Developer Career Tip #0024---Microsoft Certification Examinations to be retired

Developer Career Tips #0024

Microsoft Certification Examinations to be retired

I've talked about Microsoft Certification in past tips, and I thought I would take this opportunity to warn you that Microsoft is planning on retiring 18 exams at the end of this year, and included among them is Exam 70-165, Developing Applications with Microsoft Visual Basic 5.0. Of the 18 exams being retired, this one is the only one that I can see which would impact the MCP (Microsoft Certified Profession) or the MCSD (Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer) Certifications.

I'm not sure how many among you have taken the Visual Basic 5 exam, and used it either to give you your MCP (Microsoft Certified Professional) Certification or to form part of the requirements for your MCSD (Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer) Certification, but if you did, you should be aware that unless you take a replacement examination, you will eventually lose your certifications.

For more information about the retired exams, follow this link:

http://www.microsoft.com/trainingandservices/default.asp?PageID=mcp&PageCall=examstoretire&SubSite=examinfo

Now that we have the bad news out of the way, let me give you the good news.

The good news is that there's no immediate danger to your Certifications---you'll have a full year, until December 31, 2001, to take and pass a replacement examination. For a list of examinations that can be used for the MCP and MCSD certifications, follow this link:

http://www.microsoft.com/trainingandservices/default.asp?PageID=mcp&PageCall=requirements&SubSite=cert/mcsd&AnnMenu=mcsd