If you are reading this book, the presumption is that you are already familiar with Chef, at least conceptually, and that you have some Windows-based systems you need to manage. If you have used Chef to manage some Linux-based systems, or have interacted with chef-solo to manage virtual machines, you will be ready to hit the ground running. If not, don't worry—there are plenty of explanations and examples to make you feel right at home.
If you need help installing the Chef server, there are a number of other resources available to help you do that, or you can sign up for the free tier of hosted Chef to get you started right away without managing your own server.
In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:
Working with Chef and Microsoft Windows
Ways to integrate Chef and Windows
Supported platforms and technologies