We’ve been here before haven’t we.  The MSDN top navigation bar part two.    This time we’ll explore the last three links.

Looking for answers to questions?  Need to search the extensive knowledgebase?  Want to just vent a little about that annoying bug “undocumented feature”? Then this is the place to start.  There are three main areas of this MSDN section.  Searching the knowledge base, Searching the forums, or Contacting Microsoft for additional help.   Each section is well laid out and doesn’t need much explaining.  One thing not so obvious is the bottom right corner of this page.  Make sure you scroll down to see this.  Down here, you’ll see some additional and useful links.  The first link takes you to the Microsoft Connect site, which is a way to directly connect with the developers of your favorite Microsoft product.  It’s a User to Developer connection site where you can voice your concern or point out a bug.  It’s also a great place to get and download the pre-beta and beta releases of common or new Microsoft tools.  Just below the Microsoft Connect block, you’ll see some other quick support links.  I especially like the HotFixes link which will take you to the MSDN Code Gallery (more on this later) and filters it to show all of the latest hot fixes published by Microsoft.  Filtering this list by tags is quite useful for finding product specific hot fixes and the supporting KB article(s).

I’ve been told that we all desire to fit in wherever we go.  I’ve heard that this is our inborn sense of community.  We’ll it looks like Microsoft’s MSDN web site designers have taken that into account and added this section.  Of all the sections we’ve explored, this one is probably the one least traveled.  I didn’t see much on this page, outside of the cool Silverlight control scrolling through the latest Microsoft Friendly blog posts (hmm. wonder why mine isn’t listed?).  I’ll leave the rest of the page for you to explore.  Don’t worry it won’t take you long.

Ahh.  The forums.  The place where MVP’s hang out.  Nothing new or extremely exciting here.  If you’ve used any other sites “forum” this one will look quite familiar.  My first reaction however, was that this page was way to big, how could anyone find the right forum to use.  It would be like climbing Mt Kilimanjaro (very cool site btw and some great environmental activism sponsored in part by my employer HP), to fully navigate this page.   Luckily they have given you some tools to make it a little easier to climb.  I would make sure you use the Collapse All button to bring the page into a more user friendly start.  Then  expand just the product sections that you are looking to use the forums for.  Also, make sure you become familiar with the “search” box at the top and the “Browse by Tag” sections  With over 3.8 million posts and just under One Million threads you’ll need something to help you navigate this colossal repository of dialogs and unanswered questions.

We’ll I’ve probably wasted another several minutes of your time that will never be recovered.  Hopefully you have learned something new and are now better equipped to work and solve problems through simple interactions with the MSDN.  Till next time, enjoy the day!

TTYL!