70-696 Exam Guide: Scope, Skills, Retirement Checks, and a Practical Study Plan
Exam 70-696 validated administration of enterprise devices and applications across System Center Configuration Manager and Microsoft Intune, with objectives covering application deployment, virtual applications, and software updates. It was aimed at professionals experienced with System Center 2012. The key decision now is not simply how to study: first confirm whether you can still schedule the exam or whether a current Microsoft credential better matches your goal. This guide separates the historical objectives from verified current-availability steps, then gives a practical lab-based roadmap for candidates studying the technology rather than memorizing question dumps.
What did 70-696 validate?
70-696 focused on administering enterprise applications and devices through System Center Configuration Manager and Microsoft Intune. Microsoft identified it as “Administering System Center Configuration Manager and Intune,” while an official exam-preparation session described the exam family as “Managing Enterprise Devices and Apps.” These descriptions point to an administrator who can plan, deploy, monitor, and troubleshoot managed software and updates.
The exam’s historical scope was broader than a single product feature. Its objectives connected application design and deployment with content distribution, client-facing availability, mobile application delivery, virtual application technologies, and software-update infrastructure. A candidate therefore needed to understand how an administrative choice affected the client, the site infrastructure, the user experience, and the reporting or log evidence used to diagnose failure.
The 70-696 change document recorded updates incorporating Windows 10 scenarios, requirements, and related service-pack updates effective February 25, 2016. That date is important context for interpreting old study material: it describes the documented update to the objectives, not a current promise that the exam or its technologies remain available in the same form.
Is 70-696 still available to schedule?
Treat current availability as the first checkpoint, not as an assumption. The supplied Microsoft Q&A page contains a 2022 question stating that the exam had expired, but it does not provide a replacement exam code. Microsoft’s retirement guidance says that once an exam is retired, candidates can no longer take it or earn the associated certification or credential after the retirement date. Confirm the status through Microsoft’s current certification and exam-support channels before paying for preparation or attempting to book.
The official retirement guidance also explains the transcript consequence. A certification or Applied Skills credential already earned remains on the candidate’s Microsoft Learn transcript after the associated exam or assessment is retired. If a certification was earned or renewed before retirement, it stays in the Active Certifications section until it expires; after expiration, it moves to the Historical Certifications section.
Do not interpret a preserved transcript entry as evidence that a new attempt is possible. Those are separate questions. A historical credential may document what a candidate achieved, while the retired exam is no longer an available route for a new candidate. If your objective is a current Microsoft certification, use the official certification catalogue to identify the present role-based path rather than treating 70-696 as an automatic equivalent.
A quick availability decision
If the official catalogue does not offer 70-696 for registration, stop looking for a testing appointment and redirect your plan. If you already hold the certification, check its transcript status and expiration information. If you are studying the old objectives for operational knowledge, continue with the technical roadmap below, but label the work as skills preparation rather than current-exam preparation.
Who was the exam designed for?
The strongest evidence points to administrators and implementation professionals with System Center 2012 experience. Microsoft’s official exam-preparation session was specifically designed for people experienced with System Center 2012 who were considering 70-696 or the related 70-695 exam. A suitable learner would already understand managed Windows environments and would be developing deeper competence in application and update administration.
The intended audience was not limited to someone who only packaged software. The objectives required decisions about deployment types, requirements, user-device affinity, software libraries, application catalogs, distribution points, content libraries, and client logs. That combination suits a Configuration Manager administrator, endpoint management engineer, systems administrator, or consultant responsible for controlled enterprise application delivery.
A newcomer can still use the objectives as a learning map, but should not begin with memorization. First learn the management model: what is being deployed, to which users or devices, under what requirements, from which content location, and with what monitoring evidence. Without that model, product terminology becomes a list of disconnected settings.
Use your background to set the starting point
Start with the track that matches your gap. A System Center administrator can begin with application and update scenarios. An application packager should first learn site infrastructure, distribution, client evaluation, and log interpretation. An Intune-focused administrator should deliberately study the older Configuration Manager concepts named in the objectives instead of assuming that familiarity with modern cloud management covers the historical syllabus.
