This is a Support AID ONLY for the MS 70-270 exam. This can be used as a tool to assist you see if you are ready to take the final exam, it is filled with questions and comes with a CD that gives you an electronic test and more reference material. Again this book should not be used without someother background material on the subject area, but as I said a good add on1

I have found the best way to drive concepts home for me, is to do lots of sample questions with explanations. The printed material in this set was invaluable. This book is primarily sample questions, with a brief overview of each objective prior to the questions. The answer sections give detailed explanations of why each choice was right or wrong. As I went through this all, I took notes and filled in my weak areas.

The Cd was very weak, however. The questions were simplistic and nowhere near as difficult as the real test was. (I still passed!)

Overall, I was very pleased with this book as a study aid, but as a yardstick to determine your readiness for the test, don't rely on it.

This guide was the first I found on XP. If you haven't certified on a fairly recent MS OS, this might be of use to you, but do not stop with this book. If really just scratches the surface. Most of the topics covered in the book (it does cover the objectives in a superficial way) are things the 70-270 test takes for granted you know. If you are 2000 certified, you want something else more geared to the specific differences between XP and 2000. The guide does include specific additional reading, usually from the Resource Kit or the Knowledge Base, and many hands-on lab setups (you need a 2 or 3 pc network, with 2000 Server on one). Bottom line, I do not feel this is a very good book by itself for any experience level.

I get the impression that Dillard and Northrup really rushed to get this book onto the bookstands. Reading through chapter one I found many instances where the authors stated Windows 2000 when they meant to say Windows XP. For example, page 19 suggests that to install Windows XP you simply "insert the Windows 2000 Professional installation CD-ROM and reboot the computer." Well, last time I checked the Windows 2000 CD installed Windows 2000, not Windows XP.

So then I consulted the Microsoft Knowledge base, and discovered Q316452 which lists out all the mistakes in the book. What a mess! These authors really rushed the book, and made a lot of mistakes as a result.

On the bright side - I did pass the exam, and the book did give a good overall perspective of the knowledge required to pass. My advice, however, is to make this book a supplement to a much larger amount of study. The exam had a surprising amount of questions related to the PC BIOS (APM vs ACPI) and SCSI BIOSes.

To the authors I offer this - please put out a Second Edition as soon as you can, and correct these errors. The 70-270 is a fundamental exam for the .Net MCSE's, and I don't want to be working with dummies!

I was very surprised when I used this book and the associated practice exam system (both in the book and on the CD-ROM) in the amount of information about the XP OS that I learned. I've used XP since it was in beta, read the Resource Kit, read other Microsoft Press books on XP and still I found reference to items in this book that I had not read anywhere else. Granted, the book presents the data in very brief summary statements and if you really want to learn more than what is needed to get the practice exam answers right you will need to use the on-line help in XP, the Resource Kit and the Microsoft Web Site. But the knowledge gained after reading the book and following up with the additional resources was well worth my time.

My only complaint about the book is that much of it was obviously the Windows 2000 Professional Exam Prep, and whoever performed the global search and replaced missed quite a few 2000 references. It can sometimes be a little confusing when they are giving you a scenario involving Windows 2000 and Windows XP, and the answer does tell you to boot from the Windows 2000 CD-ROM to correct your Windows XP installation.

Regardless of whether you are studying for the MCSE exam or not, if you want to delve into the Windows XP OS and learn about things that may not have been obvious, this is a great book.