Windows Experts Community

Updates to the Windows Experts Community are now live!

Pauldon — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 02:03:06 GMT

Greetings!

I’m happy to report that the deployment of our round of changes is complete. I thank you for all your feedback that drove these changes. Please take a moment to check them out yourself.

· Shrink badge size
· Move user info pane above body in thread view
· Add original join date and post count to user info in posts
· Allow pages to dynamically size
· Expose forum list by default on landing page
· Add TheGreenButton script to Ent. & Connected Home forums
· Ensure question post is consistent with discussion post
· Ensure preview post is consistent with actual post
· Add pagers to forum thread list
· Add pagers near the top of the screen if they appear on the bottom
· Fix editor and other issues with IE9
· Fix Wiki is not using the entire column for text display.
· Fix direct post links for IE8
· Fix cases where navigation is broken when you hover over the chevron and NOT the text for ‘Forums’.
· Fix problem where some users cannot make avatars work
· Fix issue where images couldn’t be used in private messages
· Other small issues.

As we were getting underway to deploy these today we had a hardware failure only moments before we were going to start. We had not even touched the machine yet when it failed. It was truly incredible timing! We didn’t get started until this afternoon but after that all went well.

Paul

Changes to the Experts Community coming on Wed Aug 3rd

Pauldon — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 03:19:00 GMT

Tommorow, Wed August 3rd at 10am we plan to make some changes to the WIndows Experts Community. We'll be updating the layout for reading forum posts and a few other things. The site should remain up and operable during the changes and I anticipate we'll be complete around noon Pacific time. When we're finished I'll post an announcement with the complete list of changes.

Thanks!

Paul

Update @ 12:15: We didn't get started on time due to a completely unrelated issue that popped up when we were ready to go. The plan is to get started soon.

Windows Experts Community Update, 7.29.2011

Pauldon — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 23:25:23 GMT

Hi folks! As we had mentioned previously we’re working on some changes to the site based on your feedback. Right now we’re on schedule to release these updates within the next couple of weeks. Early next week I hope to be able to update you with an exact date and a better idea of the changes you’ll see. I really appreciate all the community feedback that helped determine the changes.

I also wanted to thank Jason_Ruz for his contribution to the wiki and winning a Windows Experts Community Mystery Bag O’Stuff. I’ll stick with keeping the contents a secret for now but I know there are at least a few people hoping he’ll post some info on the contents once he gets it in Australia.

Paul

Windows Experts Community Update, 7.8.2011

Pauldon — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 20:44:45 GMT

Just a quick update on some things that are afoot around here.

A special thanks to Richard1980 for making some changes and additions to the Wiki! We are collecting a great amount of information there now where many frequently asked questions are answered and new users can easily learn from the trailblazers that discovered and documented their knowledge. Even though I work on the Windows team I continue to see some of the best tips, tricks and advice from the community.

As Pete had mentioned in the previous post we were looking at some changes we could make based on community feedback. We’re now actively working on coding and testing some of these changes to the site. The feedback you’ve provided over the last few weeks is much appreciated and allowed us to understand the improvements you’d most like to see. Besides addressing a few bugs that have been discovered we’ll be working on reducing the size of the badges and repositioning the user information pane to provide more space for posts to be displayed. I’m looking for some specific input on other things as well and you can chime in on those in this thread.

I'll work to keep you updated over the next few weeks on our progress. Don't be afraid to get in touch if you have questions or feedback.

Paul

Windows Experts Community Update, 6.14.2011

PeteBrownMSFT — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 14:59:26 GMT

Hello, Everybody:

Hope you’re all doing well. last week was a great week on the site – no new issues discovered and we launched our first ever Wiki Challenge on the site. We’re looking for short articles about different scenarios you can create with an Xbox 360 and a Windows 7 PC. Authors of our favorite entries will be the first ever recipients of the much ballyhooed Soon-To-Be Infamous Windows Experts Mystery Bag O’ Stuff (or, STBIWEMBOS) a mysterious grab bag of tech from around the company and our world of partners that I’m told has some nice gear in it. (The exact content of a STBIWEMBOS is heavily guarded secret, but if you’re chosen enough to receive one, be sure to post an update here.)

This Wiki Challenge runs through June 30 – more details here or get started here.

Questions of the Week

Longtime TGBer Paul (pcostanza) posted this week seeking to activate the guide in Windows Media Center on a machine that doesn’t have a TV tuner installed. A few of you offered ideas and workarounds, and then Mike (mmatheny) pointed to an older thread about using a tuner emulator to spoof WMC into thinking there’s a tuner so you can configure the guide. Reading through this thread, it looks like folks have been hit or miss on this. Wondering if anyone out there has a working process nailed down for this scenario and would like to add it to this thread – or even as a Wiki entry?