Which skills appeared in the objectives?
The historical objectives grouped the work into application management, virtual applications, and software updates. The verified percentage allocations were 15–20% for deploying and managing desktop and mobile applications, 10–15% for deploying and managing virtual applications, and 15–20% for planning and implementing software updates. Each percentage belongs to its named domain; it should guide study allocation, not be treated as a current exam blueprint.
The desktop and mobile application domain included deploying applications with System Center 2012 Configuration Manager and Microsoft Intune. It covered deployment types, user-device affinity, requirements, the software library, and the application catalog. The objectives also included application deployment policies, software packages, and the Intune company portal. These topics require comparison of delivery models, targeting logic, and the administrative experience presented to users.
The virtual application domain included App-V and RemoteApp. Study should therefore distinguish virtual application delivery from ordinary application installation: the packaging, publishing, access, and client experience are not interchangeable. The objective wording supports learning how to deploy and manage these technologies, but it does not establish that current product documentation or current exam delivery reflects the same feature set.
The software-update domain included third-party updates, System Center Updates Publisher, Configuration Manager, and Windows Server Update Services. This is an end-to-end planning area. It calls for understanding update source and publishing decisions, deployment targeting, compliance monitoring, and the evidence used when clients do not receive or install the expected update.
The objectives also named application upgrades, application monitoring, content distribution, distribution points, content libraries, and log-file monitoring. These are the troubleshooting links between a configured deployment and an actual result. A useful study exercise is to trace one application from package or application definition through content distribution, client evaluation, installation, monitoring, and log-based diagnosis.
How should the percentages affect study time?
Use the documented weights as a prioritization signal only. Give the largest planned blocks to deploying and managing desktop and mobile applications and to planning and implementing software updates because each carries 15–20% in the historical objectives. Reserve a smaller but deliberate block for deploying and managing virtual applications, which carries 10–15%. Do not turn these ranges into a prediction of question count or a pass calculation; the supplied sources do not provide those details.
What the objectives do not tell you
The supplied evidence does not establish the number of questions, passing score, exam duration, delivery languages, delivery method, prerequisites, price, or a current retirement date for 70-696. Do not fill those gaps with third-party listings or old forum claims. For any scheduling detail, use Microsoft’s current exam-support information and the applicable testing-provider process after confirming that the exam is still offered.
What should you build in a practice lab?
Build a small, repeatable management scenario rather than trying to reproduce an entire enterprise. The lab should let you define an application, distribute its content, target it to a user or device, observe client behavior, and investigate a failure. Add a software-update workflow and, where the required historical components are available, a virtual application exercise. The purpose is to prove cause and effect.
The official Configuration Manager documentation provides areas for architecture, supported configurations, application management, software updates, log files, and previous-version System Center 2012 R2 Configuration Manager documentation. Use those sections to anchor your lab notes, while checking the product-version context of every procedure. Current documentation can explain concepts and administration, but it should not be assumed to reproduce an old exam environment exactly.
Record each exercise in a short operational format: objective, prerequisites, configuration, expected client result, observed evidence, and corrective action. For example, when an application fails, record whether the client received policy, whether content was available from a distribution point, whether requirements evaluated as expected, and which log entry supports the conclusion. This approach develops troubleshooting judgment instead of menu recognition.
A useful application exercise
Create two deployment types or two application conditions that produce different client outcomes. Define requirements deliberately, distribute the content, target a test collection, and verify the user-facing availability through the relevant software library or portal. Then change one condition and explain why the client should install, offer, or withhold the application. Keep a diagram of targeting, content location, and detection logic.
A useful update exercise
Choose an update scenario that includes approval or deployment targeting, client evaluation, and compliance review. If your environment supports the historical tools named in the objectives, trace the relationship among System Center Updates Publisher, Configuration Manager, and Windows Server Update Services. Otherwise, use the objective as a conceptual checklist and avoid claiming that a modern replacement is identical to the old implementation.
A useful troubleshooting exercise
Break one dependency at a time: content availability, requirement evaluation, deployment targeting, or client-side installation. Do not change several settings simultaneously. After each test, identify the observable evidence that distinguishes a policy problem from a content-distribution problem or an installer problem. This habit is more valuable than collecting isolated fixes because it teaches a repeatable diagnostic sequence.
