I’ve just come out of a Prometric testing centre after taking the Deploying and Maintaining Windows Vista Operating System and 2007 Microsoft Office System Desktop exam (exam 70-624).  I’m please to say that I passed – with a 100% score – but I feel cheated somehow.

You see, the thing about certification is that, ideally, you should know something about the subject.  I used to do a lot of operating system deployment work but that was in the days of Windows 3.1, then NT 4.0, following which the principles didn’t change much up to Windows XP but now there are a lot of new tools and methods that make a huge difference.  I needed to get up to speed on these new tools (and pass this exam) in order to deliver desktop deployment planning services, so I spent a week reading up around the tools, working through hands on labs, installing and testing BDD on my own computers, and then used a practice exam that had been recommended by a colleague to be sure that I was ready…

Microsoft’s NDA prevents me from commenting on the contents of the exam but what I can say is that the week of revision/labs/testing was probably not worth it and that I now know why my colleague recommended the practice exam…

I suppose at least I know that I put the work in to actually learn the subject.