# I Switched Back to Windows Yep. I definitely did that. My two main reasons are as follows: 1. Curiousity about Windows NT (including modern Windows versions) 2. I am a Windows sysadmin by trade ## Windows NT A year or so ago, I found some Sybex Windows NT study guides, and a year before that I got a bunch of 90s Windows Resource Kits. I didn't really look at them as I wasn't in that state of mind, however. When I became curious about Windows NT, it started with the older versions. The ones called Windows NT. Part of it was because I had those books. I read and I got ideas about how to set up a public Windows NT Domain. Then I remembered that these old Windows versions have serious and well-known vulnerabilities. Shame too. Windows NT has some rather interesting social features. It has a chat not unlike the talk program on Unix-like operating systems. I find that most of my Unix development is generally command line based as well. Since I have access to multiple kinds of Unix through [SDF] and [tilde.team], I have access to a Unix environment whenever I want. If I needed something I could administrate, I could always spin up a virtual machine. In fact, I've even converted my daily driver into a VM host with Hyper-V. I'll explain why Hyper-V later, but I know it can run virtual machines that run Linux distros and OpenBSD if I needed to. I also have an eeePC running NetBSD that the fediverse seems to like, and if I wanted to do VAX development on NetBSD, that's what [OpenSIMH] is for. I may prefer a Unix for running OpenSIMH, though. Thankfully, again, I can run a virtual machine for that. ## For My (Uncle's) Sins The family business I work for has been a Windows shop since the 2000s, as my uncle, the IT guy who set the foundation for the company's IT, was an MSCE and a general Windows guy. While there are some Linux and OpenBSD boxes about, the servers are mostly Windows-based. Even the virtual machines are based on Hyper-V. The database server is even MSSQL. It's easier to use .NET to write an application versus some more Unixy alternative. I could learn about doing it the Linux way, but it wouldn't be worth the effort to switch. So I should learn the Windows way. It's that simple. ## Linux isn't Hard I didn't come crying back to Windows after a difficult time with Linux. In fact, except for where I truly need Windows, Linux is easier to use for 95% of non-Windows development tasks. The remaining 5% is easily done in WINE, so while it'd be easier on Windows, it's doable on Linux. Yet it doesn't make much sense to learn how to develop on and administrate Windows on Linux, does it? It'd be like using Windows to do Linux development. I have no love of Microsoft. I'm just in a situation where learning Windows is the best thing I could do. ## How do I use Windows? I use Windows 10 IoT Enterprise on my HP Pavilion. This is because Windows 11 IoT Enterprise didn't play nice with the integrated graphics of its pre-Ryzen CPU. I do plan on using Windows 11 IoT Enterprise as a VM on the server and on a desktop. I'll probably put a copy of Fedora Workstation and OpenBSD on there as well so I could develop for both platforms fairly easily. The IoT Enterprise versions are very slim out of the box. They don't include the Windows Store, but they do include Microsoft Edge. I find it useful in limited situations, so I tolerate it. You can find these versions easily by searching "massgrave" as one word on your favorite web search engine. ## Recommended Windows Resources => https://www.mdgx.com/ MDGx MAX Speed => https://MSFN.org MSFN, a Windows forum that spans all versions and thensome. => https://www.tenforums.com (Unofficial) Windows Ten Forums => https://www.elevenforums.com (Unofficial) Windows Eleven Forums ## Recommended Software => https://github.com/microsoft/winget-cli/releases WinGet, a package manager for Windows. => https://www.imgburn.com IMGBurn, for ISO creation ## Reference Links => gopher://sdf.org [SDF] => gopher://tilde.team [tilde.team] => https://opensimh.org [OpenSIMH]