Expanded List Of Study Resources For Exam 70-734 OEM Preinstallation for Windows 10
I sat this exam recently thinking it was still in beta but apparently it wasn't, and I was very happy at the end when I got my results and passed pretty easily. There weren't any real surprises in the exam questions, and those of you who build and deploy PC images should be able to get through this exam with a little bit of study. The main areas that I would recommend most people focus on are the areas that have changed with Windows 10, or even 8 and 8.1 if you didn't really change much from your Windows 7 manufacturing process. Not all of the questions are technical, like previous versions of OEM exams there are some licensing questions, but they shouldn't be too challenging if you've been working with Windows for a while.
Most of the links below are from the Windows Hardware Dev Centeron MSDN, so don't stop with the links I've provided, use them as the starting point as you will find many related articles for each of the topics.
Prepare deployments
- Prepare the environment
- Prepare Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK)
- Prepare USB
- Design an answer file
- Create a default user profile
- Preserve preinstalled OEM drivers
- Identify a business strategy for deploying operating system images
- Identify a build-to-order or build-to-plan approach
-
- Select a deployment method
- Implement end-user upgrade path
- Determine hardware configurations
- Determine Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) requirements
- Configure network and storage drivers
- Configure a boot device
- Build a Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE or WinPE
- Troubleshoot a problematic installation in WinPE
- Customize a WinPE installation
- Create a 32-bit or 64-bit WinPE environment
- Manage Windows PE packages
Create, capture, and deploy images
- Create a reference installation
- Set up and capture a reference PC
- Preinstall Microsoft and third-party desktop applications
- Set up a Push-Button Restore
- Evaluate deployment logs
- Prepare and test Out-of-Box Experience (OOBE)
- Determine redistribution licensing requirements
- Determine redistribution rights and technical requirements
- Select licensed recovery types
- Determine OEM preinstallation requirements
Manage deployments
- Manage images
- Upgrade a Windows edition
- Perform online or offline servicing
- Activate a grace period timer
- Manage nested images within Windows Imaging File Format (WIMS)
- Add and remove packages
- Add and remove drivers
- Set the multilingual deployment of an operating system
- Manage application updates
- Apply a reference installation
- Perform drive partitioning
- Deploy reference and recovery images
- Apply Images Using DISM
- Compact OS, single-instancing, and image optimization
- Set up Push-Button Recovery with REAgentC and BCD commands
- Validate an image
- Validate an image in audit mode
- Validate Push-Button Reset
- Sysprep images to OOBE
- Identify causes of driver failure
- Finalize installation
- Validate licensing requirements and components