I'm sorry for posting this question here, but I couldn't find a more
appropriate place to ask this question.

For many years, we've been able to go to

http://support.microsoft.com/search/?adv=1

to search the Microsoft Knowledgebase for information. But now whenever I
search there I get thousands upon thousands of crappy results from
social.microsoft.com that are of absolutely no use to me, and there is no
way to filter those results.

Does anyone know of a way to search and return result from only the
Knowledgebase, or have they taken that away from us, too?

David Dickinson
eveningstar at mvps dot org

Howdy David,

I've given up using the search function of the MSKB precisely because of
the flood of useless social.answer.forum posts.
Try TechNet search:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/...&refinement=60

One can filter the results after the initial search to limit it to the
MSKB by utilizing 'Current Refinements'.
If one removes the 'Current Refinements' then 'Refine by Source:' is
available, which allows one to remove the 'Forums' as a source. <w>
Not very elegant but much better than perusing useless forum posts.

I won't even get into the " This article applies to a different version
of Windows than the one you are using. Content in this article may not
be relevant to you. " message that now appears on KB article pages that
*do* apply to this flavor of Windows.


MowGreen
===============
*-343-* FDNY
Never Forgotten
===============

banthecheck.com
"Security updates should *never* have *non-security content* prechecked"






David Dickinson wrote:

> I'm sorry for posting this question here, but I couldn't find a more
> appropriate place to ask this question.
>
> For many years, we've been able to go to
>
> http://support.microsoft.com/search/?adv=1
>
> to search the Microsoft Knowledgebase for information. But now whenever
> I search there I get thousands upon thousands of crappy results from
> social.microsoft.com that are of absolutely no use to me, and there is
> no way to filter those results.
>
> Does anyone know of a way to search and return result from only the
> Knowledgebase, or have they taken that away from us, too?
>
> David Dickinson
> eveningstar at mvps dot org
>

It has always amazed me how crappy their internal search is. I have plugged
in exact phrases from their own error messages and the results have nothing
to do with the phrase I searched. Now that I'm done ranting, head off to
google and add the following, without quotes, to the end of your search.
"inurl:/kb/ site:support.microsoft.com"
Louis

"David Dickinson" <eveningstar@die-spammer-die-mvps.org> wrote in message
news:udwTU$6ZKHA.428@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
> I'm sorry for posting this question here, but I couldn't find a more
> appropriate place to ask this question.
>
> For many years, we've been able to go to
>
> http://support.microsoft.com/search/?adv=1
>
> to search the Microsoft Knowledgebase for information. But now whenever I
> search there I get thousands upon thousands of crappy results from
> social.microsoft.com that are of absolutely no use to me, and there is no
> way to filter those results.
>
> Does anyone know of a way to search and return result from only the
> Knowledgebase, or have they taken that away from us, too?
>
> David Dickinson
> eveningstar at mvps dot org
>

"3c273" <nospam@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:O2PzPb7ZKHA.1648@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
> It has always amazed me how crappy their internal search is. I have
> plugged
> in exact phrases from their own error messages and the results have
> nothing
> to do with the phrase I searched. Now that I'm done ranting,...

Thanks for the reinforcement.

>... head off to
> google and add the following, without quotes, to the end of your search.
> "inurl:/kb/ site:support.microsoft.com"
> Louis

Google to the rescue again! (and screw Bing)

But my alzheimers must be kicking in. I knew about the INURL switch.
Thanks for reminding me!

"MowGreen" <mowgreen@nowandzen.com> wrote in message
news:uXrbFW7ZKHA.1652@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
> Howdy David,
>
> I've given up using the search function of the MSKB precisely because of
> the flood of useless social.answer.forum posts.

Surely there have got to be some people inside Microsoft who are equally
pissed about this. That search results from that social site are a huge
waste of time.

> Try TechNet search:
> http://social.technet.microsoft.com/...&refinement=60
>
> One can filter the results after the initial search to limit it to the
> MSKB by utilizing 'Current Refinements'.
> If one removes the 'Current Refinements' then 'Refine by Source:' is
> available, which allows one to remove the 'Forums' as a source. <w>
> Not very elegant but much better than perusing useless forum posts.

Excellent tip! Thanks!

> I won't even get into the " This article applies to a different version of
> Windows than the one you are using. Content in this article may not be
> relevant to you. " message that now appears on KB article pages that *do*
> apply to this flavor of Windows.

Yes, let's not go there, or this thread will turn into a /real/ rant list.
I'm having a hard time keeping some of this stuff to myself.

David

Amen! Its so bad it seems impossible to believe that it wasn't intentional.
I mean - its their very own error messages! Its like someone uses a word in
a conversation you don't understand so you stop them to ask the the meaning,
and they say "I don't know what it means." Makes as much sense.