How should you study application deployment?
Study application deployment as a chain of decisions. Begin with the application’s installation and detection behavior, then move to deployment types, requirements, user-device affinity, targeting, content distribution, and monitoring. Finish by explaining the user experience through the software library, application catalog, or Intune company portal named in the objectives. This sequence mirrors the dependencies that make deployments succeed or fail.
First, distinguish a software package from an application model in the historical Configuration Manager context. Write down what each object knows about installation, detection, requirements, dependencies, and deployment intent. The point is not to memorize labels; it is to explain why an administrator would choose one model for a particular deployment condition.
Next, practise requirement and targeting decisions. A deployment may be aimed at a user, a device, or a collection, while requirements can further constrain which clients may install it. Add user-device affinity to your notes and test what changes when the relationship between a user and a device is not established or does not match the intended deployment.
Then study content flow. Follow the application from its source files to the content library and distribution point, and from there to the client. Include boundary or location assumptions only when your product-version documentation supports them. Your notes should answer three questions: where is the content, how does the client select or reach it, and what evidence shows that distribution completed?
Finally, compare monitoring with troubleshooting. Monitoring tells you the state of a deployment across a target group; log-file analysis helps explain an individual client’s behavior. Practise moving from a broad failed status to a narrow client-side cause without assuming that a single status label identifies the root problem.
Common application mistakes
A frequent mistake is treating a successful content distribution as proof of a successful installation. Distribution only addresses availability of source content; detection, requirements, installer behavior, permissions, and client state can still prevent completion. Another mistake is targeting a user while reasoning only about device membership. Keep target identity, affinity, requirements, and client evidence as separate entries in every troubleshooting note.
How should you study Intune and mobile application delivery?
Use the Intune objectives to study the administrative purpose of mobile application deployment: selecting an application approach, defining policy, targeting users or devices, and validating the experience through the Intune company portal. Do not assume that a current Intune workflow is an exact exam substitute for the historical syllabus. Treat the documented 70-696 wording as the boundary and current product documentation as version-sensitive context.
Map each mobile scenario to a management question. Who should receive the application? Is the deployment required or available? What device or user conditions matter? How does the user discover the application? What evidence confirms installation or explains noncompliance? Writing answers to those questions forces you to connect policy with outcome.
Keep Configuration Manager and Intune comparisons explicit. The objectives included application deployment with both System Center 2012 Configuration Manager and Microsoft Intune, so a study note that covers only one platform is incomplete. Compare the object model, targeting approach, content or service dependency, user experience, and monitoring evidence for each scenario supported by your documentation.
Avoid silently importing modern terminology into historical answers. Product names, portals, enrollment models, and management relationships change. When a current page uses a newer feature or name, mark it as current documentation and separately retain the historical term that appears in the 70-696 objective document.
A practical comparison table to create
Create your own table with columns for platform, application type, target, requirement, user experience, content or service dependency, monitoring location, and troubleshooting evidence. Populate it from Microsoft documentation and your lab. Leave a cell marked “not verified for the historical objective” rather than guessing. That discipline prevents a modern feature from being presented as an official 70-696 requirement.
How should you study virtual applications?
Give virtual applications a focused study block because the objectives explicitly included App-V and RemoteApp and allocated 10–15% to deploying and managing virtual applications. Learn the purpose of each technology, its delivery and access model, its administrative dependencies, and the situations in which it differs from a locally installed application. The supplied evidence does not justify current-version or exam-delivery assumptions.
Begin with the user outcome: what does the user access, and where does application execution occur? Then trace publishing or assignment, client capability, authorization, and monitoring. Compare that flow with a conventional application deployment. The comparison should explain operational consequences rather than merely defining App-V and RemoteApp.
Use version labels in your notes. The exam objectives were tied to the System Center 2012 and Windows 10-era context identified by Microsoft’s change document. Current documentation may discuss successor technologies or changed architectures; that can be useful for career learning, but it should be clearly separated from the historical exam scope.
