So many experienced people on here. How did you learn?

Self-explanatory.

The same way you are now, Tony.

I don't know the ages of many people in here, but I’d guess a lot of members were born at a time where computing had entered schools.
I first touched a PC in jail decades ago in another life, the prison library, cushy job. You love it or hate it. I suspect if the latter you wouldn’t be in this forum unless it was to seek help. I loved it, couldn’t get enough of it. It’s the controlling narcissist’s dream.
You’re the master. If you learn early enough that a backup can enable you to screw around with everything to your hearts content, you can’t lose. Unless you have a hardware failure. Then you have to grab Frank, Pete, Davo & Titchy and head down to the local bank for more resources to upgrade

I learned online, watching and reading about computer viruses (in various forums). Fascinating challenge to clean up infected machines!

People on this forum come from all walks of life.

A lot of the older guys here (we have members over 80 years old) started with mainframes programming in legendary Fortran (still widely used in Engineering today albeit with fancy GUIs now), or in COBOL for finacial/business tools.

Many of users are self taught (I never had any formal computing education other than being taught Fortran 1 hour a week in my Engineering degree). Computers enabled engineers to solve engineering equations iteratively which would take months or years beforehand.

What was really irksome when pcs started to become common, their first major use was as "word processors" and the Secretaries would get a pc but the engineers had to grovel on bended knees to get one (attitude was you could still use the mainframe).

Of course many members are formally IT trained, noting the term IT did not even exist at one time but a whole industry grew up around corporate computing. (I will not get into a discussion of my view of corporate IT departments LOL).

Your poll does not really reflect how most learn windows - virtually everybody in an office environment uses Windows (mainly for MS Office or bespoke applications) and learn on the fly. If they are lucky, the company may send them on internal or external course.

Of course most learn how to use Windows at school nowadays.

One of our wonderful young(ish) members (@Wynona) runs voluntary classes for more elderly persons.
PS how are you @Wynona - not heard from you for a while - hope you are ok?

I think very few would actually come here to learn Windows - that is not what this forum does - it provides excellent support specifically for Windows 11 (or Windows 10, 8 and 7 on its sister sites).

We have a vast number of excellent tutorials, mainly by @Brink who I believe is an employee of the forum owners. You would still need to know the basics of Windows to use the tutorials effectively.

Some of the greatest tutorials are by the legendary @Kari, a great enthusiast but not employed by the forums.
I always thought I was pretty good at using Windows but following @Kari's tutorials took my knowledge to the next level (as I am sure many have also found).

Whilst I am name dropping, great credit goes to some members who have incredible patience with new members (more than I have for sure) such as @Bree, @dalchina, @glasskuter, @KYHI - these guys and gals are like the backbone of this forum.

Of course, there is a social element to this forum and humour can also help people learn. I won't name names here as I would not like to be misconstrued as undervaluing members who often give us a laugh (oh go on - I can't resist name dropping the legendary and highly experienced @Edwin who really helped me testing use of personal MS Teams for the VIP meetings we have now and then - many personal thanks to him).

I hacked my way to the top!!!

Truth be told,..., decades ago, one of my bosses wanted to transform his old fashioned business onto PC, and I told him I would set it up for him, when, in reality, I barely knew how to turn a PC on!!! (I did that a lot back then!) So, I forced myself to learn, and fast!!!
I studied computing and PC's, tore them apart, rebuilt them, from sources here, there and everywhere.

I must say, I've gained an invaluable amount of knowledge right here on the forums! Great bunch of folks here! Probably the best and most enjoyable forums I've had the pleasure of being a member on!

I learned from trying to help others on Seven Forums. I've always had Google-Fu and could find bits and pieces searching to put together a possible fix. In doing so and reading what everyone else posted I learned

I voted for I don't know Windows; am here to learn because I am an email, forum Guy. Now people just know me from funny pictures and word games, but for a time I actually helped I am not a power user, lol

A Guy

cereberus said:

People on this forum come from all walks of life.

A lot of the older guys here (we have members over 80 years old) started with mainframes programming in legendary Fortran (still widely used in Engineering today albeit with fancy GUIs now), or in COBOL for finacial/business tools.

Many of users are self taught (I never had any formal computing education other than being taught Fortran 1 hour a week in my Engineering degree). Computers enabled engineers to solve engineering equations iteratively which would take months or years beforehand.

What was really irksome when pcs started to become common, their first major use was as "word processors" and the Secretaries would get a pc but the engineers had to grovel on bended knees to get one (attitude was you could still use the mainframe).

Of course many members are formally IT trained, noting the term IT did not even exist at one time but a whole industry grew up around corporate computing. (I will not get into a discussion of my view of corporate IT departments LOL).

