ignorant but not stupid ?

[Kent W. England [MVP]]

You are literally one in a million who is interested in finding his own
answers.

I mostly use Google advanced searching on web and in newsgroups.
Sometimes I search for my own posts. I restrict the search to
"support.microsoft.com" when I want to find KB articles. Or I restrict
the newsgroup search with *windowsxp* if I want to search the
microsoft.public.windowsxp.* newsgroups. It's hard to generalize on the
search phrases I use. I often have to try two or three times to find the
combinations that work.

Someday, Microsoft may have a KB search capability worth recommending.
When that day comes, I suppose, I'll post the URL and retire as an MVP
and go fly pigs for fun.

There are folks posting FAQs for you to read. These are often up-to-date
and handle the most common issues that folks are facing. Read those when
you find them posted or search for them using google as described above.

 

[CURIOUS]

-----Original Message-----
You are literally one in a million who is interested in finding his own
answers.

I mostly use Google advanced searching on web and in newsgroups.
Sometimes I search for my own posts. I restrict the search to
"support.microsoft.com" when I want to find KB articles. Or I restrict
the newsgroup search with *windowsxp* if I want to search the
microsoft.public.windowsxp.* newsgroups. It's hard to generalize on the
search phrases I use. I often have to try two or three times to find the
combinations that work.

Someday, Microsoft may have a KB search capability worth recommending.
When that day comes, I suppose, I'll post the URL and retire as an MVP
and go fly pigs for fun.

There are folks posting FAQs for you to read. These are often up-to-date
and handle the most common issues that folks are facing. Read those when
you find them posted or search for them using google as described above.

--
Kent W. England, Microsoft MVP for Windows





.
Kent,thank you for the reply,it was very helpful.

you're right about me being one in a million,I suppose.
Many have said that about me, And added that they and
everyone else should be grateful, that I am only one in a
million.
I will try to use the information given,but I'm sure that
I will also be posting again in the future with questions.
Using a computer is a humbling experience. No need to
reply, I will not be coming back to this place until I
have done considerable research into the answers my post
has given me to work on. Again, thank you.

 

[CURIOUS]

-----Original Message-----
I only use Help and Support to seach the knowledge base (though I have it on
my hard drive as well - it's a super faulty program).

But Michael left one thing out about searching. The exact error message is
so important, because searching on paraphrasing doesn't work.

This is the new stupid KB format where they hide the OS at the bottom
The information in this article applies to:
a.. Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
b.. Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Last Reviewed: 10/26/2002 (1.0)
Keywords: kbenv kbhowto kbHOWTOmaster kbsetup kbUpgrade w2000upgrade
KB316639 kbAudITPro

My point here is about the keywords. Want to restrict a search to How To
articles (usually a restating of help) use KBhowto. There's a KB that tells
you all the kb words. I'll let you find it.

Also XP NT 5.1 is a minor upgrade to Windows 2000 NT 5.0. So it pays to
search win 2000 articles (and NT4 and earlier, especially for wierd stuff).
Adjust your search preferences in Help And Support to search all articles
and just use XP as a keyword to restrict.




.
David, thank you so much for your reply. It has given

me many things to work on, which will no doubt take a
very long time to even scratch the surface.
And about that "sticky key" of yours--After I read
message number ten I was beginning to grasp the content
of your message.
I did get a laugh about the "sticky key", though I doubt
it was as funny to you. However, the content did bear
repeating until it hammered its way into my thick skull.
By the way, that was truly evil of you to let me find
that key on my own. I'm sure I'll be working on that for
a good time to come. So, thank you again, but do'nt
bother to reply to this, since I will probably be
spending all my time trying to find that key, though I do
believe you gave me a subtle clue to the solution. Only
research on my part will tell.
I did try to follow the conversation between you and
Michael, which left me with a headache. I hardly grasped
a single word. Too old soon,too late smart.

 

[Kent W. England [MVP]]

Of course we want to see you post here in future, that's the whole
point, but I don't think you have to always do "considerable research"
before you post. You could do a quick scan of the groups with google and
then post a question along the lines of "I did a quick search of this
newsgroup on google and I didn't find my question, so I'm hoping that
someone knows the answer to this off the top of their head ..." That
kind of question strikes the right chord among those who know the answer
and they are always glad to give you that answer off the top of their
head, or point you to an article with the answer. It only takes a
minute.

But you'd be surprised how many people around here will spend an hour
researching an answer to your question that you might never find the
answer to.

Stick around, it won't be long before you can answer some of the simple
questions off the top of your head.

 

[Dave R.]

Thanks Kent for answering my unasked question as to how you search. I've
flown an lot of things, never a pig, I'll have to search that.
Dave