I had previously started out with the Microsoft Press material but found myself falling asleep after reading just a few pages. Technical material is rather dry and boring so it’s difficult to find the right books to study with. After reading reviews on Amazon I picked up this book by William Panek.
William Panek has a number of Microsoft certifications – MCSA, MCSE – 200 & 2003, MCT, MCDBA, MCTS and more.
What I find most valuable in this book is how simple it is to follow and learn the concepts. There are many exercises in each chapter. Steps are easy to follow with a simple VM setup. Concepts are explained clearly.
Each chapter begins with the objectives that they’ll be covering. I found this helpful for my own studies so I can drill in further on my weaknesses.
This book is a good resource for self-study of the 70-640 Microsoft exam but I wouldn’t make it your only resource. Additionally, some of the steps are different in Windows Server 2008 R2.
Chapters of the book:
Chapter 1 – Over of Active Directory
Chapter 2 – Domain Name System (DNS)
Chapter 3 – Planning and Installation of Active Directory
Chapter 4 – Installing and Managing Trees and Forests
Chapter 5 – Configuring Sites and Replication
Chapter 6 – Configuring Active Directory Server Roles
Chapter 7 – Administering Active Directory
Chapter 8 – Configuring Group Policies
Chapter 9 – Planning Security for Active Directory
Chapter 10 – Active Directory Optimization and Reliability
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