Self Help for "Newbies"

[moke]

Microsoft maintains thousands of help and explanation articles that you can look at to find answers to questions or problems. The site address is;

http://search.microsoft.com/us/default.asp

For help in using the site see;

http://rvi.net/~moke/MokeHlp/!ms_srch.html

------------------
Moke's Help Page

http://rvi.net/~moke/MokeHlp/home.htm


[This message has been edited by moke (edited 11-23-99).]

[HKEd]

Good idea moke (from an inbetweenie). We can't rely on WhitPhil (with his seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of the MS KB ) to be around all the time.

I think it's also a good idea to use the "email this to.." facility on this site to send the URLs of some of the more informative threads to yourself.

[jtmurphy]

Hey, what a great idea - why we did not think of it earlier - maybe save some posting and cutting and pasting and cutting and pasting and cutting and pasting and cutting and pasting - alright enough!!!

Ya where does WhitPhil get this stuff, must have a bookmark for each MSKB question not by number but by subject - which I have started, maybe next year done ha..ha..

Murf

------------------
Murphy's Law- It will go wrong, but we can fix it!!
But if it ain't broke - "Leave it Alone"
http://www.sybercom.net/jtmurphy/index.htm

[moke]

Thanks guys and Murph - you are a hopeless optimist - next year! - Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha:=)

What do you think about re-posting it say once every two weeks or so¿

[This message has been edited by moke (edited 11-24-99).]

[HKEd]

Sounds good moke...try emailing the thread to yourself

[moke]

HKEd - Tried the E-Mail bit, I like it and it gave me an idea - when I'm at the post I can just copy the URL and enter it in an E mailing to people on my tech mailing list.

Gracias

[HKEd]

De nada moke

[WhitPhil]

The Trade Secrets

Following are some of the tips & tricks I use to ferret out information.
Since this is a "newbie" thread, hopefully some of these will help.

1. Know your search engine. For example, both Yahoo and Altavista, by default, use OR logic. Entering the words Invalid Page Fault returns anything with the words Invalid OR Page OR Fault. Place a plus sign in front of each word to enforce AND logic. If you were really looking for the phrase, Invalid Page Fault, enclose it in quotes.

2. The Microsoft site is a wealth of information. It has a major search engine, http://www.microsoft.com/search (as above) that allows you to select the areas to wish to search. http://support.microsoft.com/support/search/ will allow you to search the Knowledge Base directly.
http://support.microsoft.com/support/ has links to Win95/98 and Office 97/2000 pages that provide high level help on the products.

3. Knowledge Base Search. Allows you to select the product and enter keywords. I have found that I can sometimes find more by leaving the product as “–All Microsoft Products” and then entering the keywords. The maximum hits returned on a search is 200. Try narrowing down the search with more keywords (note that not every word is indexed in the KB the way the web search engines do) or just browse the 8 pages. It’s amazing sometimes what you accidentally bump into.
By default, the search does AND logic and you can (& should) enclose phrases in quotes.

4. Use Altavista. This engine indexes the Microsoft site (although it may be a few weeks old). You can sometimes find KB items through this vehicle. In the search field, enter url:support.microsoft.com followed by the key words you are looking for, remembering from 1 above, how AV treats the key words for searching.

5. Do general searches. Use the error message, enclosed in quotes, and give it to your favorite search engine and see what hits you get. Sometimes the problem and solution are posted elsewhere. BUT NOTE: take all solutions recommended with a grain of salt. I have seen some weird answers and suggestions out there.

6. If it is hardware of vendor related, head to their site. Each has a search engine and most will have a support knowledge base or a support forum.

7. And when you find a thread that you like, just save it in your Favorites. Similarly, if you find a neat link to another site or to a MS note. Create a folder(s) to store them and make sure you change the name to something meaningful so that you can find it again.
Saving the message or text itself, has the drawback that if the content is ever changed or corrected, you will never see it.

Enjoy

[This message has been edited by WhitPhil (edited 11-24-99).]

[jtmurphy]

Damn the email idea is out, and I thought MOKE & I were the only one's that figured that out.

Everybody try "DOGPILE" (dogpile.com)
search engine - has several built into it including AltaVista.. I use it everyday, in fact the only one I use.

As for the MSKB yup use those too, if someone, and many are trying (Moke maybe 2-years), indexing the damn thing on a web page, not by Q# but by subject, it would be worth it's weight in gold... hummmmm maybe suggest this to Billy Bob Gates, ask him PAY ME I will do it..........

Happy Turkey Day Everyone...

Murf

------------------
Murphy's Law- It will go wrong, but we can fix it!!
But if it ain't broke - "Leave it Alone"
http://www.sybercom.net/jtmurphy/index.htm

[Herring]

Murf. I use Dogpile all the time too. I seem to be having decent results with Google as well right now, though it's only been a couple of days since I started using it so I could be just "getting lucky".
Whit. I'm sending this page to myself for future reference. (short memory, information overload)