Change in Certification Policy NT vs 2000
By Jimmy Freligh

NT, 2000 Certifications aren’t they all the same the answer is no. Many people look at certifications as “pointless” and “waste of money” and “easy”. There is a big difference between NT and 2000. In September 20, 1999 Microsoft announced it will Retire the MCSE NT 4.0 Track by the end of 2001. Now there was about 450,000 MCSE’s most of them considered “Paper MCSE’s” the ones who studied questions and answers and passed the tests with a near perfect score and didn’t know how to install a driver. Do you see a problem with that? Microsoft did and tried everything in there power to prevent it. Finally after years of fighting with this Microsoft has dropped the testing for NT.
Within a month thousands of people complained about MS retiring these tests, so Microsoft decided to keep the NT 4.0 MCP/MCSE Certificated people only if they get re-certified for NT or upgrade to 2000. Finally Microsoft says by June 30, 2001 if you don’t upgrade or re-test for the new NT testing you will no longer be considered a MCP/MCSE, you will be considered certified for what ever test you took. NT being Multiple choice and hands on now as of 2002, 2000 as well, now will this single out all the paper MCSE’s who wasted there money, you bet ya. Paper MCSE’s give people who are certified MCP’s/MCSE’s a bad name. The word I want to get out is if you’re a NT MCP/MCSE and you haven’t upgraded or got re-certified you are not a MCP/MCSE!