If you do a little scouring on the Internet, you can come across snippets of information about new Microsoft tests that are in development or in the beta process. As I mentioned in an earlier blog, taking a beta exam can be a boon, yet frustrating, as the exam developers are still working out all the kinks with the test. So what you see for a beta test is still a work in progress and could be aggravating to the test taker – but still well worth the experience.
There is a new beta test running which demonstrates an interesting pattern at Microsoft for exams and exam subjects. The new exam is (or will be when released) 70-660: TS Windows Internals. What this exam tests is the “deep technical skills in the area of Windows Internals. Including troubleshooting operating systems that are not performing as expected or applications that are not working correctly, identifying code defects and developing and debugging applications that run unmanaged code or that are tightly integrated with the operating system, such as Microsoft SQL Server, third party applications, antivirus software, and device drivers.” *
This exam is not intended for the great networker masses, it is aimed at high level engineers who have extensive and in-depth knowledge of windows and the windows architecture. These are the folks who find the deep errors and faults that the rest of us can’t. From the Microsoft website, the preparation for this test involves a thorough knowledge of the PSTools developed by Mark Russinovich (you might remember him from Sony’s root-kit debacle a few years back). These tools enable you to delve deeper into the operating system than you are able using the built-in tools.
I think this is going to be a very interesting exam as it will definitely separate the geek from the uber-geek. I hope that this is the start of more tests in this same genre (maybe not just on networking) - pushing the level of knowledge (and having a certification to prove this knowledge) and perhaps encouraging others to push themselves as well.
*http://blogs.msdn.com/ntdebugging/pages/exam-preparation-information-for-exam-71-660.aspx
Randy Muller, MCT, MCSE, MCSA, MCDST, is currently an instructor with Global Knowledge, specializing in teaching Certification Boot Camps as well as courses on Exchange, Server 2008 and Office Communications Server.
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Took the exam last month, cross my fingers
I took that beta last month. If you sleep with Russinovich's Windows Internals book every night or if you analyze crash dump files in WinDbg for breakfast, that's your exam!
I'm sure I'll be rudely surprised when I get the letter from MS, but the test seemed less hard to me than my trying to resolve an obscure hardware bug that has crashed my Vista box every few days since June. I think if I resolve it (no luck thus so far), they'll have to give me the cert, because I have been around every corner of Windows in investigating this problem...
Good luck with the beta!
They are an amazing set of tools - if you haven't worked with them before - you don't know what you are missing!
I hope you pass the beta - that is not one that I would look forward to taking again. I like the idea of constructive credit for working out a problem with the tools....maybe we should sugget that to
MS - if you have x-number of years of experience you get retroactively grandfathered in for a specific certification....
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