Sun Sep 3 23:32:42 EDT 2006

What To Study For? WSUS or SUS?


Everyone who knows me knows I'm studying to upgrade my MCSE Cert for work. I've been slowly chugging along in getting ready for my two exams and have ranted several times over various things that are just plane stupid in this book. All of my previous rants can be pretty much blamed on the author(s) and the editor(s). However, I've just come up with one that is squarely a Microsoft issue.

The problem is that I've hit the section regarding the Manage software update infrastructure objective in the 70-292 exam in which it talkes in the book about Microsoft's Software Update Services (SUS). Well, SUS has since been replaced with Windows Software Update Services (WSUS) and in fact all support for SUS will stop at the end of the year. It will literally stop working forcing everyone to use WSUS. That's not a big deal, but What the hell am I supposed to study for?!

I've checked the Microsoft Press section for the book I'm using for an errata which doesn't seem to exist so it seems they haven't updated their text. Or perhaps they just don't care to update it? I've searched on various forums only to get the impression that they are still testing for SUS, but that's just an impression and nothing I could take as a solid answer. So, at this point, assuming they are going to test me on something that won't work in a few months I went to download the older version of SUS only to be redirected to a download for WSUS.

At this point I have no solid answers on what I am going to be tested for. And if it is still SUS then I have no way of actually using it before the exam forcing me to simply read, look at screen shots, and hope I don't get to many questions on it. Or, if the test is on WSUS then I have no official study material to prep for this thing. Which means I'll just have to grab a white paper, install it, and hope I accidentally teach myself the specific bits they are going to test me on.

I find this utterly ridiculous. If they want to test me on old unsupported technology then that's their stupid decision. I'd much rather spend my time learning something I'll actually use at work. Ultimately, I really don't care one way or another what they test me on so long as I know what the hell I need to learn. I just want to get the exams over with so I can get back to learning more stimulating things (aka something not Microsoft).

Posted by Brian | Permalink | Categories: Computers and Technology, Work | |