It looks like Windows is heading towards Linux in this matter- having to know weird commands to get things done effectively.

I only use Windows occasionally, but when I have to set up a printer (shared from another computer) or file sharing, I often have to resort to either creating obscure registry entries based on random internet tutorials or use command line to figure out what exactly the GUI wizard means by "the thing you want can't be found"

> It looks like Windows is heading towards Linux in this matter- having to know weird commands to get things done effectively.

I'm pretty sure Windows has always been like that. Magic registry keys and underdocumented mmc panels, mystical cmd commands and some COM/WMI poking vbscript. This is also why powershell is such improvement in windows world, it attempts to reset at least some of the management madness.

Windows is heading towards linux in that most of the "new" settings app is calling powershell under the hood.

Just like in the linux where all GUI's are more or less just wrappers around command line utilities or have 1:1 cmd line alternatives, Windows is becoming powershell first then GUI.

Where before ALOT of functionality was only accessible from the GUI

Sometimes you don't even have UI alternative, only PowerShell. Much of Set-AdfsProperties have no UI alternative. Workflow manager/Service Bus on prem configurations. Office online configuration. SharePoint particular configuration (i.e connecting to workflow manager). WinRM things via powershell or alternative executable (like setting specitic certificate for TLS communication channel). Add-VpnConnectionRoute, ... I'v stumbled upon many and many "regular" things that can be configured only via powershell.

But PowerShell for me is the best thing that has happened to Microsoft ecosystem.

But then sometimes powershell is just a wrapper around WMI.

Good for them!

> It looks like Windows is heading towards Linux in this matter

IMO Windows is just moving backwards. Back in the days for both os you needed to knew unobvious things. Registry and MMC being prime examples for windows. Some of todays Linux flavours come with consistent control panels that solve 99% of all common problems in the same UI wrapping cli tools you could also use if you want. Something Windows is far away from at this point.

Backwards or forwards depends only on the perspective of the observer :)

That would be fucking improvement over "create some random value in registry under this and that hierarchy to change it"

At least in /proc you see all the keys you can change...

PowerShell has been around for a long time.