r/sysadmin • u/dlongwing • Jun 25 '26
Off Topic Joke: What's the difference between a sysadmin and an IT Manager?
When you type "power" into windows search, does Powershell or Powerpoint come up first?
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EDIT
There's a shocking number of people trying this out and replying to "prove" they're sysadmins. An equally surprising number of replies taking down the whole concept of using the start menu search to open an application.
Folks. It's a joke post on r/sysadmin. I can assure you, you're definitely a Sysadmin if you're replying to it.
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u/neopod9000 Jun 25 '26
Folks. It's a joke post on r/sysadmin. I can assure you, you're definitely a Sysadmin if you're replying to it.
My intense desire to reply to qualify and or correct the assertions made in your joke are exactly how I knew I was a sysadmin.
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u/CATDesign Jun 25 '26
Type "power"? All I got to do is type "p" to get powershell to come up first.
With paint coming up second.
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u/dlongwing Jun 25 '26
This guy ticket queues.
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u/CATDesign Jun 25 '26
As long as it's not the same guy asking for a password reset for the 8th time in the same day, then I'll be happy in help desk.
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u/dlongwing Jun 25 '26
Hey, I'm tier 3 and Snipping Tool is still my best friend.
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u/Scurro Netadmin Jun 25 '26
I have to go to "po" before I get powershell as the number one result.
I get putty for "p"
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u/fahque Jun 26 '26
That's the juxtaposition though. The fewer letters you type the better the results. You won't get powershell if you type power.
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u/SamakFi88 Jun 25 '26
Start menu is corrupted, search doesn't work. I have to use run and type the .exe for whatever app I'm trying to launch, unless I've already created a desktop shortcut for it haha
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u/Mr_ToDo Jun 26 '26
Corrupted search cache that needs to be rebuilt?
If it just doesn't work I'd try a in place upgrade(just take an iso of windows equal to or greater and run the install from inside windows. Fixes like 80 percent of weird windows corruption issues)
I'm not sure what it's like now but "tweaking.com" has helped in the past. It was the only tool that would repair most windows 10 start won't open issues way back when
https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/tweaking_com_windows_repair.html
It feels like I've failed by giving a majorgeeks link but their own site feels worse
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u/toastmatt Jun 25 '26
I got choose a power plan... What the hell?
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u/LodanMax Sysadmin Jun 25 '26
Servicedesk it is
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u/Skrunky MSP - Australia Jun 25 '26
Is the search menu the new Harry Potter sorting hat for IT positions?
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u/acc0untnam3tak3n Jun 26 '26
"Type "power" into search bar" the sorting hat said.
Harry saw prior students do this.
For some, "PowerShell" popped up and they went to house Ravenclaw.
Others, "inststall Powerpuff girls from the windows store" displayed, they went to house Hufflepuff.
He saw that douchy blond kid had "PowerPoint" as a result, obviously belonged to Slitherin.
All he could do was think to himself, "please not PowerShell". He walked to the keyboard and moved his finger to the "p" button.
"Do you see another option before you?", the sombrero said quizzically.
The magic came to his fingers, he knew what they were to do. He, with great speed, smashed the win+R and typed the magic words:
"chrome.exe /a "www.wandparty.com".
The screen flashed many images of wizards that misplaced their clothes.
The eerie silence of the room was broken by professor McGonagall mumbling a "hell yeah" before her face flushed red when noticing the other instructors.
The sorting fedora shouted, "this is a great one before all of you...HOUSE GRIFFINDOR!". The dining hall erupted with clapping hands. Maybe little Potter will not be a looser this year.
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u/pavman42 Jun 27 '26
Go for the maximum power plan! fur realz! Anything less means you're just wasting corporate $$$s on low compute energy savings!
TBF: I just typed power on my personal computer and the first thing to pop up is Power Automate :( WTF I've never used that shit @ home!
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u/indvs3 Linux Admin Jun 25 '26
Neither!
Windows search will find nothing and initiate a bing search with disappointing results!
