Uh, let's backup and format...

That's only true for a time. After you stop dealing with Windows for enough years, you just forget the bullshit and you become almost as clueless as the guy asking for help. You're really good at Linux though. So when they ask for help you are all like:

But with a less annoying and more kidnapper vibe where you're withholding your valuable help till the bastard pays ransom. "You want help? Switch to Linux." You don't care if they don't.

Just knowing how to use Google/ddg/etc to search for a solution to your problem makes you better at troubleshooting than most people. Spending 30 seconds to find a relevant link can make you seem like a genius to a lot of people.
- Seriously. I work in IT (mostly Linux) but whatever OS 90% of the Job is knowing how to properly phrase problems for Google and then you just need to know how/where to apply solutions.
- I used to work with supporting the general public with computer usage. It was pretty much a nightmare.
  I basically decided that, were I ever to become a benevolent dictator, the words "It just says 'error'", barring the rare exception where "error" and "ok" were the only things on screen...would result in immediate revocation of citizenship and deportation to wherever a dart landed on the map. If they were really nice, we'd let them throw the dart, or designate a champion to throw the dart for them.
  This could work out really well for them! Either way, support staff wouldn't have to put up with it from that individual anymore.
  (EDIT: No, the middle of the Atacama / Sahara Desert, the poles, R'lyeh, nor the ocean, would be valid. I said benevolent.)
  ...Yeah I'm still working with a mental health professional untangling what that job did to me. Lol
  
  This sounds completely fair and benevolent. A lesser dictator would have them thrown into the pit of despair.
- Unless most "relevant" answers point to a Microsoft help forum with shit answers.
  I have to use windows for work and I hate this bullshit.
  
  I was going to make a joke saying "What, you don't appreciate Andre Da Costa telling you to reboot your computer?" but tbh the reason I do remember him is because he often had actual solutions.
  Crazy that out of the thousands of Microsoft MVPs, there was exactly one that knew how to make your Windows shit work, and now he's no longer affiliated with Microsoft either.
I've been on Linux exclusively for over 5 years now. I'm starting to struggle with some Windows stuff that I just forgot how to do. But also I'm still shit at Linux. It just works so well that I never really had to learn what's under the hood.
I think another part of this is that you can do a little sleuthing in Linux and generally figure out what's causing an issue because the error messages are generally helpful!
In Linux, running a buggy / non-starting app in terminal will usually spit out something understandable. I think once we figure this out it spoils us a little.
Windows on the other hand, with anything that actually requires intervention, seems to go out of its way to be obtuse and goes all "contact your system administrator" about it. You spend more time trying to look up and cipher their "error codes" and dealing with unhelpful "support" than figuring the problem. (Which usually involves "nuke and pave a driver" anyway. Lol)
Yep. Haven't used windows besides poking at other people's machines and trying to figure out wtf is going on in about 20 years.
I'm just as clueless as you bud, but I've got a bootable Linux drive I can plug in. Come on, you know you wanna... It'll be great, you'll love it. It's free
You can learn Windows it just takes a little effort. If you spend some time you will end up knowing half the tricks in the book.
- I just scroll Lemmy and every time someone mentions a Windows fix, I press the little save button.
Maybe for some, but even if you have to keep it up because your work it relatives demand it, Windows ecosystem is essentially impossible to debug when it hits issues and you just have to take guesses as to why the obscure bad behavior is happening.
Windows is better at not needing to be fixed or the first place by self healing, whereas with Linux distributions you have to know how to fix those issues, but once it goes beyond easy to fix issues, Linux is reparable but windows isn't.
If it isn't blatantly obvious, it didn't fix itself, and SFC didn't fix it, then they always say reinstall...

Dealing with Microsoft's bullshit has always been one of the most pursuasive arguments for Linux.

I dare to say most Linux users know more about windows problem solving than the average windows user

Well, your Windows skills are being represented by Bennett, who is no John Matrix, but also
isn't a standard civilian. And he does have that chain mail vest...that separates him from the normies too.

90% of problem solving is just Googling stuff and screwing with settings, which isn't particularly Linux specific.

Under Linux you find the root cause and fix it.
Under Windows you just try everything until something magically works.
- That's exactly what I tell tinkerers.
  You can be a Windows IT person for a decade and not really know anything except how to copy and paste something.
  You do the same for Linux, and at some point, everything clicks.
  
  Experience with Linux administration just rocks, frankly working with servers this past month has been a very eye opening experience and I learnt a lot, just thinking about what I may gather from a year or a decade of work is immense for me
  ATLEAST I won't go hungry, haha
  
  Technically that's not entirely true. I've met some talented Windows Adkins and some terrible Linux people. If someone has been using Linux for decades they tend to become complacent and errogant. Good luck trying to get them to even acknowledge containers or that systemd. It sad since both containers and systemd have been around for decades at this point.
  Give me someone who is really to learn. Those are the best people to work with.
Except the success chances are significantly higher on Linux and It's easy to find a manual.
- Usually there is also documentation of your distro, if not use the documentation of the distro your distro is based off
There is definitely a difference between finding out the registry exists vs having to look up which key to edit
Being able to find a solution instead of a huge amount of bloat is Linux specific.

Even the average windows gamer doesn't know shit anymore.

I remember learning a lot of stuff as a side effect of Morrowind modding. :D

In my experience professional Windows admins tend to be click ops guys. Trying to tell them that they don't need a GUI is impossible.

They are also the ones who will lock onto legacy ways of doing things. Try telling them that the thing they are trying to do is in the settings app.

Then they're shit admins, I'm always using Command Prompt and Powershell because the GUI fell short somewhere.
Also
Try telling them that the thing they are trying to do is in the settings app.
There's a reason for that, the settings app is trash the second you need to do something beyond the basics and doesn't cover enterprisey things whatsoever
- Just this week: The Settings app on my work Windows computer had a completely non-functional search feature. The other thing I was trying to set "Choose what happens when you close the laptop lid", I have still not been able to find it outside of manually going to Windows 7-era control panel.
We hired a IT guy who had a decade of experience with Windows Servers. The dude was not a good fit for our linux-heavy IT team. Didn't fully know commands or how the OS worked.
He was still a smart dude, and he moved to the AWS team, where there's a lot more GUI aid.
- Why would you hire a Windows admin for Linux? Surely there was a better person.
- Oof. To do anything at scale on AWS you’re still gonna need to do a lot of CLI, yaml, and json.
  
  On the DevOps, and scaling side, yes.
  But not on the general maintenance side.

I dare to rebuke that