Hey all!
I’m a long time Linux user, and I’ve been avoiding it for the good part of the last ~15 years. Most of my Windows experience is from the XP times.
I’ve changed careers from agriculturing to ICT a few years ago (almost done with school), and while I can say I know my way around Linux pretty well, Windows is an alien landscape to me.
I got a job a few years ago as sysadmin (not so much, but still) / IT-support (more), and I find myself struggling to help customers with Windows / handle Windows servers. I would like to change that.
I have no intention on moving my personal computing to Windows due to privacy concerns, which is a bit contradictory to my goals, because AFAIK learning things this way is the “best” approach. It was the case with Linux for me, at least.
While i do learn Windows at my job, I’d like to compliment it with another approach, too.
Do you guys have any suggestions how I could learn Windows (the whole ecosystem, not just end-users computers)? I’d like it to be fun, as I get bored easily (breaking my Linux time and time again was really fun learning method) Maybe fire up some VMs and go from there, somehow? What do you think are the most essential skills for a Windows sysadmin? Active Directory, sure, but what else?
I've been using https://github.com/hellzerg/optimizer for debloating my Windows VM (Yeah I forgot to mention I have one installed which I use for some school related activities, mostly Office 365 stuff), but a script would definitely streamline the debloating process.
Winget seems interesting, going to check that out!
Powershell, while it seems like a useful tool, is just gibberish to me. Somehow the syntax is just so weird for my brain to wrap around (this is no criticism towards Powershell, more like "I'm too stupid to understand PS")
I do like Control Panel, as it reminds me of the sweet sweet XP times. And I've fiddled around the registry a couple of times, always blindly trusting what some random blog post advices while having no idea what I'm actually doing. It's kinda daunting, but I guess that's just the way it is. Maybe it gets easier over time :D
Thanks for your answer!
Oh and one last thing, you may want to install PowerToys. It's an official program that has a suite of features for power users, things like bulk renaming, easier access to environment variables, checking which files are in use by which apps, and a couple of other neat stuff. I use the color picker all the time.