"3c273" <nospam@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:O2PzPb7ZKHA.1648@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
> It has always amazed me how crappy their internal search is. I have
> plugged
> in exact phrases from their own error messages and the results have
> nothing
> to do with the phrase I searched. Now that I'm done ranting, head off to
> google and add the following, without quotes, to the end of your search.
> "inurl:/kb/ site:support.microsoft.com"
> Louis
>
> "David Dickinson" <eveningstar@die-spammer-die-mvps.org> wrote in message
> news:udwTU$6ZKHA.428@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
>> I'm sorry for posting this question here, but I couldn't find a more
>> appropriate place to ask this question.
>>
>> For many years, we've been able to go to
>>
>> http://support.microsoft.com/search/?adv=1
>>
>> to search the Microsoft Knowledgebase for information. But now whenever
>> I
>> search there I get thousands upon thousands of crappy results from
>> social.microsoft.com that are of absolutely no use to me, and there is no
>> way to filter those results.
>>
>> Does anyone know of a way to search and return result from only the
>> Knowledgebase, or have they taken that away from us, too?
>>
>> David Dickinson
>> eveningstar at mvps dot org
>>
>
>

1.
http://www.winhelponline.com/blog/ad...rnet-explorer/

2. Prepend (or postpend) Google searches with 'site:support.microsoft.com'

Example:
http://www.google.com/search?source=...s&aq=f&oq=&aqi


David Dickinson wrote:
> I'm sorry for posting this question here, but I couldn't find a more
> appropriate place to ask this question.
>
> For many years, we've been able to go to
>
> http://support.microsoft.com/search/?adv=1
>
> to search the Microsoft Knowledgebase for information. But now whenever I
> search there I get thousands upon thousands of crappy results from
> social.microsoft.com that are of absolutely no use to me, and there is no
> way to filter those results.
>
> Does anyone know of a way to search and return result from only the
> Knowledgebase, or have they taken that away from us, too?
>
> David Dickinson
> eveningstar at mvps dot org

"PA Bear [MS MVP]" <PABearMVP******.com> wrote in message
news:uavJvZ9ZKHA.5852@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
> 1.
> http://www.winhelponline.com/blog/ad...rnet-explorer/
>
> 2. Prepend (or postpend) Google searches with 'site:support.microsoft.com'
>
> Example:
> http://www.google.com/search?source=...s&aq=f&oq=&aqi

Thanks for your reply.

This also works to display KB articles by number:

##### BEGIN REGISTRY HACK #####
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\SearchUrl\kbq]
@="http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;%s"
##### END REGISTRY HACK #####

Text searches, however, return tons of chaff from social.microsoft.com, and
(face it) Google still has the largest database. I'm going to try Bing for
KB searches side by side with Google for a few days to see which is better
for my needs. I'll report back. But is there a better place where we can
discuss these things?

David

David Dickinson wrote:

> I'm sorry for posting this question here, but I couldn't find a more
> appropriate place to ask this question.
>
> For many years, we've been able to go to
>
> http://support.microsoft.com/search/?adv=1
>
> to search the Microsoft Knowledgebase for information. But now whenever I
> search there I get thousands upon thousands of crappy results from
> social.microsoft.com that are of absolutely no use to me, and there is no
> way to filter those results.
>
> Does anyone know of a way to search and return result from only the
> Knowledgebase, or have they taken that away from us, too?

Even more exasperating is that there is an advanced option to NOT
(deselect) inclusion of their "Community" threads in the search but they
do NOT honor that choice. Even after deselecting to include Community
discussions, they still include them in their search results. You can
eliminate the Community fluff from the search results by deselecting
"Microsoft support content" under advanced options and instead selecting
"Search Microsoft.com"; however, that search is not limited to just the
articles from their knowledgebase.

The result of spewing the non-official articles into their default
search is to implicate that Microsoft really hasn't a clue on how to
solve a problem and they no longer even trust their own KB articles. By
polluting their search results with non-official articles, they turned a
useful knowledgebase into an amateurbase full of non-helpful,
inaccurate, invalid, incomplete, or malicious responses.

If I wanted the same [low] level of unfocused results from a search, I'd
do a Google search. It certainly appears that Microsoft intends to
abandon their knowledgebase and resort to web searches that include
mostly pointless external references. Wonder how long before we start
seeing the sponsored ads typical of online search engines.

I currently have a search prefix "mss" defined in Windows (usable from
any address bar, including the Address toolbar in Windows taskbar).
It's easy using TweakUI powertoy. That will generate with my search
string in the URL to do a search at Microsoft's support knowledgebase
site. Because of how Microsoft has ****ed up their KB search with the
pollution of Community posts, I tried the suggestion of instead creating
a search prefix that works with Google and adds the
"inurl:support.microsoft.com/" parameter to the search URL (since "/kb/"
may not be present in a URL to a Microsoft KB article since several path
formats have been used and are still valid). That didn't work too well
since articles were found that are not from Microsoft.

The problem with the inurl parameter for a Google search is that it also
matches on URLs *within* the matched article, not just on the URL to
that article. From http://www.googleguide.com/advanced_operators.html,
maybe you have to include the site operator for inurl to work as
expected (by looking only in the URL and not in the document). However,
once you add the site operator, you probably don't need the inurl
operator. Notice the following Google searches include sites that are
not Microsoft's:

http://www.google.com/search?q=%2Bre....microsoft.com

Lots of sites are included that are not Microsoft sites. However, the
site operator works better, as in:

http://www.google.com/search?q=%2Bre....microsoft.com

Pretty sad when a Google search performs better than Microsoft's own
search on their own knowledgebase.