Your poll does not really reflect how most learn windows - virtually everybody in an office environment uses Windows (mainly for MS Office or bespoke applications) and learn on the fly. If they are lucky, the company may send them on internal or external course.

Of course most learn how to use Windows at school nowadays.

One of our wonderful young(ish) members (@Wynona) runs voluntary classes for more elderly persons.
PS how are you @Wynona - not heard from you for a while - hope you are ok?

I think very few would actually come here to learn Windows - that is not what this forum does - it provides excellent support specifically for Windows 11 (or Windows 10, 8 and 7 on its sister sites).

We have a vast number of excellent tutorials, mainly by @Brink who I believe is an employee of the forum owners. You would still need to know the basics of Windows to use the tutorials effectively.

Some of the greatest tutorials are by the legendary @Kari, a great enthusiast but not employed by the forums.
I always thought I was pretty good at using Windows but following @Kari's tutorials took my knowledge to the next level (as I am sure many have also found).

Whilst I am name dropping, great credit goes to some members who have incredible patience with new members (more than I have for sure) such as @Bree, @dalchina, @glasskuter, @KYHI - these guys and gals are like the backbone of this forum.

Of course, there is a social element to this forum and humour can also help people learn. I won't name names here as I would not like to be misconstrued as undervaluing members who often give us a laugh (oh go on - I can't resist name dropping the legendary and highly experienced @Edwin who really helped me testing use of personal MS Teams for the VIP meetings we have now and then - many personal thanks to him).

Click to expand...

Thanks for this informative and delightful narrative, @cereberus. I started with BASIC, then Fortran; never Cobol. My community college had a terminal connected to a mainframe at a bigger campus. My first mass storage device was a cassette tape recorder, then punch cards at university. I've used 8", 5-1/4", and 3-1/2" floppy disks. My first HDD came in an IBM AT. In 1974 I purchased a Texas Instruments SR-50 "scientific calculator" that had to be ordered directly from TI by mail for $250, more than my car cost me; our physics prof allowed us to use it. My level of interest? Suffice it to say I've pulled many all-nighters to squeak out an extra second from a runtime.

And so, it comes as something of a surprise how much I don't know. But I am enjoying learning, and this is a good group of people. Not only that, but the design and programing of the Board is absolutely outstanding. Thanks for welcoming me.

cereberus said:

People on this forum come from all walks of life.

A lot of the older guys here (we have members over 80 years old) started with mainframes programming in legendary Fortran (still widely used in Engineering today albeit with fancy GUIs now), or in COBOL for finacial/business tools.

Many of users are self taught (I never had any formal computing education other than being taught Fortran 1 hour a week in my Engineering degree). Computers enabled engineers to solve engineering equations iteratively which would take months or years beforehand.

Click to expand...

Me too, I was taught Fortran as part of my Electronics Engineering degree, it was all batch jobs on punched cards and submitted for an overnight run on an ICL 1900 mainframe. Debugging was a lengthy process, sometimes taking weeks! My proudest achievement was that a program to generate prime numbers that I wrote in my final year exam was bug-free and ran first time (probably the only time I've ever achieved that). Meanwhile in my Uni's electronics department there were several PDP8/e minicomputers with Teletypes, paper tape for saving programs, and one even had magnetic drum storage. Many happy late nights were spent there, teaching myself how to program in Focal (a bit like Basic) and learning to count in Octal.

The first half of my career was as a digital electronics engineer, part of a team designing and building EMI's prototype digital recorder. This frequently took me to Abbey Road, in particular to record Andre Previn and the LSO. I even got a credit (in very small print) on the back cover as 'digital recording engineer'.

Images pour orchestre was EMI Classics' first digital recording.....

Click to expand...

After that programming increasingly became the larger part of my job, first with Fortran on a Data General Eclipse (hey, now I have to learn to count in Hex). Later I self-taught Assembly code, Pascal, and C++ (amongst other things). I firmly believe that once you have been taught to think as a programmer you can program in anything.

Storage had progressed too, now I had my own removable 14" disk pack.


WPS:Data General NOVA4/X:Photos

As PCs started to arrive in the department (Windows 3.1, later 3.11 WfWG) I soon got adept at configuring and maintaining them, very soon getting the reputation as the department's unofficial 'go-to' support for all their PC troubles. I also became adept at writing .bat batch files.

So as one career ended, another started. This time with a small IT support company that hired my services out to all who needed them. In that time the company sent me on many Microsoft courses and I gained quite a few Microsoft MCP certifications, up to and including Exchange Server and NT4 Server. Amongst other things I spent many happy years at Cellnet (now known as O2) in Slough as IT support and Network administration.

cereberus said:

Whilst I am name dropping, great credit goes to some members who have incredible patience with new members (more than I have for sure) such as @Bree.....

Click to expand...