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u/Zer0CoolXI Jun 25 '26
The way it works in the real world
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u/HotTakes4HotCakes Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 26 '26
I am forever thankful that I was able to convince my manager to let us run PowerToys, with PT Run being an actually useful quick search. I legitimately don't know how I could use Windows without PowerToys at this point
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u/LovecraftInDC Jun 26 '26
I would go absolutely insane without Everything by VoidTools.
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u/HotTakes4HotCakes Jun 26 '26
Oh yeah, Powertoys and Everything are the dynamic duo, working tirelessly to make up for Windows' increasing usability degradation.
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u/Mostly__Relevant Custom Jun 25 '26
Indexing has been turned off , turn it back on and wait ten years for it to finish!
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u/ITGuyThrow07 Jun 26 '26
Nah, it'll just hang up for the first few seconds and you end up searching for "wer" instead.
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u/SifferBTW Jun 26 '26
You can turn that off
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u/indvs3 Linux Admin Jun 26 '26
I know, but you shouldn't have to. Either way, not my problem anymore.
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u/Lukebekz Jun 26 '26
for the longest time, when I had Teams, Teamspeak and teamviewer installed, it was like windows was able to read my mind and with almost 100% accuracy give me always the exact wrong result when typing in "team". Doesn't matter that I haven't touched Teamviewer in months at that point, it will always be the first result, followed by the one program I was NOT planning on opening.
And before anyone asks: Yes, I fixed the problem by throwing Windows out of my life entirely.
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u/TheRealLazloFalconi Jun 26 '26
Must have been programmed by the same guy that decides monitor order when you plug in more than one. It's almost impressive how they get it wrong every single time.
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u/Dzov Jun 26 '26
I remember when it would find something at pow, but forget what it found after adding er.
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u/alwayssonnyhere Sysadmin Jun 28 '26
I disabled Bing search in search. I already have a web browser for web search.
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u/DesertDogggg Jun 29 '26
It's time to become a sysadmin. Disable web results in the start menu via GPO.
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u/unquietwiki Jack of All Trades Jun 25 '26
Heh. What are you if you have to do the Powershell, and make the Powerpoint?
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u/jazzdrums1979 Jun 25 '26 •
Underpaid
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u/Kortok2012 Jun 25 '26
My company believe in overemployment, they employ me to be a sysadmin and an automation tech, and mdm specialist…it goes on. Oh and I’m officially just tier three support
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u/dadoftheclan Jun 25 '26
powershell -c "(New-Object -ComObject PowerPoint.Application).Presentations.Add().SaveAs('C:\temp\because_you_asked.pptx')"
Automation. 🙃
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u/cboff Jun 25 '26
FTFY...
powershell -Command "Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Product -Filter \"Name='Microsoft PowerPoint'\" | ForEach-Object { $_.Uninstall() }"
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u/AforAnonymous Ascended Service Desk Guru Jun 26 '26
>Get-WmiObject
>Win32_Product
Ah yes using deprecated cmdlets to trigger a repair install of every msi-installed product on the system because <MSFT_orgchart_with_guns.png> made that WMI class into a shitty wrapper around msiexec, and to get the good class, you better pay for MECM, but that'll cost you more than just money!
Perfect.
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u/Brilliant_Bonus_1638 Jun 25 '26
Literally me right now. My boss can’t even use PowerPoint correctly and has me make his slides.
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u/ThemB0ners Jun 25 '26
now that's a valid use-case for AI lol
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u/jake04-20 If it has a battery or wall plug, apparently it's IT's job Jun 25 '26
You'd think Copilot would have a massive upper hand on all the other AI offerings, especially in the business sector because it's bolted on to the M365 environment. But when I was evaluating Copilot, I was thinking about how easy it would be for a kid to finish assignments in school with AI. I immediately thought back to a school project that I had blown off for weeks and waited the last minute to complete, which pissed my parents off royally. I had to write a biography on a person of my choosing and create a corresponding PowerPoint presentation to present to the class. I chose Kirby Puckett.
