I’ve worked with Windows environments from 2003 until still today migrating to azure. The biggest skills gap with technicians and engineers administrating Windows is actually networking. This single point connects every single service server and user and yet dns, dhcp, routing and it’s protocols, link layer technologies like vlans interface configurations aggregation and more is so poorly understood that engineers and technicians often significantly mistake problems. Almost all issues happen around network layers 2-4 or layer 8 (the end user).

It doesn’t need to be first but no matter what os or component, networking is core and the single biggest return on investment for systems admin types.

Sure other basic skills are required but just being able to test TCP by telnet or understand each hop, and is the server listening? What process ID is listening? Did someone configure rdp off 3389 and that’s why it doesn’t work? Was the host file edited and that’s why it’s resolving some old ip for this hostname? Why is it going out the wan interface of the router when it should be going over an ipsec tunnel?

All this and more has nothing to do with Windows, and yet, anything that isn’t just user training or show and tell about how to do something, there’s a good chance it requires you to follow the networking layers to make sure behaviour is expected.

Alright alright, joking aside. Look into PowerShell. It also works on Linux in case you have a Linux desktop. It’s widely used in Windows admin stuff.

And uh, maybe not what people want to hear, but passing objects between cmdlets is better than everything being raw text in my opinion.

Oh god… You’ll have to learn IIS. Internet Inf🤮rmation Services.

In all seriousness Windows Server is much more enjoyable than Home/Pro/Enterprise or whatever the desktop versions are called. You have more control over the system and they don’t hinder you from configuring stuff unlike on the desktop version.

Someone already suggested to get a VPS and just get to know the system. A tip though if you have to spin up a windows server on Azure vs somewhere else: search for info with the keyword “azure”. Microsoft stuff seems to work worse on their own cloud than anywhere else. MS SQL Server and Azure’s version of MS SQL Server differs and lacks features.

Been a long time since I had to use any of the above so things might have changed.

You can check this channel. Also here’s a good installation guide in case you need it.

I would suggest looking at MS certification programs, even if you don’t want to take the exams. I haven’t taken a Windows Server exam in a while, but looks like the latest one is Windows Server Hybrid Administrator Associate. You’ll also want to look into things like Active Directory, Group Policy, printing and print servers, and domains and domain controllers. As you mentioned, some networking can be handled Windows-side, like DHCP and DNS, but depending on the org, may be handled by other solutions.

As far as getting your hands on Windows Server software, you can download from MS, and it will have a 180 day trial before activation, which can be extended.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/download-windows-server-2022

You can certainly spin up a VPS with Windows Server on it and figure outhow to do your daily tasks on it. Buyvm.net will let you run an old version at no extra charge on cheap VPS. Other hosts have newer versions that you pay a bit extra for, but it is affordable.