I just passed Microsoft's 70-210 test for "Installing and adminstering Windows 2000". This was to renew my "Microsoft Certified Professional" status, which, combined with another programmer here who also has that cert, allows our company to have some sort of status with Microsoft I forget (something like Certified Partner or something).

Anyway, I haven't had to take one of these tests for a couple of years, and I had forgotten how awful they were. Who else has had to take these damn things?

Okay, for starters, they make you memorize crap that no real human being in his right mind would memorize. For example, the command-line parameters to obscure utilities which you would use perhaps once every ten years. Jeez, don't these people know about the "/?" parameter?

Then there are the questions which basically state "Our operating system has an egregious bug which is completely inexcusable. What is our lame work-around for our bug?" They even have questions on the test about "This third-party manufacturer's specific device has crappy drivers, producing the following specific error message on win2k. What is the lame work-around for this specific problem?"

And then there's the accessibility options questions. They have four nearly-identically-named features (filterkeys, stickykeys, serialkeys, togglekeys), and expect us to memorize exactly what each one does without looking at the online help. What's worse is that there's no way to tell from each name what the function does. If you use the root word of the feature name as a guide, you'll get it wrong because they don't do what their name suggests. For instance, the purpose of one of them is to beep when capslock is pressed but it is not named beepkeys.

And don't get me started on the poor wording of the questions. Some questions didn't give you enough information to answer the question correctly, even when you knew the feature inside and out. It was as if they wanted to make certain that everyone got at least some questions wrong.

Worst of all, I prepped for this test by going through a 250-question practice test several times. There were at least two questions on the practice test that were verbatim-identical to the ones on the real test, but the answers (all four possible ones) were completely different. The correct answer on the practice test wasn't even available on the real test.

I'm amazed I passed it at all. While taking the test, I had doubts I would pass it.

Anyone else share my frustration? God, I hope I never have to get an MCSE.