I managed to find a small hole in a web application that appeared as if it wold allow me to execute commands on the local machine.  I tried a simple reverse shell but no joy.  Taking it down to a very basic level, I tried to ping but I needed to capture my ping requests on the other end.  

I've spent a number of years bouncing back and forth between *nix machines and Windows machines.  But after the 90's, Windows really took hold and I've spent more hours on Windows than anything else and yet when I get a shell on a Windows machine, I feel like I have less control.  Scratch that, I HAVE less control but I can get what I want from outside of the box through PowerShell.

Get a shell, lose a shell, get a shell, lose a shell.  That's basically what was happening while attacking this one particular box.  I'd get a shell and moments later my shell would close on me.  I had just enough time to drop into a command line but, poof, then it was gone.