Thank you for those kind words. It was probably at Cellnet that I learned how to deal sympathetically with all levels of user (in)experience - and that was face to face, mostly

And then I retired. For years I was just using an XP laptop for little more than browsing, and when that died in 2012 it was replaced by a second hand Windows 7 one (by then the only new ones available were Windows 8, and I really didn't like the look of that!). My 'computing' life was pretty mundane and boring - then in August 2015 I got the Windows 10 free upgrade - and all hell broke loose. I was suddenly jolted out of my lethargy and had to start learning Windows all over again - for which I'm very grateful as my 'little grey cells' felt like they were starting to go to sleep by then.

Bree said:

...when that died in 2012 it was replaced by a second hand Windows 7 one...

Click to expand...

I still have it, it's still in full working order, and I've recently tested a clean install of 24H2 on it.

Bree said:

the company sent me on many Microsoft courses and I gained quite a few Microsoft MCP certifications, up to and including Exchange Server and NT4 Server.

Click to expand...

TBH, I've probably learned far more than I've ever known before from the other members of Ten Forums and now here on Eleven Forum.

antspants said:

I don't know the ages of many people in here, but I’d guess a lot of members were born at a time where computing had entered schools.
I first touched a PC in jail decades ago in another life, the prison library, cushy job. You love it or hate it. I suspect if the latter you wouldn’t be in this forum. I loved it, couldn’t get enough of it. It’s the controlling narcissist’s dream.
You’re the master. If you learn early enough that a backup can enable you to screw around with everything to your hearts content, you can’t lose. Unless you have a hardware failure. Then you have to grab Frank, Pete, Davo & Titchy and head down to the local bank for more resources to upgrade

Click to expand...

@antspants

Funnily enough I used to give some prisoners computer lessons years ago (mind you I doubt whether the sorts of prisoners in Icelandic Jails were anything like the ones in 'OZ or especially the USA in some states.) There's only one "proper prison" facility and emphasis is on re-habilitation-- I think if I had to be jailed - then the USA would be one of the places I'd really be scared to "sit inside" -- OZ I'd imagine isn't much bette. Here than Violent crime is really low -- probably about 1 murder every few years in the whole country !!!! - most crime is fairly low level just some over indulgent drinking at weekends and the odd tourist doing a bit of shop lifting.

I'm always glad to see when anybody who'se been inside sorts themselves out -- Well done !!!!.

I just hope some of those "Ex cons" who I taught years ago aren't involved in the various Stock Exchange and money laudering scams rampant today though. !!!!



cheers
jimbo

jimbo45 said:

I just hope some of those "Ex cons" who I taught years ago aren't involved in the various Stock Exchange and money laudering scams rampant today though. !!!!

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Aussie jails were terrible, now at least they have classes for different things, like computers. But over crowding breeds violence. Still not comparable to Americas prisons. If I thought I was a tough guy before I went in, I didn’t after a week of being there.

Back then, the closest thing to a computer was DOS/3.1 and a library database to keep track of books, which was a system that never worked.
And for what I wen’t to jail for, I would go to jail for again if I had to. A few years inside for me. Morally (if that’s how the judicial system worked) I’d of been let off.
Classes are a great form of rehabilitation. If I wasn’t so lazy back then and opted to take the library position, I may of never discovered how much I love computers. My mum worked on a computer called CSIRAC (I always have to look that up) I think she punched cards. The stories used to bore me as a kid, little did I know.

I'm a little surprised at how few people participated in this poll. Did I set it up wrong?

TonyCzar said:

I'm a little surprised at how few people participated in this poll. Did I set it up wrong?

Click to expand...

As I said in my first post, the choices do not really reflect how people learned to use Windows, and why they come to this forum.

Also, you can only select one option. For many, it is a combination of your responses. Personally, I could tick 3 or 4 of the five boxes.

You have generated some interesting replies though, so don't feel disheartened as the replies really answer your original question.

I was always very interested in Tech and PC's from a young age. My first computer was windows 95.

We were pretty poor but we had a family friend who was a programmer and he set me up with a ton of equipment as he saw my potential and willingness to learn. If it wasn't for him I would not be where I am today. I self taught myself for a long time, hanging out in these forums as well assisting others. I learned about everything from malware removal to batch files, customizing windows, and troubleshooting any program I could come across. My favorite thing was to use virtual machines and play around to see how things worked. I spent so much time learning it led to a helpdesk job which I did for 4 years. That turned into another opportunity and so forth until I ended up becoming in charge of a school and then later being a junior tech in the news industry. A lot of places I worked at had terrible processes or needed better ways of doing things and I always tried to find ways to improve the way things were done. I leveled up at work you could say by saving time.

cereberus said:

I think very few would actually come here to learn Windows - that is not what this forum does

Click to expand...

