Archive for the ‘Microsoft’ Category

According to my earlier blogpost and the news on the MS Learn blog the beta code for the 71-669 exam should be e-mailed to us around 15:00 CET (9:00am EST). For now the exam is available on the Prometric website, but sadly enough I didn’t receive the code yet. If I read the responses to the earlier blogpost correctly, nobody did receive the code…

When is the exam available?
When the beta code for the exam is available you will be able to register the exam for a date between March 5th, 2010 and March 25th, 2010.

Code is available for SME’s
Just a few minutes ago (16:20 CET) I received the e-mail with the beta code: (no the beta code will not be published!)

{My SINCERE apologies for the delay, had a problem with Connect so am sending to you directly.}

Register for Beta Exam 71-669: TS: Windows Server 2008 R2, Desktop Virtualization

You are eligible to register for beta exam 71-669: TS: Windows Server 2008 R2, Desktop Virtualization. You were specifically chosen to receive this notification because of your Microsoft Learning SME Profile or previous participation with Microsoft Learning. If you pass the beta exam, the exam credit will be added to your transcript and you will not need to take the exam in its released form.

This opportunity will also be offered to the general public. However, please do not post the beta code publicly. If you do post the beta code publicly, you will be excluded from future beta notifications.

By participating in beta exams, you have the opportunity to provide the Microsoft Certification program with feedback about exam content, which is integral to development of exams in their released version. We depend on the contributions of experienced IT professionals and developers as we continually improve exam content and maintain the value of Microsoft certifications.

71-669: TS: Windows Server 2008 R2, Desktop Virtualization counts as credit towards the following certification(s).

· MCITP: Windows Server 2008 R2, Virtualization Administrator

So all the SME’s will probably receive the code within a few minutes. Probably something went wrong (again!) with the Connect e-mail system, because the e-mail was received from Krista W herself .

I was able to register for the exam! Let’s hope you all are able to register for a exam spot.

A few days ago I already blogged that MS Learning would announce the last out of three new Virtualization exams. Next week, on Monday March 1st, the registration for the (beta) exam will open!

Registration old school
Until now the first possibility to register for an exam was at 12:00 am EST (6:00am CET), because the last time Prometric made a beta exam available there were ‘a few’ things that didn’t go that well! The beta exam code leaked to the internet several times which allowed everybody to register for the beta’s, instead of the people that were originally invited!

During the last beta exam, the 71-693, everybody in Europe was awake very early (the exam became available around 6am in Europe), but we were unable to register for the exam. Later that day MS Learning fixed the issues and the Europeans were able to register for the 71-693.

Registration 2010
This time everything is different. A couple of hours ago I received a ‘beta-exam’ notification which told me registration for the beta exam will open on March 1st (Next Monday that is!) at 9:00am EST (What time is this in my region?). The beta code will be e-mailed on March 1st at 9:00am EST, so let’s hope the e-mail system does what it has to do and everybody will receive the beta code in time!

Will this be the solution?
I think something has to change to give, at least the SME’s, a fair change to be the first to register for the exam. So if the new procedure works the way it should, this could be a proper solution to prevent the code to be posted on the web before the beta registration opens. And if something goes wrong the Prometric office at the Eastern part of the USA will be opened up so MS Learning peeps can contact them to fix the issues that may appear.

So, when is the registration for the 71-669 is available?

What : 71-669 : TS: Windows Server 2008 R2, Desktop Virtualization
Time : 9:00am EST (What time is this in my region?)

At the moment it’s not known when you can attend the exam, but this will probably be part of the e-mail of March 1st!

Finally the App-V is available for 64-bit operating systems! You can download App-V 4.6 as part of MDOP 2010 from MSDN or TechNET.

Since the release of Windows Vista I’m using 64-bit Operating Systems, so with the release of App-V 4.6 I can finally run all my sequenced applications on my laptop! I have to be honest…I’m using App-V 4.6 on my laptop since the release of the beta version. It’s really cool to have all your apps up and running again in about 10 minutes when I did a clean install for the 3rd time :

Somewhere in the next few days MS Learning will announce the latest Desktop Virtualization beta exam : TS : Windows Server 2008 R2, Desktop Virtualization, but more about that in another blogpost. For more info about the release of the beta exam-code please visit the MS Learn Blog

Which browser will you use? Starting on February 27th Microsoft will release their browser ballot screen to windows-users in Belgium, France and Great Britain. You will only see screen similar to the screen you see below if Internet Explorer is your default web browser. So if you are already useing Firefox or Chrome for instance you will not see the selection screen.  
If you have the Internet Explorer as your default browser you’ll receive a screen similar to the screen above to select your favorite browser. you can choose between the following browsers (in random order):

1. Windows Internet Explorer 8
2. Mozilla Firefox
3. Google Chrome
4. Safari
5. Opera
6. K-Meleon
7. FlashPeak Slimbrowser
8. Sleipnir
9. Maxthon
10. Flock
11. Avant Browser
12. Green Browser

It’s always good to see that there are more browsers besides the famous Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Opera. The order in which the browsers are presented is different every time you visit the browser ballot webpage. If you want to check out the browser ballot screen yourself, just visit http://www.browserchoice.eu

Robbert Verbeek pointed me to the latest Microsoft Credential : Microsoft Certified Non-Professional. To achieve this credential you have to pass both the 70-401 (SCCM,Configuring) and the 70-656 (MDOP, Configuring). I’m not sure why Microsoft should name it Non-Professional, but as you can see below…it does exist!
 

I already forwarded this screenshot to the guys over at @MSLearning, when I receive a respsonse I’ll let you know

ps. Back in September 2009 Eric Denekamp also received the ‘Non-Professional’ Certification