Speaking of “Threads just waiting to become Wiki entries,” OP chucknduck26 asks for Best Practices for using an SSD as a Windows 7 boot drive. What has your experience taught you for these?

Forthcoming Site Updates

Many of you have been asking where we are with some of the design/layout changes we’ve been talking about in a few different threads since the community launched, and I want to make that the focus of this week’s update.

As many of you know, this site is built on the foundation of TheGreenButton.com. In doing so, we upgraded the platform that was running TGB to the latest version offered by the provider. Now, TGB ran on a much older version, and thus the upgrade path hasn’t necessarily been clean and straight, unfortunately. We’re still discovering where settings and defaults have changed; functionality has been deprecated or replaced, etc. We are also reliant on the provider for fixes for several of the browser issues you’ve reported; they are actively investigating why we are struggling to get some of the very large threads from TGB moved to their new home. Some of the design changes we’re looking at will take some significant work to test and deploy, and we beg your patience as we pursue this. As we are able, we’ll be providing mock-ups and options here on this blog and asking for your feedback along the way.

Among the changes in this category are reducing the badge sizes and moving the avatar area altogether so the entire width of the center column can be dedicated to text. We’re also exploring the idea you’ve provided of an alternate view of the Windows Entertainment and Connected Home landing page that is more similar to the old TGB landing page Though the changes in the page layouts supported by this version of the platform mean it won’t be a spot-on replica; but we’re trying to get close. The idea is you’ll be able to bookmark this version of the page and use it as your landing page. Again, our intention is to mock up some different looks in our test environment, and then provide you some visuals for feedback.

Our hope is to receive some patches from the provider and combine them with these new design changes to rollout in a single deployment later this summer. We’ll keep engaged with you here as options arise and we need your input on them. As always, you can follow and edit the list of changes that have been requested to date here.

Other site changes are somewhat less-intensive to deploy – particularly config changes we can make ourselves without having to call over to Mukesh in the data center. We don’t want miss any near-term opportunities with these kinds of changes to improve the experience here. One idea is to add additional links to the Browse All Forums area in the right column (highlighted below):

This would be similar to the TGB Shortcuts area on the old site, and we could provide quick links into different views of the site. On TGB we had links for:

Browse All Forums – currently gives you a global look at all the forums on the site
Latest Tech News – Jumps into the Latest News forum
Latest Posts – Jumps right to the most recent activity on the site
My Topics – Jumps into the threads you’re already involved in
Unanswered – Questions posed that have not yet earned the coveted “Mark as answer” distinction

However, things like Latest Posts, My Topics and Unanswered are all available as tabs on Windows Experts.

So my question is, would you use the links in this area? If so, what links should be represented in here?

As a reminder, too, you can create a completely personalized version of this under “Favorites” by clicking Add to Favorites whenever you’re in a forum or area you frequent.

Thanks again for participating in Windows Experts, and please do continue to provide feedback as we refine the site to better meet the community’s needs.

Best,

Pete

First Ever Wiki Challenge: Windows PC +Xbox 360: Amazing deal, amazing scenarios

PeteBrownMSFT — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 18:19:00 GMT

Hey there, Experts:

Have you seen the latest deal offered for students? If you buy a Windows 7 PC for $699 or more, and you get a free Xbox 360 to boot. This is an amazing deal for current students and the college bound.

I suspect that many peeps who take advantage of this offer are thinking “Sweet!” (er, that is if students still say “Sweet!” the way we did back in the late 80s) “Sweet! I can rock my assignments with this awesome PC, and then unwind gaming on the Xbox!”

Fair enough. But as the Experts here know, there’s a world of possibilities that opens up when you bring a Win7 PC together with an Xbox on the same network – great digital entertainment and media experiences that the two products create together.

So let’s make sure the college bound get the advice they need as they head off to school with a Win7PC under one arm and a 360 under the other. Let’s break out some of the experiences they can create and what they need to do to make them happen. Let’s give them the advice they need when selecting a PC to optimize what they can do with it plus a 360.

Introducing our first ever Wiki Challenge

This is a great opportunity for our first ever Windows Experts Wiki Challenge! Here’s what we’ve done: Over in the Wiki, we’ve created a stub article entitled “Things you can do with a Windows 7 PC and an Xbox 360.” We’re inviting experts to add articles beneath this page describing different experiences and scenarios that a Win7 PC and a 360 can create.

