What comes first?

Microsoft along with other vendors are working hard to strengthen their respective programs. The reason is to emphasize real world knowledge versus book knowledge. You should make your best effort to get hands on experience with the products that you want to be certified in. I would recommend taking some basic programming courses to develop a foundation in development. You must understand the basic concepts before going any further. Getting certified may get you a job interview or even a job but only experience will keep you employed in IT. Good Luck.

Staying with one vendors products isn't an effective way to get the training. I would suggest you pick one of the exams and look for some of the other study resources for that exam. You might find some of the other books more helpful in explainingsome of the issues you're having a hard time with.

Here are some other resources for you to use, 1) www.informit.com (has learning VB books, etc for free online), 2) www.freeskills.com (has free training online), 3) msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp (has free books and magazine articles online in addition to Microsoft's own content)

You might also check out some of the practice web sites I have listed on my MCSE/MCDBA resource list: www.swynk.com/friends/belina/mcdbaresource.asp

Finally, I would suggest that you pick up some books from other vendors like New Rider's and Sybex to expand your understanding of programming... and see if you can find any older WinArch training guides to give you an overview of MS products.

Happy Hunting! Jeff