Started my first job, it’s a helpdesk. It looks that I get tickets and try to help people on the other side, have build some PCs and am at first week.

But after ~3 years of using almost exclusive FOSS, I found out corporate software (especially Windows!) to be so absolutely unbearable.

Having Windows as example, on the surface it is bearable, but as I need to do more advanced stuff, oh GOD!
I needed iperf3 to test LAN speed, traceroute to test why some device is not responding, rsync to copy files… But none of it is installed and installing every single program is super annoying and troublesome. After that I get countless update popups from all sides, ugh.

  • smileyheadOP
    5·
    7 months ago

    as frustrating

    I do not know Windows administration at all. So half of my frustration is definetly by the lack of knowledge.

    But I also am scratching my head about so many things that are not clear.\

    1. Let’s say you need to manage ~10 workstations with dozens of programs and tools installed and keep them up-to-date, what tools Windows have build in for that?\
    2. An update broke. On Linux there are wikis explaining exactly what command like “dnf update” do, what files are replaced and I can check logs. On Windows all I know is that update go to some % and rollback, how can I know more?
    • jarfil@beehaw.org
      3·
      7 months ago

      Rule of thumb:

      • Linux: you set a system from bottoms up, adding/enabling layers and features.
      • Windows: you set a system from top down, locking/disabling features that shouldn’t be available.

      Windows has tools to control and restrict updates/installs, with a full centralized logging system. You will rarely find log files, it all goes into the centralized log (think systemd log). Some failed installs may leave behind log files in temp, so be quick at getting them or they’ll be gone.

      If you have non-Windows programs and tools installed, you can use either the msstore, winget, or 3rd party choco and scoop, or all of them via WinGetUI.

      Many admin tools are only available on the CLI via PowerShell. Some may or may not conflict with how their GUI counterparts work.

      Additional built-in tools… are “secret”. You may get a glimpse at some of them by checking the “install fix” tool or similar, but it may use non-backwards-compatible calls, which is why they’re not made official.