What the Heck Happened to 71-623? (or, Update on Vista Exams)

FEBRUARY 2: ADDED NEW DATES AND BETA INFO, BELOW.

For those of you who were asking about the 623 beta, thanks for your patience. Here's what's up: basically, we need to take more time on the MCITP-level Vista exams to make sure they’re right on, so that is why 71-623 was put on hold and why your seats were cancelled. No new dates yet. Websites not updated yet. Working on it… Here’s the official word:

The release dates of the Professional (MCITP) exams for Vista will be delayed in order to ensure that we have adequate application support coverage for these certifications. We know that customers are very excited about our new Vista certifications and we are sincerely sorry for the delay. In the interest of maintaining the quality of Microsoft Certifications, however, we need to add additional content to exams 70-621, 70-622, and 70-623 in order to maintain appropriate alignment with the intended job roles. Exam 70-620 ("Big Vista") will not be affected and customers may continue to register for the exam.

The betas for 70-621 and 70-622 will be re-run; the beta for 70-623 will be rescheduled. The new release dates are

  • 70-621: May 15 (beta in late March)
  • 70-622; May 16 (beta in mid-March)
  • 70-623: May 17 (beta in late March)

What about the betas? Customers who took 71-621 and 71-622 and customers who had a confirmed seat for 71-623 will receive adirect invitation to the retake that beta. These customers have an exclusive 72 hour window to re-register; at that point we will open any remaining seats to a broader audience. In order to receive credit/a score for 71-621 and 71-622, customers must re-register and re-take the exams; scoring for the first betas will be thrown out. Beyond the 72 hour registration period, we can not guarantee a seat for customer re-takes. We are taking on these efforts to limit inconvenience to customers who registered for and/or took the first betas; we do appreciate the time and energy that goes in to testing. We regret the inconvenience but know our customers understand the beta process as part of the product development lifecycle and support our efforts to deliver quality exams and certifications.