What is the Ideal and fastest way to learn SQL Server 2005?

Question

I bought the MCTS Self-Paced Training kit for exam 70-431. Does tutorial videos helps and would you suggest any particular video series? Is there any other resources that i could use?

Answer 1

I have never used videos because I'm cheap. The best training environment (in my opinion) I guess would be a good video(s) and a lab (virtual machines or actual machines) to run a server/client configuration (with possible clustering). I learned SQL Server 2000 without either and it showed when I first started out with the beast in a professional setting.

Answer 2

You need the actual software to learn best or at least a training simulator...

Answer 3

Some good website like

http://jobs.sqlauthority.com can make big difference as well.

Answer 4

Testking will help you.