How should you study software updates?
Study software updates as a planning and compliance system, not as a catalogue of update names. The historical domain allocated 15–20% to planning and implementing software updates and included third-party updates, System Center Updates Publisher, Configuration Manager, and Windows Server Update Services. Your preparation should connect update source, publishing, synchronization or distribution, deployment targeting, client installation, and compliance evidence.
Start by drawing the update path. Identify where update metadata originates, how updates are made available for administration, how an administrator selects and targets them, and how clients obtain and install them. Mark the role of each named component. If a modern environment changes one part of the path, note the difference rather than replacing the historical component without explanation.
Next, practise deployment policy decisions. Consider what makes a deployment appropriate for a target collection, how timing and restart behavior affect users, and how compliance is measured. The supplied sources do not provide detailed policy settings or current exam scenarios, so use Microsoft’s product documentation for the specific version you are studying.
Finish with failure analysis. A missing update can reflect detection, metadata, targeting, content access, client evaluation, installation, or reporting. For each category, write the evidence you would seek before changing configuration. This turns update study into a diagnostic workflow and reduces the temptation to apply random corrective actions.
Common update mistakes
Do not equate approval with installation, or a compliant summary with proof that every client is healthy. Separate update selection, deployment intent, client applicability, installation result, and reporting. Also avoid studying third-party updates as a standalone publishing task: the objectives named the surrounding Configuration Manager and Windows Server Update Services ecosystem, so include the handoffs among those components.
What is the most efficient study sequence?
Use dependency order rather than reading every topic in alphabetical order. Learn the management architecture first, then application objects and targeting, then content distribution and monitoring, followed by Intune and mobile delivery, virtual applications, and software updates. Revisit troubleshooting after each domain. This sequence gives every later topic a place in an operational workflow.
Phase one is scope validation. Check the current Microsoft certification catalogue and retirement guidance before committing to an exam date. Save the historical objective document and label it with its Windows 10 and February 25, 2016 update context. Decide whether your goal is a still-available credential, preservation of an existing certification, or practical Configuration Manager and Intune knowledge.
Phase two is baseline assessment. Without using dumps or leaked material, list the tasks you can perform from memory: create and deploy an application, explain requirements, distribute content, interpret monitoring, investigate logs, plan updates, and explain App-V or RemoteApp at the level named in the objectives. Mark each task as explain, configure, troubleshoot, or unknown.
Phase three is guided learning. Read the relevant Microsoft documentation, then perform a small lab task immediately. Keep a glossary of historical and current names, a deployment-flow diagram, and a troubleshooting matrix. Every note should answer what the setting controls, what dependency it has, and how you would verify the result.
Phase four is scenario practice. Write short cases such as a deployment available to the wrong users, content present at one distribution point but not another, an application detected incorrectly, or an update that reports differently from the client’s local state. Solve each case by identifying the most informative next check, not by guessing a setting.
Phase five is final review. Rebuild the workflows without notes, explain the three documented weighted domains in your own words, and revisit only the weak links. If the exam is not available, convert this phase into a job-skill portfolio: retain diagrams, lab records, scripts where appropriate, and a clear mapping to current Microsoft learning or certification options.
A four-week roadmap
Week one: confirm status, read the objective document, review Configuration Manager architecture, and build the lab. Week two: practise desktop and mobile application deployment, including deployment types, requirements, user-device affinity, software libraries, application catalog behavior, packages, and the Intune company portal. Week three: cover content distribution, application upgrades, monitoring, log-file analysis, virtual applications, and update infrastructure. Week four: run failure scenarios, close knowledge gaps, and make the credential-versus-skills decision using current Microsoft information.
Adjust the pace to your background rather than forcing an artificial calendar. A candidate new to Configuration Manager needs more time on architecture and client behavior; an experienced administrator may need more deliberate review of historical App-V, RemoteApp, and Intune terminology. The important control is evidence of competence: each study block should end with a working explanation, a lab result, or a documented diagnostic decision.
How can you use practice questions safely?
