KB115389 - Obtaining Knowledge Base Articles on the Internet

PSS ID Number: 115389

Article Last Modified on 6/25/2002

This article was previously published under Q115389

SUMMARY

The Microsoft Product Support Knowledge Base contains articles that are available on the Internet through an FTP service (ftp.microsoft.com). This service includes technical support articles for the following product categories:

BUSSYS: LAN Manager, Windows NT, Microsoft Client, SQL Server, Open Data Base Connectivity (ODBC), and Microsoft Mail.
DESKAPPS: Desktop Applications, including Microsoft Excel, Word for Windows, and Office.
DEVELOPR: Development tools and languages.
PEROPSYS: Desktop Systems, including Microsoft Windows, Windows for Workgroups, and MS-DOS.

In addition to Knowledge Base articles, the Internet FTP server contains the complete Microsoft Software Library for downloading. The Software Library file tree (SOFTLIB) contains drivers, patches, Application Notes, and other support files from Microsoft Product Support Services. In addition to the SOFTLIB category, the following other sections are available.

MSEDCERT: Microsoft education and certification materials.
MSFT: Microsoft annual reports, sharholder information.
TECHNET: Information on TechNet.

MORE INFORMATION

The Microsoft Knowledge Base is a primary Microsoft product information source for Microsoft support engineers and is also available to Microsoft customers. This comprehensive database contains more than 40,000 detailed articles with technical information about Microsoft products, fix lists, documentation errors, and answers to commonly asked technical support questions. These articles are also available through the Microsoft TechNet CD-ROM, and the Microsoft Developer Network CD-ROM.

Connection to the Microsoft Internet server requires a "live" session to the Internet through a file transfer program (FTP) service provider.

Opening a Connection to the Microsoft FTP Site

Log on to your Internet account.
At the Internet prompt, type
open ftp.microsoft.com
or use the following IP address:
open 207.46.133.140
When prompted for a user name, type
anonymous
When asked for a password, type your full electronic mail address (for example, johndoe@test.com).

Accessing a Product Group Area

Knowledge Base articles are located in a subdirectory below a product directory. The product areas are located under the product group area directories listed above. The Personal Operating System area is used as an example in these instructions. This category is located in the PEROPSYS directory on the FTP server. To access the PEROPSYS directory, type the following at the FTP prompt:

cd /peropsys

For more details about the products found in the current tree, use the GET command to retrieve any README.TXT files that are located in the group areas. (The GET command is outlined below.)

Each group area contains subdirectories for each product contained in the group area. Under the PEROPSYS directory, the following subdirectories are available:

   WINDOWS -  Microsoft Windows and Windows for Workgroups
   MSDOS -  Microsoft MS-DOS
   HARDWARE -  Microsoft Mouse and other hardware

Use the CD command from the FTP prompt to select the subdirectory you are interested in. Each product subdirectory contains a KB subdirectory in which the actual Knowledge Base articles are stored.

Log on to the KB subdirectory with the CD command (type cd kb). Once you are in the KB directory, download the README.TXT and INDEX.TXT files located in that directory. README.TXT contains important information regarding Knowledge Base articles on the Internet FTP server. INDEX.TXT contains a list of article titles and article IDs for each article. You must determine the article ID before you can download the article. (There is no search mechanism other than downloading and searching the INDEX.TXT file.)

To download these files, type the following at the FTP prompt:

get readme.txt get index.txt

Once you review README.TXT and determine the article ID that you are interested in, you are ready to download a Knowledge Base article.

The Knowledge Base articles are stored in a tree structure, with each article ID translated into a two-digit filename and stored two subdirectories under the KB directory. This method avoids storing thousands of articles in one subdirectory, which would slow server performance.

You do not need to change to the directory that contains the Knowledge Base article you want to download. The directory structure is consistent and the GET command can be used to obtain an article from the KB directory.

Steps to Download (GET) a Knowledge Base Article

The following steps outline how to obtain an article after logging on to the FTP server. This example includes downloading an actual article contained in the WIN3X area. The sample article ID to download is 91679, "Terminal: Sending Incoming Text Data to a Text File."

After logging on to the FTP server, change to the PEROPSYS directory:
cd /peropsys
Change to the WINDOWS directory:
cd WINDOWS
Change to the KB directory:
cd kb
NOTE: These three steps can be substituted with cd/peropsys/windows/kb.
Translate the article ID into a GET command. There are three parts of the article ID to be divided before using the GET command. Reading the article ID backwards, translate using this formula (article ID 91679 is used as an example):

The filename is the last two digits plus the .TXT extension (79.TXT). The subarea is the first digit to the left of the filename (6). The primary area is the remaining characters to the left, including the "Q". To use the GET command, place a forward slash (/) between the filename, subarea, and primary area (primary/sub/filename).

If the article ID is six digits (including the "Q"), the article ID translates to:
```
      Q91679 = Q91/6/79.TXT
						
```
If the article ID is seven digits, it translates to:
```
      Q107409 = Q107/4/09.TXT
						
```
Use the GET command at the FTP prompt to transfer the article to your system as follows:
```
      get Q91/6/79.TXT Q91679.TXT
						
```
-or-
```
      get Q107/4/09.TXT Q107409.TXT
						
```
The "Q91679.TXT" part of the above example is the destination name for the file. The destination name is the name of the file as it appears on your hard disk drive.
To close the connection with the server for most FTP clients, type the following from the FTP prompt:
bye

If you receive an "access denied" error during any transfers, you do not have write access in the current working directory on your client system. Contact the system administrator for assistance if you receive this error.

Additional query words: 3.10 Q113070 MSN telnet gopher

Keywords: KB115389
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