Helmers Blog

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

It took them a while over at Prometric…but the beta code is working right now in the Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, Poland, Hungary and Germany…so be quick and register for the 71-693 before it’s all filled up!

Whole day long we were waiting for Prometric to fix their error, and finally they did! Check out my previous post for all the discussions about this exam.

NOTE : If you are unable to register for the exam, please also leave a comment at this MS Learning Blog Post so they will know who as unable to register

Update (11:00am CET) : Unable to register for this exam in the following countries : Netherlands, Poland, Belgium, Hungary, Switzerland and Germany. Probably some other European countries you’re unable to register for this exam right now.

UPDATE 2 (13:06 CET) : (thanks to Bas Steeloper) Prometric can’t take any action before 14:00 CET (that’s when the Prometric HQ will be available), but it will probably take until 20:00 CET before registration can take place for the European countries named above.

UPDATE 3 : The Beta code is working!!! Be quick and register for the 71-693 before it’s too late!

At 12:00am (EST) the 71-693 became available for registration. And also this time there will be a limited number of seats. With the last exam (71-659) it took about 8 hours before all the seats were filled. What do you think, will this exam be filled quicker?

Too bad this time the exam code for the exam isn’t working in Europe, or at least in the Netherlands! Last few times there have been some issues that had something to do with some dudes leaking the promotional codes on the internet. I asked some friends over at MS Learning, but the told me there is only one beta code available, so it should work. The strange thing is…over at Canada there was at least somebody who was able to register for the exam, with the appropriate beta code, but in Europe nobody succeeded!

  In a couple of hours (6:00AM (CET) you will be able to register for the new Windows Server 2008 R2, Virtualization Administrator exam (70-693 / 71-693). This is the second in the line of three new Microsoft Virtualization exams of which the last will (for what I heard ) be available in beta somewhere in the first quarter of 2010.

So December will be a busy month: Two exams, Christmas (and for the Dutchies..we also had Sinterklaas) and New Year’s Eve at the end of the month. It’s good to know that the exam period of the 71-693 will go from December 23rd, 2009 till January 15th, 2010. So this one I will schedule for the second week of the new year!

Later today I will publish a list with resources which you can use to prepare for the exam. Are you already prepared for the 71-659 (Windows Server 2008 R2, Server Virtualization)? Check out my preparation blog post!

Just to be clear. The beta exam will (probably) be available at 6:00am (CET). If you’re not in the European time zone you can check out your ‘launch time’ at this website.