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0 pointsmattbee9y ago0 comments

What you get from text + availability of source code = a set of practical documentation that shipped right where you needed it.

Microsoft forgot (and still forget) the documentation for Windows - if you want a nice A-Z reference for the bootloader, or kernel, or shell or IIS's configuration file or half the command-line tools, you're usually out of luck. The official place is often an inaccessible, badly-written knowledgebase article written from a task-based, usually GUI-based perspective.

It never mattered that they'd implemented a more coherent system full of better ideas, because the only way they'd tell you about it is through the GUI.

The MSDN CDs from 20 years ago were really good for a complete programmer's reference, but 1) I'm not sure how well they kept that up and 2) I could never find anything as comprehensive for sysadmins.

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JdeBP9y ago

You should have kept looking at the MSDN and TechNet, because the idea that there's no documentation because it has been forgotten, or indeed the idea that there is no documentation, is utter nonsense.

Windows Server 2012 Command-line reference:

* https://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/cc754340(v=ws.11...

Windows XP A-Z Command-line reference, that is actually named that:

* https://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/bb490890.aspx

Doco for the wdsutil and md commands, picked at random:

* https://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/cc771206(v=ws.11...

* https://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/cc754711(v=ws.11...

bcdedit command references:

* https://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/cc731662(v=ws.11...

* https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/ff542205(VS.85).asp...

And so forth. There's a huge amount of doco, including reference doco.

emodendroket9y ago

This perspective sounds a bit out-of-date when you consider how heavily they're pushing to get PowerShell into sysadmins' workflow. The online MSDN docs are also often pretty good.

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