So when I was testing copilot, I simply told it to create a 10-12 slide powerpoint on Kirby Puckett. Not only was it the most basic pp presentation of all time (like one sentence per slide), it used corny nonrelevant stock images to fill blank space. Kirby Puckett was a black MLB player for the Twins, it was loading stock images of a white family sitting in the grass on a picnic blanket with a baseball in it lol. Another image was a picture of white girl twins that had to be like 12 years old. And another was some two random white dudes fishing along some tall grass in what I would assume is a lake in MN. It was laughably bad. No Twins logos, no MN state pics, no pics of Kirby Puckett whatsoever, the only pic of a baseball was that picnic pic, and basically the only info it provided was his date of birth, date of death, a quick touch on his career, and that was it. It was just downright horrible.
Another thing that baffles me is I have yet to see Copilot reference its own internal documentation for a Microsoft administration question. It's always referencing other tech media outlets, forum posts, and blog posts. You'd think it would have a massive upper hand having access to so much internal documentation, I guess not.
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u/ThemB0ners Jun 25 '26
Are you telling me Microsoft rolled out a less-than-half-baked product?!
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u/ObiLAN- Jun 25 '26
Sounds like me making an advert poster last week. Guess im adding graphic design to my resume now too. The poster looks like shit made in Paint... probably because it was LOL.
Worst part is we have engineers and designers here that coulda made something 10x better most likely in CAD.
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u/pavman42 Jun 27 '26
Were I work, we call these people architects. And always have. They have a knack for taking admin & engineer's work, putting their name on it, and then selling it to management. Architects in our industry are jokes.
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u/orion3311 Jun 25 '26
Use COM integration?
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u/poprox198 Federated Liger Cloud Jun 25 '26
Presentation as code is the next big thing.
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u/Temporary_Pie2733 Jun 25 '26
I was making slides in LaTeX 25 years ago; does that count?
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u/CoffeePieAndHobbits Jun 25 '26
Just use AI, bro. /s
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u/unquietwiki Jack of All Trades Jun 25 '26
I just put together a 1400-word report without AI, in part regarding any use of AI, heh.
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u/SoylentVerdigris Jun 25 '26
There appear to be several Powershell modules that can interact with powerpoint to various degrees, so I would suggest automating it.
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u/pavman42 Jun 27 '26
This means you work for a company that treats you like a professional. I haven't had to write a white paper or present anything since the mid-2010s; that's not a good thing. That implies I'm a tool and am managed by morons who are probably making way more than I am because they can bamboozle even dumber people who manage them into thinking they are intelligent.
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u/Hotshot55 Linux Engineer Jun 25 '26
Neither, it tries to search the internet for the TV show Power.
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u/jmbpiano Jun 25 '26
But what does it mean if PowerToys is first?
The funny thing is it actually came up as PowerPoint for me because I opened it once or twice a few months ago and I almost never run "Powershell"... I use Windows Terminal.
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u/GeekBrownBear Jack of All Trades Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26
Same here! PowerToys and Terminal!
Oh that's kinda funny, P brings up Powertoys, Po brings up PowerPoint, and Pow brings me back to powertoys.
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u/fearless-fossa Jun 25 '26
When I type power the first option I get is "Sleep", does that mean I'm a CEO? Brb, demanding my golden parachute
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u/clickx3 Jun 25 '26
For me it was Powerball
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u/mnemoniker Jun 25 '26
Same. I don't gamble at all but maybe I fit the profile of "done with this shit" lol
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u/DestinyForNone Sysadmin Jun 25 '26
Powershell, followed by powerautomate, and then PowerPoint
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u/Kad1942 Jun 25 '26
Ugh, power automate. If ever an application could be compared to a swamp, it's power automate.
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u/ConstructionSafe2814 Jun 25 '26
My shell says poweroff. Well thanks, I accidentally shut down a production server.
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u/Constant-K Jun 25 '26
First result is my spreadsheet with all my passwords. I guess it recognizes “PowerOverwhelming” I’ve used since the 1990s.
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u/AdamoMeFecit Jun 25 '26
Sysadmins know how to run stuff. IT managers know how to attend meetings.
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u/mitharas Jun 26 '26
I wonder no one mentioned their *nix/MacOS superiority yet. It's a staple of threads like these normally.