I disagree. The tutorials section on these forums and the news sections over the years have been invaluable. The people here in these forums have taught me so much over the years or rather decade. There are multiple IT people I meet every day that know the really specific weeds of certain things, but few know the actual in and outs of windows, or even how to find where certain settings are because they are out of date. I try to do my best to keep up to date so that I know where stuff is or what's getting deprecated. There is so much going on all the time and it's a lot to stay on top of.

I feel like I could easily check every box on the poll. Because we are never done learning.

andrew129260 said:

I was always very interested in Tech and PC's from a young age. My first computer was windows 95.

We were pretty poor but we had a family friend who was a programmer and he set me up with a ton of equipment as he saw my potential and willingness to learn. If it wasn't for him I would not be where I am today. I self taught myself for a long time, hanging out in these forums as well assisting others. I learned about everything from malware removal to batch files, customizing windows, and troubleshooting any program I could come across. My favorite thing was to use virtual machines and play around to see how things worked. I spent so much time learning it led to a helpdesk job which I did for 4 years. That turned into another opportunity and so forth until I ended up becoming in charge of a school and then later being a junior tech in the news industry. A lot of places I worked at had terrible processes or needed better ways of doing things and I always tried to find ways to improve the way things were done. I leveled up at work you could say by saving time.

I disagree. The tutorials section on these forums and the news sections over the years have been invaluable. The people here in these forums have taught me so much over the years or rather decade. There are multiple IT people I meet every day that know the really specific weeds of certain things, but few know the actual in and outs of windows, or even how to find where certain settings are because they are out of date. I try to do my best to keep up to date so that I know where stuff is or what's getting deprecated. There is so much going on all the time and it's a lot to stay on top of.

I feel like I could easily check every box on the poll. Because we are never done learning.

Click to expand...

Define learn - do you mean the learn basics or learn skills beyond basics?

Most have to learn the basics FIRST in order to be able to come to this forum to find out what they do not know.
This site is not like the Windows 11 for Dummies books - more like "Enhance your Windows skills".

cereberus said:

Define learn - do you mean the learn basics or learn skills beyond basics?

Most have to learn the basics FIRST in order to be able to come to this forum to find out what they do not know.
This site is not like the Windows 11 for Dummies books - more like "Enhance your Windows skills".

Click to expand...

I think both learning the basics (most of the tutorials) and learning beyond the basics can be done here. Especially through other members or the problems posted to this forum with answers.

I guess it also depends what you define as the basics. Some of the tutorials are this, which is very basic. Or even this. And some of them are this, which is more "advanced" I would say. However, you could make the argument that anything that is a tutorial is easily followed, and therefore easy or basic.

Something new I learned was about this for example, which Brink had made a tutorial on, but my post showed how it actually worked which was cool.

Completely self taught here. I got in on the ground floor for maintaining telefoney mainframe systems when the technology went digital as well as broadband maintenance.. This was at a time women were just entering the field. It was fairly technical but I tended to have an affinity for it so gained confidence I could handle technical work and never shied away from it. I'd stay with a problem as long as it took and still be hanging in when some of the guys wouldn't. I took a lot of prinde in having a reputation for my work ethic. I never quit and the bosses realized it..

But I knew very little about a PC and Windows other than how to play a game of solitaire, ask a question on the web and get my email.

When I retired 25 years ago, I became an avid enthusiast, reading everything I could get my hands on......a lot of reading...which was easier for me to grasp when I was younger. I kept digging and branching out, joining forums, asking questions until I got to helping family and friends.

There was only one guy in town who worked on computers. When he passsed away, somehow through word of mouth folks started asking for my help. I ended up with a small back room repair shop. Nothing big, just enought to give me something to do. As I got more requests and windows Kept advancing, I really had to hit the books for hours on end every day just to keep up. Sometime with the least little problem I'd read for hours until I could get it.. Most of the time I was eventually able to hit on and fix the problems and I was lucky not to have too many misses where I had to hang my head in shame. But I'd be too embarrassed to admit how much time it sometime took me. But I very rarely was challenged to the extent I couldn't work things out....eventually.

I rebuilt a number of used systems for resale back when I could find them cheap enough and I don't think I ever made more than $100 on one, usually less.. By then owning a computer was mainstream so a lot of elderly folks got one because they couldn't afford new. I ended up donating my time to help them learn how to do the basic stuff. My phone stayed hot because they wouldn't punch an "accept button" without calling me first. Many still don't.

So I'm now 75, still reading, researching and learning every day. Due to health reasons I rarely do repair work any more except for family and friends, and donating time to the little old ladies & gents (older than me)on fixed incomes who continue to depend on me. Now all the hours I sit at this desk everyday is because I still refuse to give up. As long as my mind works, I want to continue to learn.

glasskuter said:

As long as my mind works, I want to continue to learn.

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Works both ways. As long as there's something new to learn, the mind stays young and active.