Official MSDN Subscriptions Blog

An ongoing blog run by the managers of the online and offline MSDN Subscriptions program.

UI Content for MSDN Subscriber Downloads

On to the next part of MSDN Subscriber Downloads planning:  One of the areas that we're going through is the non-download content on the MSDN Subscriptions and MSDN Subscriber Downloads site.  Currently, these two sites are totally separate, but after our upcoming release they'll be much more tightly integrated.  I'm starting to work on the various contact, FAQ, and help files that have accreted over the years to come up with simplified subscription and subscriber downloads UI content. 

Currently, I'm looking to have an Internal set of help links and an External set of links.  The Internal links, for signed-in subscribers, would point to information on shipments, support, renewing and updating subscriptions, contact, etc.  The External links in the Subscriptions left-hand navigation would contain a revised versions of the information currently available, such as a simplified FAQ, info on the subscription offerings and how to buy, and so on.  I may try to see if I can get some sample screenshots made up for comments, but if anyone has any particular pain points with the current Subscriptions site content, then I'd be pleased to hear about them so that I can add them as necessary to my list.

Published Thursday, June 23, 2005 11:39 AM by MSDNSubscriptions

Comments

 

Jeff Parker said:

There is other content besides the non download content? I am actually being serious not joking. I thought the subscription basically when I log in there are no other real links other than get product keys. I didn't know there was additional content. Can you elaborate on what this content is besides info on how to buy/renew? For me the buy/renew stuff is really irrelevant since it part of our software assurance program. I know we are as part of our subscriptions able to ask a few priority questions per year/month/week not sure how many and have never figured out how to do this. However typically the questions I have had a google search pulls up the answers. So anyway what additional content?
June 23, 2005 12:21 PM
 

MSDNSubscriptions said:

From my perspective, there are several types of content in the MSDN Subscriber Downloads site. The first is download content - the files in the Table of Contents. Then there is product key content - what's on the My Product Keys page. Then, there is MSDN Subscriber Downloads homepage content - what you see on the What's Hot page after you log in. This content can include links to other resources (such as newsgroup and chat), MSDN offers, important security information, etc. The final content area is the rest of the \subscriptions site navigation, including help files, links to the disk index, etc. It's the last two that I'm most interested in terms of what should live there and how it should be organized.

Andy {MS}
June 24, 2005 10:01 AM
 

NewXStar said:

Fine MSDN Subscriptions and MSDN Subscriber Downloads site. Good!
June 28, 2005 3:28 AM
 

Andy Chau said:

Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC Drivers error '80040e4d'

[Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][SQL Server]Login failed for user '(null)'. Reason: Not associated with a trusted SQL Server connection.

/Registration/1033/Library/Includes/DatabaseEmailChanges.inc, line 41
June 29, 2005 2:20 PM
 

nabeel said:

alnabil
June 29, 2005 6:04 PM
 

gayle noble said:

Navigation for blonds -
The ones who design things are rarely stumped as to how to get from point (a) to point (x) and where to find what information. The names they pick for things are totally logical and meaningful to them. Unfortunately, I don't think like they do and I don't know what link on what menu will take me to the page that has a link to the information I want.
Would it be possible for the designers to create a sheet of ten points of information, then take a mock up of their design and give it to a secretary who works for top level type management and see if the secretary can navigate to the place that would have the information that needed to be found for each question
If the secratary can find all the information, you have a good system



July 3, 2005 2:11 AM
 

Andy Boyd said:

That's a good idea, I'll do it. We have a number of our MSDN marketing reps doing end-user testing now, but I'll try to find someone who has absolutely no clue about MSDN Subscriptions, give them a registration letter, and see if they can make it work.
July 4, 2005 5:33 PM
 

atef said:

انا عاطف احتاج نسخة فجول بيزك 2005 ولم استطع ان احصل على الينك ارجو الافادة atef_hamama2000@yahoo.com
July 6, 2005 5:57 AM
 

hamama said:

my fast car is Zx280
July 13, 2005 11:07 AM
 

rs said:

Some of my co-workers, including myself, are MSDN Universal subscribers. Each of us are supposed to be receiving the DVD/CD media. Why is it not being shipped to us? We pay a lot of money for our subscriptions. Who do we talk to so we can fix this problem. We do have access to the download site but due to limited bandwidth, lack of time, and lack of DVD burners on our machines, the download site is almost useless.

Please advise.

July 13, 2005 12:25 PM
 

Andy (MS) said:

It would probably depend on whether you have a retail or volume license subscription. For volume licensed subscriptions, the company license administrator can select media kits to ship separately from licenses - that is, they can assign 100 license but only 10 media kits. My recommendation would be to talk to the person who assigned you the license to get a media kit. If you bought a retail subscription in box, then you should definitely get discs. The Customer Service Reps (http://msdn.microsoft.com/subscriptions/phone/) can help you with this.
July 14, 2005 2:46 PM
 

Chris Reese said:

I'd like to see a way to set a language preference. For my purposes, I only need to see the DL's for English. I subscribe to the RSS feed and also occasionally browse the site (when looking for something in particular), but sifting through all the different languages can get a little tedious sometimes.
July 21, 2005 12:52 AM
 

A said:

Can someone please fixe the password login and errors on that asp page for subscriber downloads..

Thanks
July 22, 2005 8:32 AM
 

B said:

Microsoft VBScript runtime error '800a01fb'

An exception occurred: 'logoTag'

/Registration/1033/Library/Includes/WithNoPPToolbarMasthead.inc, line 75

Active Server Pages error 'ASP 0192'

Unexpected error

/Registration/1033/Registered.asp

A trappable error occurred in the OnEndPage method of an external object.
July 22, 2005 8:48 AM
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