Book It: Get a Qualifying Microsoft Cert by June 30 and Microsoft Press Will Double Your Pleasure

Here's a great promotion from the folks at Microsoft Press, as recounted in a post to Microsoft Learning's Born to Learn blog last month: Take and pass a qualifying MCP exam by June 30, and you'll get an Microsoft Press e-book of your choice free of charge. Anyone who takes such an exam and passes before July 1 should receive an e-mail within three weeks of the test date that contains what an "e-book rewards code."

Those who visit the Microsoft Press Store online can use that code to obtain access to any available e-book of their choosing. Books may be downloaded and viewed on as many as six devices, including PCs, iPads or iPhones, Kindles, or any other devices that support the most common eBook formats (PDF, ePUBS, and MOBI).

Though some exam restrictions apply, just about any available e-book on the Microsoft Press site qualifies for this offer. That includes such terrific items as Mark Russinovich's Windows Internals (Part 1 or Part 2) or his Sysinternals Administrator's Reference, which retail for $32 and $40, respectively. That's a nice bonus for a $150 exam!

The inevitable question then becomes: "Which exams qualify me for this offer?" Quite a few actually, including any exams for current MCSA, MCSE, and MCSD credentials, plus available Microsoft Specialist and Microsoft Dynamics exams. Perhaps it's easier to understand if those exams that are excluded are mentioned as well — that is, MTA and Microsoft Office Specialist exams are the only ones that do not qualify for this excellent offer.

When you take your exam, you must also opt into receiving promotional communications from Microsoft. In that case, you should see a code for e-book redemption show up in your inbox within three weeks of taking the exam. Or perhaps longer: Blogger Patrick Thomas asserts the three-week timeline, but there's also a "Terms and Conditions" disclaimer that say not to expect your code until between four and six weeks from your exam date. So be prepared to wait on that longer window, if need be.

However long it takes for the code to show up, this is a pretty great promotion, where anybody who's interested enough in Microsoft tools, platforms, and technologies to take an MCP exam is also sure to be interested in one or more of the thousands of e-books currently available from Microsoft Press. Not sure if this means you? Take a gander at the Microsoft Press Store site online to see what's available.

A final word of warning: the MS Press Store presents a login request that looks exactly like the Microsoft Account login, but is completely disconnected from that environment. Unless you have a login set up for the Microsoft Press Store, and it uses the same e-mail address and password, you will probably wonder why your Microsoft Account has quit working. Don't worry: That just means you need to set up a parallel account here. Why did they do it this way? I have no idea, but forewarned is hopefully forearmed as well.