Personally I have worked and played with computers almost my whole life… and a huge chunk of what I learned was through playing PC games.  Most of the issues that came up with our computers were caused by installing games that weren't compatible or needed to be tweaked.

After high school and spending most of my childhood in front of a computer I went to Indiana University South Bend for a degree in Informatics.  I liked Informatics because it was basically an Information Technology degree that allowed me to "specialize" in a field (basically get a minor) in another field.  

I decided to "specialize" or get a "cognate" as they called it in Business.  So my degree was actually a mix between business classes and IT.  This proved invaluable to where I am today.  It also doesn't help that I am the son of a successful business owner – so I was raised with an entrepreneurial attitude from the beginning.

For those who are considering going to a local "community" college like I did, I strongly recommend it.  The personal attention I got from my professors allowed me to learn quite a bit more than I would have with a normal professor who has over 1000 students.  I even became friends with the geekier of my professors.

So whats your technical background?  Casual users or genius?  I'm curious.

Nice!

Given that the two operating systems you've had experience with, both Windows 98 and Vista, it doesn't surprise me that you ended up becoming technologically savvy.

Honestly both operating systems were incredibly unstable which required you to investigate possible solutions to problems that occur.

My first computer was a Windows 95 PC back in 1995, I was around 10, and I played a game called Kings Quest 5. Amazing game. From that point on the rest is history. I have worked with virtually every Windows operating system extensively at some point.

My job requires me to virtualize many different operating systems to communicate with legacy hardware so it keeps my work interesting. Many times I even have to install and work with the original DOS system for printing to PDF and the like.

PC gaming is the primary contributor to my PC knowledge. Gaming during dialup and Windows 95, 98, ME instability allowed for many great learning opportunities. Sometimes it took hours just to get a game to function or install properly.

As a result, I would be modifying the registry, following online tweaking guides and everything just to get the game to work as good as it could. That sort of experience is invaluable. Calculate that across the 16 years I have worked with computers and you can imagine it's alot of learning.

I then went to college for Informatics and specialized in Business – which allowed me to develop better communications skills and convey technology in a more common sense fashion. It also allowed me to better explain technology to non-tech individuals.

That's a nutshell, not a very small one though :)