Exam Facts
Questions: 51
Passing Score: 705
Time Allowed: 90 minutes
Note: These tips are only intended to assist you in your exam preparation. They are not intended to be a substitute for diligent study. In addition to various self-study courses, I would recommend, if you have access to it, the MOC course 922 (NT 4.0 Core Technologies). If you want to know exactly which topics will appear on the certification exam, please consult the Microsoft Exam Preparation Guide for this exam (which can be found at www.microsoft.com/mcp).
Actually these tips are an edited collection of brain dumps from those who have boldly gone before you. Pay heed to their experience and you shall learn!
Installation
Know the minimum requirements for NT 4 - 120M Disk, 12M RAM (I386), 16M RAM (RISC), and 486-DX33
Know the difference between unattend.txt and a *.udf file.
Know when to use SYSDIFF (don’t get fooled by windiff!).
Know how to uninstall NT. (Boot to DOS, run SYS.COM and remove the NT directory and files.)
Account Management
Remember how to create and delete accounts, and the audit capabilities in User Manager.
Know when to delete and when to disable an account.
Know how to rename an account, and when to copy an account, and that the copied account DOES NOT have the same permissions to resources as the original (unless all resource permission assigning is done by groups)
Configuration
Remember the common keys of the Registry.
Know the differences between REGEDT32 and REGEDIT (REGEDT32 allows read only, REGEDIT can search for values).
Familiarize yourself with control panel - what each Applet can do (e.g., know that sound drivers are installed with the Multimedia applet).
File Systems
Remember the different file systems - NTFS, FAT & HPFS.
NTFS has file level security, and is faster over 400M, but bigger overhead
FAT is compatible with MSDOS & Win95. (Note Win95 FAT32 is NOT NT compatible).
For upgrading NT3.51 HPFS you must upgrade to NTFS BEFORE upgrading the OS.
Learn about Disk Administrator, what the menu items contain, and when you need to Commit Changes.
Learn about Volume Sets and Stripe Sets. Know that volume sets do not improve performance, but stripe sets do. Know that you can expand NTFS volume sets, but not Stripe sets.
Security
Learn about Permissions both for Shares and Local Access.
Permissions are cumulative, except for No Access, which overrides anything. If you have NTFS and Share permissions, add up the cumulative permissions of each, and take the most restrictive of these two.
Known what happens when you move files or folders between NTFS partitions, and within them. A rule of thumb is that if a new file is created, it inherits the permissions of the target folder. Copying within a partition - new file - target folder permissions. Moving within a partition - no new file (directory pointers are just updated) : original permissions. Moving across partitions - this is a copy/delete action - new file - target folder permissions.
Application Support
Know that by default MS-DOS applications have their own NTVDM - each NTVDM is like it's own DOS computer, single thread and separate memory space.
Win16 all share WOW NTVDM - shared memory space, but single thread for each process.
Learn how to start WIN16 apps in own NTVDM, and when to do this. Some Apps are unstable, but need to share memory - start these in the default NTVDM, start others in their own NTVDM. If Win16 apps use DDE they do NOT have to share the default NTVDM
Learn about Application priorities - LOW, NORMAL, HIGH and REALTIME (admin only). Know how to change this in the CONTROL PANEL | SYSTEM | PERFORMANCE.
Know about starting applications from the command line using /separate, /min, /high etc.
Networking
Know how to share a folder, and who can do it - Administrators and Power Users.
Know how to set security on shares.
Know how to install networking protocols, TCP/IP, NetBeui and NWLink, and in which environments they should be used.
Know that NetBEUI is non-routable.
In TCP/IP, remember that a unique IP address and correct subnet mask are REQUIRED.
Know that to talk to remote computers (routed network) a default gateway will also be needed.
Know that NWLink is Microsoft's version of IPX/SPX NetWare Core Protocol, and that this is ALL that is needed for Applications to talk to NetWare servers. For File and Print services the workstation must also be running CSNW.
Learn about the CSNW applet in control panel - especially Print Banner, Print Form Feed and Notify When Printed.
Learn how to connect to a NetWare 3.x server [or 4.x with Bindery emulation] (Preferred Server in CSNW), and a NetWare 4 server using NDS (Default Tree and Context).
Know how to change a password on a NetWare server - Setpass (3.x) and CTRL-ALT-DEL (4.x).
Know for what purpose DHCP, WINS and DNS are used.
Printing
Know how to set up a printer and document defaults.
Know Microsoft's terminology - a Print Device is hardware; a Printer is software.
Know what the Spooler service does.
Know how to set printer priorities and how to set print times.
Know printer pools, and how to restrict long reports to after hours.
Know the options in the print folder and print manager - Document Defaults, Server Properties - ports, forms and advanced.
Troubleshooting
Know when to use "last known good configuration."
Know to boot to "standard VGA" when you have problems with a new graphics driver.
Know the Emergency Repair Process.
You CANNOT boot from the Emergency Repair disk - you must boot from the three setup disks (which can be created using WINNT.EXE /OX).
The repair process inspects the registry files (and returns them to the state on the repair disk), inspects the startup environment, verifies the system files and inspects the boot sector.
Have an idea about what sort of errors occur if Boot.ini, NTLDR or the kernel are missing or damaged.
Know how to read ARC paths.
Know how and when to use Event Viewer, and that only local administrators can see the security log.
Have a working knowledge of Performance Monitor, and know that you can use Task Manager to see the processor utilization.
Know how to detect a bottleneck (hint: lots of paging -> add RAM).
Know that you need to install the SNMP service to send TCPIP trap messages to another computer.
Know that you need to use Network Monitor Tools and Agent to monitor packets.
Miscellaneous
Know that a RAS Server can only dial back one number, but a ISDN line with 2 B-channels (SAME telephone number) can be called back.
Know that you can connect to an Internet drive by mapping this way: \\microsoft.com\share.
Know the various services running with Personal Web Server - Gopher, FTP, WWW.