Certifiable Q&A for January 26, 2001

Welcome to Certifiable, your exam prep headquarters. Here you'll find questions about some of the tricky areas that are fair game for the certification exams. Following the questions, you'll find the correct answers and explanatory text. We change the questions weekly.

Questions (January 26, 2001)
Answers (January 26, 2001)

This week's questions follow the required result/optional result format that Microsoft uses for many of the questions on the Windows NT 4.0 MCSE core exams. Such questions are typically dense, requiring that you consider many different pieces of information and evaluate how it all affects the outcome before arriving at the correct answer. In other words, these questions test how well you can use what you know, not whether you can memorize facts. However, you can still use some tricks to help ensure success.

First, remember that these questions don't have trick answers. The proposed solutions consist of legitimate actions. You won't encounter any steps that wouldn't be possible given the other actions presented in a proposed solution.

Second, if a solution fails to produce the required result, whether it produces the optional results is irrelevant. As soon as you can ascertain that a solution doesn't produce the required result, you can click answer D, "The proposed solution doesn't produce the required result," and move on.

Third, if a question is particularly complex, you can make a chart on scratch paper to help you arrive at the correct solution. On my charts, I create columns called Required, Optional 1, and Optional 2. As I read the proposed solutions, I place a check in the appropriate column when I determine that the solution satisfies one of the requirements. Then, I consult the chart and pick the answer.

I like required result/optional result questions, but they can be daunting when you encounter them for the first time. A little practice will help a lot when you face the real thing. Good luck!

Questions (January 26, 2001)

Question 1
You are the network administrator for a multinational corporation with offices in London and New York. The sites (running Windows NT 4.0) have their own domains—named GB and USA, respectively. You need to share Microsoft Word documents that contain the corporate handbook and explanation of benefits, meeting the following conditions:

• Required Result
• All employees must have Read access to the documents.
• Optional Results
• The New York and London offices must be able to manage their user accounts and access resources independently.
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• Only the employees in the New York Human Resources (HR) department may have Change access to the documents.
• Proposed Solution
• Create a trust relationship in which the GB domain trusts the USA domain.
• Create a shared folder named HR_docs.
• Grant Read permission for the HR_docs share to the USA\Domain Users global group.
• Create a global group named HR Docs Admins in the USA domain.
• Grant Change permission for the HR_docs share to the USA\HR docs Admins global group.
• Make members of the New York HR department members of the USA\HR Docs Admins global group.

Which results does the proposed solution produce?

1. The proposed solution produces the required result and produces all of the optional results.
2. The proposed solution produces the required result and produces only one of the optional results.
3. The proposed solution produces the required result but doesn't produce any of the optional results.
4. The proposed solution doesn't produce the required result.

Question 2
You are the network administrator for a multinational corporation with offices in London and New York. The sites (running Windows NT 4.0) have their own domains—named GB and USA, respectively. You need to share Microsoft Word documents that contain the corporate handbook and an explanation of benefits, meeting the following conditions:

• Required Result
• All employees must have Read access to the documents.
• Optional Results
• The New York and London offices must be able to manage their user accounts and access resources independently.
• Only the employees in the New York Human Resources (HR) department may have Change access to the documents.
• Proposed Solution
• Create a new domain named COMPANY.
• Create a trust relationship in which the GB domain trusts the COMPANY domain.
• Create a trust relationship in which the USA domain trusts the COMPANY domain.
• Transfer all user accounts to the COMPANY domain.
• Grant Read permission for the HR_docs share to the COMPANY\Domain Users global group.
• Create a global group named HR Docs Admins in the COMPANY domain.
• Grant Change permission for the HR_docs share to the COMPANY\HR Docs Admins global group.
• Make members of the New York HR department members of the COMPANY\HR Docs Admins global group.

Which results does the proposed solution produce?

1. The proposed solution produces the required result and produces all of the optional results.
2. The proposed solution produces the required result and produces only one of the optional results.
3. The proposed solution produces the required result but doesn't produce any of the optional results.
4. The proposed solution doesn't produce the required result.

Question 3
You are the network administrator for a small regional bank. You have the task of linking branch offices to the corporate network. Each branch has a dedicated ISDN router connected directly to the main corporate office in each city, and you have implemented a hardware solution for encrypting the network traffic between the offices. You must also provide network services according to the following requirements:

• Required Result
• All users must have accounts in a domain that serves the entire company.
• Optional Results
• Access to branch resources such as printers and shared folders must be managed at the branch level.
• Authentication and browsing traffic across the WAN must be minimal.
• Proposed Solution
• Create a new domain named BANK.
• Create a new domain for each branch and create a trust relationship in which the branch domain trusts the BANK domain.
• Create the users' accounts in the BANK domain.
• Create each new computer account in the local branch's domain.
• Place a BDC for the BANK domain at each branch.

Which results does the proposed solution produce?

1. The proposed solution produces the required result and produces all of the optional results.
2. The proposed solution produces the required result and produces only one of the optional results.
3. The proposed solution produces the required result but doesn't produce any of the optional results.
4. The proposed solution doesn't produce the required result.

Answers (January 26, 2001)

Answer to Question 1
The correct answer is D—The proposed solution doesn't produce the required result. Although the proposed solution produces each of the optional results, it doesn't produce the required result because the users in the GB domain don't have access to the documents. In Windows NT 4.0, trusts are one-way relationships, and the proposed solution lets members of the USA domain access resources in the GB domain, but it doesn't let members of the GB domain access resources in the USA domain. Also, the proposed solution grants Read permission only to the Domain Users global group in the USA domain; therefore, members of the GB domain don't have permission to access the documents.

Answer to Question 2
The correct answer is B—The proposed solution produces the required result and produces only one of the optional results. The proposed solution creates a Single Master Domain model in which the COMPANY domain contains the user accounts and the USA and GB domains contain the computers. The trust relationships let accounts in the COMPANY domain access resources in the USA and GB domains; therefore, the proposed solution produces the required result. However, the proposed solution doesn't produce the first optional result because user account management becomes centralized, so the sites can't manage their own users. Although the proposed solution does technically produce the second optional result, it's potentially flawed in that Windows NT 4.0 can't distinguish between employees in New York and London.

Answer the Question 3
The correct answer is A—The proposed solution produces the required result and produces all of the optional results. The proposed solution creates a Single Master Domain model in which the BANK domain contains employee accounts and the branch domains contain accounts for the computers at each branch. The trust relationship between the branch domain and the BANK domain lets employees use accounts in the BANK domain to log on to computers at the branch. Users can manage access to resources at each branch locally, which satisfies the first optional result. Having a BDC for the BANK domain at each branch keeps authentication traffic at the branch instead of passing across the WAN link to the main corporate office. The only domain-related traffic that passes across the WAN link is the updates from PDC to the BDCs. Browsing traffic also remains at the branch because the branch BDC is the Master Browser for BANK domain resources, and the branch domain's PDC is the Master Browser for resources in the branch domain.