News
A Knowledge Base Protest
Grassroots effort under way to persuade Microsoft to bring back KnowledgeBase service.
- By Dian Schaffhauser
- 08/01/2001
Jeff Belina, MCSE, MCSD, MCDBA, doesn't like the
fact that Microsoft has recently eliminated a
useful Knowledge Base tool. So he's begun a grassroots
effort to persuade Microsoft to bring back the
service.
Previously, Belina writes, if "you
knew an article number, you could send an e-mail
to MShelp@microsoft.com and it would send you
the text of the...article." The service was
called, "Ask Maxwell."
An online customer representative
confirmed that Microsoft has eliminated the service
and has no plans to bring it back. Microsoft made
the decision after doing online surveys that showed
most customers prefer to search the entire database
and browse the offerings. The rep's suggestion:
View the articles at http://support.microsoft.com/support.
Belina found the service handy because
he could include the article number in text for
e-mail newsletters vs. an unwieldy URL. When he
received articles from the Knowledge Base in the
form of e-mail, he could shove them into an e-mail
folder for offline reading. He also points out
that it was a useful service for international
users who may have access to e-mail but not to
the Internet.
Those who miss it, like
Belina, can tell Microsoft so at its Web response
address, wrhelp@microsoft.com.
About the Author
Dian L. Schaffhauser is a freelance writer based in Northern California.