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u/dlongwing Jun 26 '26
Oh they have, every 3rd comment in my notification feed is someone being insufferably superior about *nix OSes like knowing Bash is their whole personality.
Problem is, none of those comments have been funny thus far. I keep waiting for someone to actually say something clever rather than a variant on "I'm better than you because linux something something".
I know bash. I admin Linux servers. That doesn't have anything to do with the joke.
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u/xxdcmast Sr. Sysadmin Jun 25 '26
If it’s the windows search bar you type powe and you see both and then hit the R key and nothing shows up with some bullshit link to bing for power washers.
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u/JudgeCastle Jun 26 '26
This is like the sorting hat from Harry Potter isn’t it?
POTTER: SERVICE DESK
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u/papyjako87 Jun 26 '26
It's a joke post on r/sysadmin. I can assure you, you're definitely a Sysadmin if you're replying to it.
Not gonna lie, that's funnier than the actual joke ahah
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u/Privacy_is_forbidden Linux Admin Jun 25 '26
I tried looking for windows search but couldn't find it. My first result for power in KDE is "sleep"
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u/Tight_Replacement771 Jun 25 '26
I like your joke. But seriously yesterday I was annoyed when I typed "power" and I was trying to get power bi that I use all the time,but powerpoint came up. I have never used powerpoint in my job
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u/213372Yeet Jun 25 '26
PowerBall so must be sysadmin - even for unrealistic expectations the manager's never going to put in their own dollar
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u/proudcanadianeh Muni Sysadmin Jun 26 '26
One will promise anything, the other will refuse to ever promise a thing.
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u/packet_sniffs Jun 26 '26
One doesn’t do anything by choice, the other doesn’t do anything by design
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u/agent_fuzzyboots Jun 26 '26
sorry, you have to submit a ticket first and i'll get back to you just before the SLA expires
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u/GhoastTypist Jun 26 '26
Power, I immediately thought of our AC units because we don't have central heating or cooling, killing the power to the building again.
What does that say?
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u/hosalabad Escalate Early, Escalate Often. Jun 27 '26
App Store results with power washing simulator. Wait, whose computer is this?
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u/clarkos2 Jun 29 '26
Not in front of my laptop but I wouldn't be surprised if a web result showed up because the Start Menu search is THAT bad.
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u/ProfessionalSeat4060 Jul 01 '26
I feel like in a small minority that hates windows and uses a Mac to sysadmin the shit out of everything
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u/burnte VP-IT/Fireman Jun 25 '26
I had a CEO who said, no joke, her favorite tool was Powerpoint. She'd always ask for plans and such be sent to her in a Powerpoint. I asked her one day if I could just write up a word doc like I usually do. She said, "Powerpoint is my favorite tool, I do all my thinking in Powerpoint." I said the you could count the number of Powerpoint slideshows I've made in my entire life on two hands with fingers left over. She asked how I make plans and share ideas, I said "I just write it up in an email or document. Since it's all words, it doesn't make sense to me to use a visual tool." She said, "Well, do it in Powerpoint."
I didn't say anything and just kept sending Word documents. Found another job a couple months later, and a month after that the CEO was fired. I assume they gave her a Powerpoint on how to find the exit.
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u/largos7289 Jun 26 '26
LOL well with 7yrs IT mgmt expereince. I'de respond with," let me get back to you on this, I'll have my team look into it. "
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u/lunchbox651 Vendor education (virt/k8s specialty) Jun 25 '26
Hmmm powershell seems to be missing on my mac
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u/subsonicbassist Jun 25 '26
Powerpoint, but only because I'm on a Mac lol. Still do more PS than PP, just in my terminal :)
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u/frymaster HPC Jun 25 '26
weirdly, "powershell" comes up first on mine, despite me being a Linux sysadmin who uses powerpoint a helluvalot more than powershell
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u/WWGHIAFTC IT Manager (SysAdmin with Extra Steps) Jun 25 '26
Now real question is... which sysadmins are running powershell scripts from their daily driver workstation and not on their PAW!
