A Little Help From Microsoft

Need a little help or a question answered? Try one of these sites.

Two sites have surfaced lately that look like they can be a good resource for Windows related problems and questions.

- Microsoft Answers beta (Windows Vista Help) is a collaborative venture between Microsoft staff and the community. You can ask (or answer) questions and contact support personnel if you can't find what you need.
There's a good collection of content, especially for such a new site, with several categories that can point you to the right area to find answers.

- Technet quietly rolled out the Fix it for me blog a few months ago.
Its purpose is to automate the steps outlined in Microsoft Knowledge Base articles and Windows Error Reporting.
That translates to having a button for each article that will fix the problem for you - just click on it.

Clicking the button downloads a file to your hard drive. Clicking on the downloaded file (all files have been .msi files for me so far) opens it, shows the standard "I agree to the terms and conditions" stuff, creates a restore point, fixes the problem and offers a reboot now or later option.
There's often more than one Knowledge Base article listed under one issue.
The articles are listed as six digit numbers starting with 9.
I opened each one until I found what I wanted.

The files I tested worked flawlessly. Your computer might need to be rebooted after running the file - if it does, there's a notification.
Either one of these sites looks like a good resource, depending on what you need.

Windows Vista Help

Fix It Home

Signing off,
Rhiannon 

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