70-290 Struggling

[far2gud]

Hi all

I am struggling in absorbing the info for this exam, especially group scopes, group policy and permissions. If I study enough will these subjects start to click or should I find another career?? I am only scoring about 50% in trancenders after about a months study.

Any advice appreciated

[Smallguy]

don't give up but what exactly are you having problems with in theses areas

have u looked at the tech notes here.. the NTFS permissions quertions are very simular to the XP 7-270 exam but ou wil get alot of theses questions... really the only tihng to do with these is memorize thme unfortunately and try ot mentally diagram or accessing a folder.

or are u having problems with understanding Delgation??


group scopes again is just memorization

the biggest thing with gropu policy is knowing the orer they apply in

take a look at this it is a high level overview

http://www.johnkellett.co.uk/index.php/2006/08/25/order-of-windows-2000-and-2003-group-policy-inheritance-brief-overview/

if your not sure where settings are in GP's then ur gonna haveo t put your time in on your labs

Labs are very important make sure u do alot of them

[far2gud]

Thanks for the reply,

Maybe I need to sit down and learn the scopes and permissions. Would you go as far as to learn all of the special permissions as well?

I am working my way through the Microsoft book and doing the labs as I go but there is a lot of material and it is easily forgotten as you go.

Is there anywhere online I can get labs that concentrate on applying group policy?

Thanks again

[Smallguy]

[far2gud]

Thanks for that, the links look great. I think I will just have to try and memorize the material.

[Twilight]

Hi,
Maybe take a break from the hard study and just play with the stuff. Set yourself some corporate-style targets and make them work. You'll need a decent lab for this. A server and a client as a minimum. Preferably a couple of each (even if they're virtual). If you don't enjoy doing this kind of stuff then maybe it isn't for you, but here's a couple of ideas.

Set up a few shares on your server. Accounts, Marketing, Sales & TechSupport. Create groups and accounts for each of them. Test each account and make sure Bob from Accounts can read/write the accounts folder but not the Sales or Tech support folder. Oh - and he needs just read-only access to Marketing (or whatever. Set your own stuff - but this is the kind of stuff I do every day so it made the exam pretty straight forward).
MAybe create them all in different OU's then set a different group policy on each OU that maps the share as S: drive or something.

Then go another level. Start locking down the workstation with group policy. Force a particular desktop upon Sales, but not on Accounts.
Remove Accounts ability to see/use control panel.
Give TechSupport roaming profiles but Marketing mandatory profiles.

Setup all your client workstations with Windows XP and no service packs, then force SP2 to be deployed to the clients. Make MS OFfice a published application for the users (note - one is a user policy one a computer). Play with some other GPO's for assigning & deploying software.
Deploy some bits of software to some PC's or users, but not others.

Setup shared printers. Give different access to different groups for the printers.

Oh - and every time you're building a PC/Server make sure you do it with an unattended install (or RIS, something similar). Maybe ghost and sysprep. Try all the different options so you've done them a few times.

That's just a few ideas based on what most server techs will be doing most days and what's in the exams. I get very very bored studying and reading the books, but I quite like playing about with a lab. It's time consuming but you can have the tele on and it's 'proper' learning not just 'book' learning.
I hope you've got a bit of kit in your lab and a few virtual servers. IF not see if you can get your hands on some. You don't need much grunt.

Good luck!

[tmdelariva]

Hang in there. I am using the MS press book and I started to take practice tests and I was getting around 60%. I took a few days off and I am going to reread the chapters on permissions, groups and a few others. I would not give up some of it is practice and some of it is just working with the software
_________________
Tom
BA, MCSA, MCP (70-270 70-290, 291, 293), CNA, CompTIA Security+, CompTIA A+

[Kjell]

Alot of good advice has already been offered. Nothing, I mean nothing beats hands on experience. I would also advise reading some Server 2003 administration books that aren't specifically target certs, but focus on how to perform daily tasks. One example would be Jeremy Moskowitz's "Gropup policy, profiles and Intellimirror" which did wonders for my understanding of these topics and in turn made it easy for me to apply that knowledge to not only completing my cert, but perform my job better as well.
_________________
Kjell Andorsen
A+, Network+, Security+
MCTS: Server 2008 Active Directory, Network
and Application Infrastructure
MCTS: Vista
MCSE 2003: Security
MCSA 2003: Messaging
MCP(70-270,70-284,70-290,70-291,70-293,70-294,70-298, 70-299 )

[MCSE_Newbie]

Study, study and more study.

Keep at it, you'll come good.

[KUjayhawkEC]

A little more patience, man. You'll eventually master the concepts. In your transcender exams, study more on the concepts where you scored lower.

Good luck.
_________________
MCP (70-270, 70-290, 70-228, 70-229)
Upcoming: 70-291, 70-293

[far2gud]

Thanks for all the great suggestions folks.

I decided to have a weeks rest and am gonna hit the books again tonight.

Hopefully I find it easier after the break.

[MCSE_Newbie]

Excellent link smallguy

[QSECOFR]

When I passed 290 in January, I had 5 sim questions. Here is some advice from what I can remember from the exam.

My advice would be to make sure you do some practice with AD. I had experience working with AD on Win2000, so most of the skills I picked up doing AD administration actually helped me on the exam.

Get your hands on Virtual PC and a Windows 2003 Trial and actually work with the server. Setup your own AD at your home, join XP Pro worksations, create users and groups. Also play with Group Policies.

Studying alone will not pass this exam. You need to know how to do things with AD, and use the OS.
_________________
MCP (70-270, 70-290), ZCE
IBM Certified Specialist - iSeries System Adminsitration V5R2

[Insight]

A -> G -> DL -> P

First Create Account

Assign account to global group
(the global group can contain only accounts from the its own domain but can be applied to resources anywhere in the forest)

Then assign the global group to domain local group
(the domain local group can be assigned only to resources in its own domain but can contain users or groups from any domain in the forest)

Then set permissions on the domain local group

Hope this helps - thats how i learned it.

[chumple]

This page helped me, because it offers a real-world situation where the group scopes are being used:

http://microsys.unity.ncsu.edu/documentation/ITD-Active-Directory-Environment/Groups-Permissions.php

It has decent graphics, that help too.