Use practice questions to test reasoning from documented objectives, not to reconstruct or memorize real exam content. A sound question gives you a deployment context, a constraint, and enough evidence to choose or justify an action. After answering, explain why the alternatives fail and identify the Microsoft documentation or lab observation that supports your choice.
Avoid dumps, leaked questions, and claims that memorization guarantees a pass. They can contain obsolete terminology, expose restricted content, and encourage recognition without administration skill. They are especially risky for a historical exam whose product context and availability require verification. Build your own scenarios from the objective document and official product documentation instead.
Review wrong answers by category. Was the problem a misunderstood requirement, an incorrect target, a missing content dependency, a confused user experience, a weak monitoring interpretation, or an unsupported assumption about a product version? Keep an error log and retest the underlying workflow in the lab. Repeating the same question without correcting the reasoning does not improve readiness.
A strong self-test format
For each scenario, write five responses: the intended outcome, the administrative object or policy involved, the dependency that could block it, the evidence you would inspect, and the safest corrective action. This format covers configuration and troubleshooting together and exposes whether you understand the chain behind a deployment rather than only its visible result.
What should you verify before booking or changing direction?
Verify availability first, then verify the credential path. Microsoft’s retirement guidance says retired exams cannot be taken and cannot award the associated certification after retirement. The supplied Q&A records a candidate asking about an expired 70-696, but it does not identify a replacement. Therefore, do not book through an unofficial page or assume that a current role-based exam is equivalent without checking Microsoft’s current catalogue.
If you already earned the certification, review your Microsoft Learn transcript and expiration information. Microsoft states that an earned certification remains on the transcript after retirement, with its placement changing from Active Certifications to Historical Certifications after expiration. If you are a Microsoft Partner, consult the separate partner guidance because retirement-related points or credit can have its own conditions; do not infer those conditions from the exam objectives.
If you need a current credential, identify the role you want to demonstrate and compare the current official certification requirements with your existing experience. Microsoft’s transition-exam article explains the broader move from certain 70-xxx exams toward role-based certifications, but the supplied transition table does not name 70-696 as a replacement route. That is a reason to verify, not a basis for inventing an equivalency.
If your goal is operational capability, keep studying the historical objectives but update the lab to a supported environment and document the differences. The official Configuration Manager documentation includes current product material and a previous-version System Center 2012 R2 Configuration Manager area. Use the version that matches your learning goal and label every conclusion accordingly.
Your next actions
Open the current Microsoft certification and exam-support pages and search specifically for 70-696. Check whether registration is offered, whether the associated certification is listed, and whether any replacement is explicitly named. Next, download the historical objective document, mark your experience against each domain, and choose one lab exercise for application deployment and one for software updates. Only after those checks should you decide between scheduling, redirecting to a current credential, or pursuing skills-only study.
How should this guide be used on dumpsarena.co?
Use this page as a planning and technical-study aid, not as proof that 70-696 is currently deliverable. The authoritative sources determine retirement and catalogue status; the objective document defines the historical skill areas; and lab work demonstrates whether you can apply the concepts. Keep those three purposes separate so a useful study plan does not become an unsupported scheduling claim.
A sensible reading order is to check status, review the objective domains, assess your background, and then start the roadmap. Return to the application and update sections while working through a lab. Use the troubleshooting and practice-question sections when you can configure the basics but need to improve diagnostic reasoning.
The most valuable outcome may be a different credential or a stronger operational foundation. Either way, the historical 70-696 objectives provide a concrete checklist: desktop and mobile application deployment, virtual applications, software updates, content and distribution, monitoring, and logs. Learn those workflows with version awareness, verify every current claim through Microsoft, and make the scheduling decision only after the availability check.
Conclusion
70-696 is best approached as a historical Microsoft endpoint-management syllabus whose documented focus was System Center Configuration Manager, Intune, application administration, virtual applications, and software updates. Before investing in an exam attempt, verify its current status directly through Microsoft because the supplied Q&A indicates that candidates were already asking about expiration and Microsoft’s retirement policy prevents retired exams from being taken. If the exam is unavailable, preserve the value of the objectives through supported labs and redirect certification planning to an explicitly current Microsoft path. Do not use dumps as a substitute for documented knowledge or practical diagnosis.
