MCSD Training Guide: Visual Basic 6 Exams (The Training Guide Series)

Hawhee's VB5 book was "overcomplete" it was a big huge mess that if you could get through it (and I couldn't) *practicing* each skill along the way, you could pass the exam (and I didn't.)

However the VB6 book is nicely trimmed down to it's most pertinent points. There isn't much coverage on IIS applications and DHTML applications, but far more than there is any of the other books. It's still far more than you need for the exam, but if you practice the exercises, and really study the questions and text, not only will you know most everything you need for the exam, but most everything you will need for VB as well.

I passed the VB6 exams in a large part because this book filled in the holes that Foxall's book couldn't (or rather, wouldn't!)

I would recommend this book be supplimented with Transcender exams though.


Handy, but not good enough.   February 4, 2002
 2 out of 2 found this review helpful

This book was one of the first ones I purchased when studying for the MCSD. However, within the first 2 chapters I found over 8 mistakes that would have cost points on the exam.
While the labs in this book are useful, they do not work straight out of the book.
I went out and bought other books to help me pass the exam. While you may get by with this book, you'll come up short more often than not.

Just because it's an MS approved study guide doesn't mean it's correct. All that means is that it covered the essential areas of the exam requirements, not that the information was correct. Most VB courses do this, but you can't pass the exam from them.


Lots of mistakes and inconsistencies   January 7, 2002
 2 out of 2 found this review helpful

Both the book itself and the testing software have a lot of mistakes and inconsistent information. The text of the book says one thing, but the test answers say something different. Because of this I often had to stop, and research from other sources to find out whether the text in the chapters, or the answers from the review and exam questions was correct. And I've downloaded the errata from their website, and it covers some of the inconsistent information, but not nearly all of it. For a book that was published almost 2 years ago, you'd think they could put correct info out there to use.

And their testing software apparently has no updates; but it has a lot of incorrect info in it also. So you may get a lower score when you take their tests than you should have received.


ONLY used this book, Passed Both Exams   December 10, 2001
 5 out of 7 found this review helpful

The first time I took 070-176 I failed (in the 60% range). Then I decided I would try a book so I bought this one. After 2 weeks with the book I Passed 070-176 and two weeks more I passed 070-175. This book is the ONLY study material I used and I rarely even use the VB Development Enviornment.


Full of errors and absolutely not for beginners   November 28, 2001
 2 out of 2 found this review helpful

I have programmed in VBA for several years and have a fair amount of experience with Visual Basic 6. I thought this would be a good book to augment my VB6 knowledge. With that kind of background I did fairly well with this book until Chapter 12 (COM).

A beginner would have problems with this book because the exercises often skip critical steps. For example, a couple of exercises in Chapter 12 instruct the reader to use a complied component from a previous exercise in the chapter as though it had already been compiled (and, therefore, registered), but the steps in the previous exercise never involved compiling. Also, exercise steps often refer to the same controls using different names in different steps. In short, you'll spend a lot of time filling in the blanks, that is, if you are already knowledgeable enough to spot and fix them. It is obvious that the exercises were created in a hurry and published with little, if any, verification.

This book is a thought-starter for the exam concepts at best, but truly learning and feeling comfortable with them will require more of a hands-on approach.