording, video recordings, videos
blog.bjornhouben.com 