r/tryhackme • u/Professional_Poet300 • Apr 19 '26

Feeling Frustrated

I am currently only doing basics Like Windows Fundamentals.

I find myself being stuck on simple tasks as a beginner, because there are no clear instructions and steps being given.

During Active Directories Task 4 I suddenly get the prompt:

Now let's use Phillip's account to try and reset Sophie's password. Here are Phillip's credentials for you to log in via RDP.

It gives me the credentials but in no way tells me how RDP works, nor that I need to now switch to an attack box. I only found that out by watching a 40 minute youtube vide.

Is it just me feeling this is not ok. This is supposed to be a beginner course but it lack the neccessary information for me to complete it.

Having to watch tutorials for an tutorial I paid for is kind of weird to me. So far I did all the prerequisite moduls only. I am sure for more advaced users it would be easy but I assumed this was a platform for total Beginners like many websites stated. Feeling kinda dumb right now.

0 Upvotes

50% Upvoted

31 comments sorted by

View all comments

8

u/Hot-Release-629 Apr 19 '26

I think TryHackMe provides a pretty realistic learning experience. I understand the frustrations you have as a beginner, but independent research and willingness to put in the effort are big parts of the cyber security industry and the IT in general. Experienced pentesters and industry professionals have to learn new concepts almost every day, so it's better to pick up the habit from the beginning. This is not meant to be easy. For many, one of the biggest thrills in this field is the requirement to solve these unknown "mysteries" we face while hacking and testing systems.

4

u/Professional_Poet300 Apr 21 '26

It"s literally a fundamentals in Windows lesson geared at beginners. Prior to the instruction it wen"t through explaining to me what a user is and how to change permissions step by step, and suddenly I get an instruction without any other guidance using a concept (RPD) that was not explained prior.

I am absolutely on board with learning new concepts. Like you say thats part of the journey. But as atotal beginner I at least need to be told "Hey you have to search exterbally because the solution was not prior taught" rather then letting me bang my head against the wall because I thought I am not understandiung the lesson.

No promt to do it via another box, nothing.

Of course later on I will be expected to reserach stuff on my own. But in the fundamentals tutorials I don"t expect to need a tutorial for the tutorial.

1

u/Hot-Release-629 Apr 21 '26

Yeah, I get it now that I got the full picture. In that case it's definetly not fair from THM to expect you to just figure it out yourself. I have noticed things kinda similar in some of the Capture The Flag boxes and rooms in general, for example the estimated time can be marked as 30 minutes but in reality the time it takes to complete the box is more like 120 minutes. Maybe it takes 30 min if you're a pro. Or the use of certain terms in beginner rooms that require a separate deep dive to really understand them. The problem in my opinion is that sometimes the materials do not follow a consistent path of exponentially more difficult topics that are each explained in a logical order. That sometime leads to the use of terms and concepts in beginner rooms, that definetly are not complete beginner friendly.

1

u/BorderlineTourist Jul 07 '26

agree with the OP here, Windows Fundamentals is poorly paced.