MD-100: Modern Desktop Associate study guide & Exam prep

Salaam, Namaste, Ola and Hello!

This is my first blog in a few months due to various different commitments, including spending more time around my learning. I have recently (the day of writing this in fact) passed my MD-100 exam and in this blog I will take you through my journey, including:

• Study Resources
• Topics you need to cover
• Exam tips

For those who are not aware, the MD-100 is the first of two exams you need to gain the certification known as ‘Modern Desktop Associate Administrator’. This certification is all based around Windows 10, including upgrading from older OS versions, the different ways in which you can keep it updated and also the security that Windows 10 brings with it.

STUDY RESOURCES: There are a few different ways you can go about studying for an exam, either a tutor led course or self paced learning. For this specific exam I decided to go for the self paced learning approach and the best way I found to get started was the Microsoft Learning resources which are free and can be done at your own pace. To get started on my MD-100 journey I worked through the following course from the learning site:

• Analyze your device and app readiness for Windows 10 (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/modules/m365-modern-device-app/)
• Deploy, upgrade and migrate to Windows 10 (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/modules/m365-modern-os-deployment/)

There are a lot more resources around the Modern Desktop subject, but none that relate to this specific exam. The second free resource I found really useful is again thanks to Microsoft: https://partner.microsoft.com/en-us/asset/collection/modern-desktop-associate-certification-part-1-exam-md100#/

Again these are self paced training videos but much more interactive than the learning paths as you have labs as well as interactive activities you need to complete which can actually be quite fun! Another positive about this resource is that each module has a set of questions that you are graded on and at the end of the full course you have a final test and in some cases a lab which is marked. The reason this resource was probably the most useful was because of how interactive it was with the labs as well as the mark tests, as this gives you hands on practice and realistic questions which allows you to judge if the information you are learning is actually going in or not!

The final resource I used was a Plurasite course which was all video and reading based. Personally this was the most difficult to get through for me as I found the watching and reading only element very mundane. Some of the videos within the training were very useful however as they were based around real life engineers being interviewed and giving there experience around the subject matter, be it Windows update, Installing Windows or even the security side. Unlike the Microsoft learning site which are free, Plurasite is a subscription based site but again I highly recommend investing in it.

TOPICS YOU NEED TO COVER: You can find the main topics to cover on the Microsoft exam site: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/learning/exam-md-100.aspx. Topics they suggest include Deploy Windows, Manage devices, Configure Connectivity and Maintain Windows. I recommend you cover all these as suggested, however the following should be covered in greater depth:

• NTFS permissions
• Windows permissions
• Group Policy
• Powershell Commands
• AutoPilot
• Bitlocker

EXAM TIPS: The new Microsoft exam format covers a few different question types, with your standard multiple choice, scenario based where they have multiple questions based on one big use case and finally practical labs. With this particular exam however I did not get any labs. The exam was 45 questions, 40 of which were multiple choice and 5 were based on one big scenario. I do not think there is anything new I can tell you about the multiple choice questions that you do not already know, however with the scenario based questions I was not to bothered about reading the full scenario in to much detail as you can always refer back to it. Once I skim read it, I looked at the question, found the relevant part in the scenario which I read in detail and then looked at the possible answers. I found this saved a lot of time and needless reading of information that is not really valid for the questions. One thing to note is that I had over 2 hours to complete the 45 questions in, which means you can take your time and even go back and review your answers before finally submitting them.

Hope you find this helpful, if you would like any more information feel free to tweet me @shabazdarr or ask a question in the comments section below! I am planning on doing the MD-101 exam in a few weeks so will follow that up with another post!

Until next time, ‘IamITGeek’ over and out!