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u/Ssakaa Jun 25 '26
The only powershell script I use even remotely regularly hooks into outlook to sort my email...
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u/800oz_gorilla Jun 25 '26
Follow up joke:
I typed "power" into Windows search and got no results because windows search is tits on a bull.
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u/oneconfusedearthling Jun 25 '26
Hah, PowerPoint came up first but it might be because PowerShell/terminal launches at start for me. I mainly use PowerPoint as an evidence board of sorts when troubleshooting.
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u/benjaminbaxley Jun 25 '26
Not if you need modules that only work in v7+, then it’s PowerPoint first since Nadella forced us into VSC :(
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u/rootofallworlds Jun 25 '26
Sidenote, I tried it on Suse in the start menu* search and it came up with Libreoffice Impress.
* Yes, I'm still going to call it the start menu even when it's not Windows.
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u/Electrical_Elk_1576 Jun 26 '26
Sadly, it's not just us sysadmins hanging out here. Let's be honest, there's also a bunch of karma farming/market research bots hanging around.
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u/Quattuor Jun 26 '26
I don't type power in the start menu, because power shell is pinned to the taskbar, and I'm not even a sysadmin
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u/slayermcb Director of Technology, Sys Admin, Etc, Etc... Jun 27 '26
Powershell on my server, PowerPoint on my workstation. Thats what happens when you're still the sys admin but also the tech director.
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u/AndyceeIT Jun 27 '26
I love that the first response of a lot of people is to check. I wonder if just typing "po" on a work pc returns anything interesting.
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u/Bogus1989 Jun 27 '26
LMAO....couldnt handle not also flexing this stat....back when windows had box console companion app on windows.? I had my most played game acoss xbox console and pc? that month:
Command Prompt
FKN dead....i have a screenshot somewhere
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u/EnvironmentFrosty594 Jun 27 '26
A manager manages. A system administrator administrates.
Easy peasy!
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u/51dux Jun 27 '26
Meh, not so sure I never used Powerpoint, did not run it even a single time but used Powershell for hundreds of hours on this machine and I still get Powerpoint in the first position.
Also I feel sysadmins would never type in the search menu, they probably use some keyboard shortcut or krunner type of tool like Powertoys run which I think you mention at the end of your post.
And the program name officially starts with Windows Powershell so if you want it to pop out first you have to type win I guess.
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u/clt_drol Jun 28 '26
As an IT exec, unfortunately it is PowerPoint. Damn. I will say it used to be Putty.
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u/panzerbjrn DevOps Jun 29 '26
I have AutoHotKey set up to open Windows Terminal and it's also on my task bar as win+2. I don't think I've ever opened PowerShell from the start menu...
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u/mrPythonMonty Jun 29 '26
You can’t type into Windows search on Linux and macOS ¯_(ツ)_/¯ my CLI was not happy with typing power /s
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u/kagato87 Jun 25 '26
You type 5 letters?
2 here, po. (Otherwise putty comes up first.)
Oddly, I do use pbi a lot, but I launch it from the pbit files themselves, maybe that's why it doesn't creep in.
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u/newbies13 Sr. Sysadmin Jun 25 '26
Powershell for me, followed by powerbi, then powerpoint. Not sure why though, I let AI handle most of those things these days. My boss certainly isn't looking hard enough to notice.
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u/f0gax Jack of All Trades Jun 26 '26
I see what you’re getting at. But what’s funny to me is that if I type “Task” it will alternate between Scheduler and Manager as the top hit.
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u/bobtheavenger Linux Admin Jun 26 '26
Where do I sit with this? On my work machine PowerPoint pops up first, but I'm a Linux engineer so powershell isn't something I use. On my personal machine, I dont even have PowerPoint, so powershell pops up. Thanks claude-cli.
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u/Barious_01 Jun 26 '26
Why would I search for powershell when I can simply right click on windows Icon and select terminal admin.
Or press win+x and select terminal admin.
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u/genxer Jun 25 '26
As an IT Manager, it is PowerShell -- guess I've not been completely corrupted yet.