Passed :)

tech

Well I have just passed my 1st MCP, not as bad as I thought it would be

Windows XP Pro MCP !

hostyle

Any particular reason you did it? Just curious.

Webmonkey

Congratulations tech

aaf

Congrats. Where did you do it? How much did it cost and how long was the course?

ColmOT [MSFT]

Congratulations Tech!

tech

Thanks All

The exam cost €140 I did it in FAS

I bokoed it using www.2test.com Prometric Testing

i did the exam as the first exam towards my MCSA

The exam is 50 questions in 1.5 Hrs and requires a 80% to pass

Webmonkey

Hey thats not bad at all....I might go way do that sometime.

KdjaCL

Where did you get the course material?

well done add 2k to your salary

kdjac

tech

that would be nice but I dont really think you'd get that much ?

Stky10

I've been pretty amazed to see lots of Microsoft
2000/2003 Server books down in my local second
hand books store recently. Most are still in their
original plastic covering.

Looks to me that people have copped on to the
fact that certification alone doesnt guarantee that
someone knows their stuff, and that experience
is a much more reliable pointer as to someones
technical ability.

Not that with Sun & Cisco certification I should
be saying that...

ColmOT [MSFT]

Believe it or not, but there are only sightly more than 250,000 Windows 2000 MCSE's worldwide.

I would have thought it would be a lot higher.

Stky10

But does that count people who havent bothered
upgrading from MSCE for WinNT4 to Win2003??

I'm sure some of them are still claiming to be an
MSCE on their CV even though their certification
has lapsed.

There's an MCSE for WinNT4 in this office, who
is now coding, and if she's asked a question she
cannot immediately answer she insists on declaring
herself an "Ex-MSCE", but I imagine she'd be in
the minority.

Originally posted by ColmOT [MSFT]
Believe it or not, but there are only sightly more than 250,000 Windows 2000 MCSE's worldwide.

I would have thought it would be a lot higher.

sceptre

Originally posted by Stky10
I've been pretty amazed to see lots of Microsoft
2000/2003 Server books down in my local second
hand books store recently. Most are still in their
original plastic covering.

Looks to me that people have copped on to the
fact that certification alone doesnt guarantee that
someone knows their stuff, and that experience
is a much more reliable pointer as to someones
technical ability.

Not that with Sun & Cisco certification I should
be saying that...

It's also possible that the shop got an overrun as a job lot. Places like Chapters, Vibes & Scribes and Charlie Byrne's (think that's what the place is called) do that on a regular basis. Chapters had a bucketload of those Step by Step books for .Net last time I was in there.

ColmOT [MSFT]

Yeah - I agree. I have the Windows 2000 MCSE, and I'm not bothered doing the Windows Server 2003 exams...

I don't want to put myself through the stress of exams for a qualification that I think is very similiar to W2K.

Cake Fiend

TBH, if I were an employer, I think I'd tend to have a preference of someone with a 2K MCSE over someone with an XP/2003 certification - more oldskool (unless of course the XP/2003 qualification was an upgrade from a 2K equivalent). The logic behind that would be the higher likelyhood (IMO) that someone who has had an MCSE from the 2K days will, by now (assuming they have maintained their skills), have a deeper understanding of the technologies involved than someone who is wet behind the ears from their XP/2003 studies (not necessarily true of course, just my general perception). Seeing as the underlying technologies of XP/2003 are an evolution of those seen in 2K, a 2K qualification would be just as relevant (if not more, as outlined above) as an XP/2003 cert.