AZ-104 Dumps vs Practice Tests (2026)

AZ-104 dumps are collections of questions recalled or copied from the live Azure Administrator exam, usually sold as PDFs or VCE files with "real exam questions" on the label. Microsoft's published policy leaves no doubt about where they stand, and the exam itself, with its case studies and configuration-heavy scenarios, is a poor match for a memorised answer key.

What Microsoft's rules say

The exam agreement (NDA)

Before every Microsoft certification exam you accept the Microsoft Certification Exam Candidate Agreement, which functions as a non-disclosure agreement. Microsoft's exam and assessment security policies describe its purpose: these agreements "legally require candidates to keep information related to exam or assessment lab content confidential."

Exam content is confidential

The same page states that all exam content is Microsoft's confidential intellectual property, and that "obtaining, using, or distributing this content is strictly prohibited, regardless of the method employed (memorization, recording, copying, or other means)." It explicitly includes posting "remembered assessment topics or solutions, in whole or in part", which is exactly how recalled dumps are built.

The brain dump policy

Microsoft defines a brain dump as a source "that contains exam questions or assessment lab content that has been fraudulently obtained with the intention to share it with or sell it to other candidates", and says that using it to prepare for or during an exam "constitutes cheating." "Using brain dump sites to prepare for the exam" appears in its examples of fraudulent activity, and "using brain dump material" in its list of misconduct.

What Microsoft can do

According to that policy page:

• a candidate who violates the agreement "may be permanently prohibited from taking any future credentials and may be banned from Microsoft's Credential Program";
• the candidate "may have any credentials (Certifications or Applied Skills) and scores revoked", not just AZ-104;
• Microsoft uses data forensics, statistical evidence of improper activity, to cancel exam scores, revoke certifications and ban candidates;
• Microsoft may ask any candidate to retest at any time for suspected fraudulent activity or anomalous testing patterns.

There is an appeal process, but only within 14 calendar days of Microsoft's notice. The forensics point is worth dwelling on: a candidate who scores unusually well on exactly the questions circulating in a dump, and poorly on everything else, produces the kind of statistical pattern that analysis is built to detect.

Why dumps fail on AZ-104

Case studies

AZ-104 runs for 100 minutes. Microsoft doesn't publish a fixed question count; expect roughly 40–60 items, including multiple choice, multiple response and case studies. A case study is a long scenario with requirements spread across several tabs (existing environment, business requirements, technical constraints) followed by several questions. The right answer depends on one constraint you have to find. A memorised answer to a question you think you recognise will fail the moment the case differs.

Configuration detail

The exam tests whether you can administer Azure: which scope a role assignment applies at, whether VNet peering is transitive, which storage redundancy survives a zone outage, what a network security group rule actually allows. Distractors are near-misses. Recognising a question doesn't help if you can't tell which of two nearly identical options is correct and why.

Azure changes, and so does the exam

Microsoft updates its role-based exams as Azure changes, and publishes the current skills outline on the AZ-104 study guide page. Services get renamed, features go generally available, defaults change. A dump compiled from earlier exam forms reflects an earlier Azure, and nobody is checking its answers against today's documentation.

Renewal still needs real knowledge

AZ-104 is valid for 12 months and renewed with a free online assessment on Microsoft Learn. Passing on memorised answers leaves you with a certification you have to renew every year on knowledge you never built.

A study plan that works

1. Use the skills outline as your checklist. Five domains: identities and governance, storage, compute, virtual networking and monitoring and maintenance.
2. Take the free AZ-104 diagnostic to see which domains need the most time.
3. Do the tasks in a real subscription. Deploy VMs from templates, configure peering and NSGs, assign roles at different scopes, set up backup and restore. Microsoft Learn's free modules and sandboxes cover most of it.
4. Practise with original questions and explanations. Try the 15 free AZ-104 questions with answers and keep the AZ-104 cheat sheet open for revision.
5. Sit full timed practice exams. Book the real exam once you're scoring around 80% consistently on full AZ-104 practice exams.

Every CertRidge question is original, written against Microsoft's published skills outline, with every answer option explained. For how this plays out across providers, see exam dumps vs practice tests: the real risks. Related: is AZ-104 hard? and the AZ-104 passing score.

This summarises Microsoft's published exam security policies and isn't legal advice; the candidate agreement itself is the authority.

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