The extent of the rolling updates to the A+ certification exams from CompTIA are now known. While it was announced earlier that the exams would be updated to include Windows 7 coverage, there were a few questions as to the size of the changes. Those questions have now been answered, and the following are the changes that will be incorporated into the 220-701 ( A+ Essentials) exam:

• Domain 3.0 (Operating Systems and Software) will now include the following: "Windows 7 Starter, Home Premium, Professional and Ultimate." This does not replace any of the other operating systems that were already listed and thus the candidate is still required to know the details on various editions of Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Vista.

• There are three additions to objective 3.1 (Compare and contrast the different Windows Operating Systems and their features) : "Windows 7 32-bit vs. 64-bit," "Windows OS Upgrade Advisor" and "Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit."

• Beneath objective 3.2 (Given a scenario, demonstrate proper use of user interfaces), "Libraries in Windows 7" has been added beneath Windows Explorer.

• Beneath objective 3.3 (Explain the process and steps to install and configure the Windows OS), the subobjective "User data migration -- User State Migration Tool (USMT)" was added.

• Domain 4.0 (Networking) will now include beneath objective 4.1 (Summarize the basics of networking fundamentals, including technologies, devices and protocols) the following sub-objective:

• IPv6 vs. IPv4
• Address length differences
• Address conventions

The changes to exam 220-702 (Practical Application) include the addition of the same Windows 7 editions to Domain 2.0 (Operating Systems), and the addition of "Windows 7" to objective 2.2 (Differentiate between Windows Operating System directory structures). The only other change is the addition of the sub-objective "Vista/Windows 7 User Account Control (UAC)" beneath the Operating systems section of objective 4.2 (Implement security and troubleshoot common issues).