14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft offers an impressive collection of resources built around its Windows operating systems. There are in excess of 2,300 Windows help and how-to articles and demonstrations available straight from Microsoft. Under the old design of the Windows corner of Microsoft.com, the main focus was on Windows Vista, and this continues to be clear on the U.K. Help and How-to page for Windows. However, following the redesign introduced starting the past week with the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2008, the portion of the new Windows website dedicated to providing resources to end users has a much broader scope from Windows Vista to Windows Mobile and Windows Live.
One thing is clear however, Windows XP Service Pack 3 has not made it in the limelight on either the old or the new redesigned Windows website. The fact is that Windows Vista, now with SP1, and Windows Live are slowly being pushed at centerstage as a item. The pair of the desktop operating system and the cloud platform fits perfectly into Microsoft's new business strategy of Software plus Services strategy. But Microsoft will truly show the face of S+S with the advent of Windows 7 and Windows Live Wave 3.
According to Microsoft's Rob Margel, all the Windows Help and How-to articles and demos managed to gather very little traffic, he was referring to all the resources in English. At the same time, end users found only a dozen items out of all the resources as perfectly satisfactory. "Of all the 2300+ articles and demos on the Windows Help and How-to site there are 12 that have been given a 100% positive rating, for the Was it helpful? [portion] at the bottom of every page," Margel stated, offering a complete list of all the Windows help documentation with 100% positive rating.