Rating: 
Summary: Another disappointment!
Review: Another MCSD study guide disappointment! This book lacks depth on almost all topics. Key facts are omitted. As usual with study guides, this book has it's share of typos and errors. Errata is badly needed. Book states that this is all you need to pass the VB Desktop Exam, however I doubt that is possible. Not worth the price, look elsewhere!
Rating: 
Summary: Typos aside, still solid
Review: I found the book to be an excellent prep for the exam. Some of the unworking code examples are fragments of code that aren't intended to stand alone. I can't comment on code provided on the CD as I didn't use it. The book does not lead you by the hand, which for me was a good thing. It could be better, but couple this with MSDN Library or MSDN Online and you're rolling.
Rating:
Summary: Typos aside, still solid
Review: I passed this exam today. While this book was helpful and covered most every exam objective in sufficient depth, it needs some work. For God's sake, when will somebody create an MCSD book that doesn't have a glaring error in every chapter? From wrongly keyed practice tests to glaring contradictions, this book had it all. Case in point, pp.126-127 "(the controls) collection is not a true Visual Basic Collection because it does not support the full member set that a Visual Basic Collection object has. However, it does have a COUNT property, as well as ITEM, ADD, and REMOVE methods." Umm...that's what a VB collection has. The content (when it was correct) was sufficient, but the book was soured by such errors. Did I mention get the Transcenders?
Rating: 
Summary: Room for Improvement
Review: I passed this exam today. While this book was helpful and covered most every exam objective in sufficient depth, it needs some work. For God's sake, when will somebody create an MCSD book that doesn't have a glaring error in every chapter? From wrongly keyed practice tests to glaring contradictions, this book had it all. Case in point, pp.126-127 "(the controls) collection is not a true Visual Basic Collection because it does not support the full member set that a Visual Basic Collection object has. However, it does have a COUNT property, as well as ITEM, ADD, and REMOVE methods." Umm...that's what a VB collection has. The content (when it was correct) was sufficient, but the book was soured by such errors. Did I mention get the Transcenders?
Rating:
Summary: I wish I had used the MCSD in a Nutshell book
Review: I spent about a week before the exam plowing through this book. It tries to be light in some places, but mostly it just lists the information and doesn't give you much sense of why it's interesting or useful. (And VB is so overloaded with stuff that most of what's covered on the exam isn't useful to most developers.) It was a decent study guide, and I passed the test just barely, but I definitely wouldn't recommend this book to anyone else. Check out O'Reilly's MCSD in a Nutshell, which you'll read quicker and remember more. (If I had known that book existed, I never would have bought this one.)Good luck on your test!
Rating: 
Summary: Incorrect information, errored code,horrible learning tool.
Review: This book although covers most of the material on the exam, it misleads you with its errors. Horrible code examples, half of them do not work, as well as incorrect Q&A at the end of every chapter.
Rating:
Summary: I just passed today!
Review: This book defintely helped me pass the test. The test covered every topic on the test, including the Package and Deployment wizard and VSS, which other books tend to be weak on. It was easy to see how each topic matched the topics on the exam. Each concept is marked with a number that corresponds to a topic on the exam, so you can see which chapter in the book covers each part of the exam. There are typos, and I found a few questions that gave incorrect answers in the answer key, but overall it was the best book out of the three books I purchased(O'Reilly's came in a close second, with Coriolis Exam Prep a far distant third)
Rating:
Summary: Hire a proofreader!
Review: This book may have very good topics in it but you constantly have to check to make sure the information is correct. It appears that the author is a fan of cut and paste and does not bother to edit the text after pasting. Therefore you get a bunch of incorrect information. Maybe it is a way for the author to constantly test the reader to see if they are paying attention but, I doubt it.
Rating:
Summary: Hire a proofreader!
Review: This book may have very good topics in it but you constantly have to check to make sure the information is correct. It appears that the author is a fan of cut and paste and does not bother to edit the text after pasting. Therefore you get a bunch of incorrect information. Maybe it is a way for the author to constantly test the reader to see if they are paying attention but, I doubt it.
Rating: 
Summary: Truly the only book you'll need to prepare for the exam.
Review: This book was designed to be truly the only book you'll need topass the Desktop Applications with Microsoft Visual Basic 6 exam. I'vewritten many Visual Basic bestsellers, but never packed such depth into a VB book before. I've also got and compared this book to virtually every other VB MCSD book out there, and I was honestly amazed at the number of errors and outright misinterpretations of the test objectives that exist in most books. This book, on the other hand, is the product of extensive research and testing into each objective, without skipping over anything as so many other books do. It presents every objective in far more detail than the others, and it's not afraid to tackle the in-depth issues, such as COM programming, database programming, and using every database tool that comes with Visual Basic. In addition, there's at least one full-length example illustrating every objective of the exam (again, unlike virtually every other book). Besides fully covering the objectives, there's also a great deal of background material that you'll find helpful on the exam, such as using SQL server and many other topics. This book was written to stand head and shoulders above its competition, and I hope you agree it does -- please write me if you can find anything to add. I've written books that have led the Visual Basic market, but never covered everything you need to pass the test in such detail -- often providing twice as much coverage as the competition -- before. I know the test well, and everything you need to pass it is right here.
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