By Michael Aldridge

When I got my first "real" IT job back in 1998, I set my sights on the most prestigious certification that existed back then: the Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) certification. Sure, the first step was to become a Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP). But what did the MCP title really mean? After all, passing any Microsoft exam would enable you to become an MCP. So a developer, a database administrator, and a server administrator might all have the same generic MCP certification. This lack of specificity caused many techs – and many HR managers – to yawn at the MCP credential. Instead, techs set their sights on a certification that indicated to employers exactly what skills they possessed. For server administrators, the MCSE was that certification.

By Val Bakh

2.4.3 How to Load Drivers in WinPE

One of the great enhancements that comes with Windows 7 is Windows Preinstallation Environment (WinPE). The first version of WinPE was released with Windows Vista; the version that comes with Windows 7 is version 3.0. WinPE is a small starter operating system that can be loaded from a removable medium or device, such as a CD, DVD, or USB flash drive (UFD), and can run entirely from RAM. This means you can breathe some vital signs into a blank computer or try to bring back to life a computer with a dysfunctional, corrupted installation of Windows.