If you will go to a training facility MS aproved then they will provide you with all the equipement necesary. By the way you only need a single machine with VM installed to do all the labs. Teh VM are also provided by MS/training team.
Also if it's help you seek visit/register on this site
http://sadikhov.org/
for MCSE, CCNA, HPCP and other certs usefull info. 
Good luck

Just a suggestion but for training purpose's I'd probably have the Domain controller also serve as the file server as well. Since your file server is on all the time, this will give it a dual role and you won't have to have to laptop on all the time. With a dual proc server, shouldn't be a reason why not. This will give you some flexibility on your laptop to use in different situations.

Starting out your MSCE training will start you out on the workstation side of things from the beginning and then work your way up to the server OS, log in scripts, user accounts, permissions and what not and then you'll go into the actual layout of setting up multiple servers and multiple networks along with migrating different domains under the same tree. During that time of the network layout, you'll be going over TCP and dishing out IP address's, how to figure out IP address, what subnets are for what and move on to Exchange and SQL if that's the route your going. 

Example of my layout. Server 2003 with domain, acting as Domain controller, IIS running a FTP site, File server and a print server. Linksys router is running DHCP so I'm not running that on my server but I do have the FTP port open up on the router for access from the outside.

Server is a AMD 2100+, 2 gigs ram and 6 HD's in it. 2x 20 gig's mirrored with the OS and 4x 160 gig drives in software Raid 5 (runs a little slower but much easier to recover from at least in my lay out then a hardware raid setup - parts are getting harder to find to replace to software is easier for me at least).

Hope this helps some. Setting everything up on one box that your using for a test machine lets you wipe it clean and start over or like G1 mentioned, setting up a machine with VM installed will also make training easier.

Good luck with your test. The test are pain but they are not impossible.

Jand

In a work environment, you wouldn't have the domain  controller as the file server correct, but for home use, it doesn't matter as your not swapping files back and forth on a constant basis. With Win NT for instance, you created a domain controller, wrapped it up in bubble wrap and left it running in a corner hoping that nothing touches it because it was such a pain to get back up if it were to crash.  

It's why I have my server doing it all, because it's only me and my daughter at my house and for file swapping, it's not really the CPU doing all the work but your network card and the HD's so by getting the fastest ones you can, the better off you are. It's why you see 10k and 15k rpm drives in servers.  

As far as the actual course's go down, I'm not sure. I went through it for my MCSE for Win 2K so my first class was with Win 2K Pro. Similar layout though so yeah, your first course would be on XP Pro I would guess. Since you're going for your MCSE, make sure the instructor sticks with XP and not Vista. Can touch base with Vista briefly for sure but the majority of business's out there are still XP based with some companies still on Win 2K. I was working at a company last year with 6000 pc's that was still completely Win 2K based and just then moving to XP. Not sure if your doing all online classes or class room but make sure the majority of it is XP. In my Win 2K class we did touch on XP somewhat so it's why I'm mentioning it.

almost seems like a funny thing, but the hd on the presario died on me, or at least, after install and updates and all that, it keeps coming back with missing or corrupt file. And everytime it is a different file, and I tried 2 new installs of win2k3.

So indeed I will make the dual P3 1.13Ghz the domain controller and fileserver, the dual 1.4@1.57 will be everything else.
Due to the 15k rpm scsi drives it is way faster then the 1.57Ghz duallie.

Still have an old celly 1.3Ghz rig, that is my 3dfx rig, will install win2k on it, so I can also play with it in my domain.

cheers

no, I'm just installing win2k on an older rig, to also train myself a bit in setting up mixed clients.

And I checked with my agency, I will be getting MCSE based on win2k3 and XP.
Learning about Vista is something I will do also but not for MCSE.

I also have a winxp machine for that.

Both servers will be running win2k3 enterprise edition.

Do you happen to know in what order the standard MCSE is usually done?? 1st the winXP exam, but then??

I've been doing some searching and it seems that keeping to going up in numbers regarding the courses numbers, is the best way to go cause they build on top of eachother, except for 70-294, which is completely Active Directory.

And when I upgrade completely in about 5 months, my x2 3800+ will be free for use, so that'll be nice as a server as well.

and besides, a dual P3 1.57Ghz with 4GB of ram, even if it is sdram, is still more then adequate for such a small network. all servers are dual cpu with at least 1GB of ram.