Here’s a simple format to use:

Title (One sentence summary of the scenario): Record TV on your Windows 7 PC and stream it to the Xbox 360
Short Description of Scenario (ex.) Did you know you can use your Windows 7 PC as a DVR, and then stream your recorded TV to the Xbox 360? It’s true. With a TV tuner and Windows Media Center…
What You Need: List what they need to make this happen – in the sample case, they need a PC running a version of Windows 7 that includes Windows Media Center, a TV tuner, etc. You may want to recommend a wired network connection between the PC and the 360, etc.)
How to set it up: List the main steps required to get the scenario working.

Wiki Tips!

Link to other wiki articles! You may not want to get into the intricate details of types of TV tuners, signals, etc, but rather link to articles on that subject. Just be sure you’re outlining the major considerations someone should be aware of when implementing the scenario you describe.
When writing the How-to set it up portion, cover the major steps, but don’t feel obligated to dive in tech-writer style in each step (unless you want to). Again, you want to provide enough information and links that someone trying to implement the scenario has a topline roadmap to follow.
Use images! Screen caps and other images really make an entry standout. You can even embed a remotely hosted video if need be.
Never done a Wiki entry before? Be sure to check out our Wiki primer first. And enjoy the totally sweet Wiki badge you’ll be earning in the process.

Wiki Challenge Q&A

Q: I’ve written my Wiki article. What happens next?

A: Awesome job! First off, we’ll be engaging Windows sizable social media machine to point folks to articles within this Wiki thread. That’s a heckuva lot of traffic we expect to see reviewing your florid prose.

But more to the point – we’ll be reviewing all of the entries and picking one or two of our favorites to become the first-ever recipients of (drum roll….)

The Soon-to-be-Infamous Windows Experts Mystery Bag o’ Stuff

Q: The what?

A: The Soon-to-be-Infamous Windows Experts Mystery Bag o’ Stuff!

As the name implies, it’s a bag o’ stuff gathered from around the company and our world of partners, tossed together with little rhyme nor reason, and shipped to your door (or PO box, as the case may be).

Q: What’s in it?

A: Uh, I don’t know. It’s a mystery bag, so that’s kind of the point. I’m pretty sure Paul has a good idea of what’s in it this time, but so far, he’s not talking. He has assured me there’s some “pretty good stuff” that he himself would be pleased to receive (and let’s not forget: this is someone whose home system specs include 12TB Disk in multiple RAID arrays).

Q: 12 TB? Seriously?

A: Yeah, I know. You’ll have to ask him about it. Just don’t get him started on his Hyper V server.

Q: The Soon-to-be Infamous Windows Experts Mystery Bag o’ Stuff is kind of a mouthful. Anyway we can shorten that up a bit?

A: I was thinking we’d call it "STBIWEMBO’S” for short, but marketing put the kibosh on that. Seriously, though, we fully intend this to be the first of many STBIWEMBO’Ses, and we hope if you are the lucky recipient of it, you’ll be so kind as to post an unboxing (er, unbagging) of it here in the community after it arrives.

Q: How long do we have to enter the Wiki Challenge?

A: The promotion is set to run through September 3, or as long as supplies last. We’d like to get the wiki built out this month, so the Wiki challenge will expire June 31.

Q: Can I write up more than one?

A: Yes, with the understanding that a) you’re not duplicating other entries and b) each one you post is substantially complete. You can’t “call” a bunch of scenarios by posting skeletal articles you intend to build out later. That’s no way to go about earning a STBIWEMBO’S.

Q: I wanted to write one of these up but some chachi already has one up on the same scenario.

A: Sorry. Fortune favors the bold. We do applaud your use of the word chachi, though.

Q: Really? Because the one that’s up there totally stinks and mine would be so much better.

A: Well, this is a Wiki, so you’re free to edit the original entry and make it as awesome as you claim. While this won’t necessarily put you in the running for a STBIWEBO’S, it will of course earn you the esteem and high regard of your community peers.

Q: I’m not a student. Can I get in on this PC/Xbox dealio?

A: Nice use of the word dealio, by the way. I’m going to refer you to the marketing peeps on this one. My understanding is that the deal is open to US-based students at the moment, but expanding soon to other countries. To take advantage of it online, you need to have a *.edu email address. At one of our retail partner locations, you need a student ID.

More questions? Post them below…For complete, official rules, see the attached file.

Windows Experts Community Update, 6.6.2011

PeteBrownMSFT — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 21:31:54 GMT

Hey Everybody:

Some great discussion going on last week, especially with all sorts of news going around in the world of tech. Be sure to check out the Latest Tech News forum where you can read people’s take on new products and technologies and offer up your own opinions. These are always my favorite types of threads to read and follow because the ideas and opinions in them are thoughtful and well-put and come from folks very experienced with the platform and products. We do hope you’ll join in. Also, if you’ve been waiting to see the impact of more competition in the world of CableCARD tuners, members kc8emd and makryger, and others have spied some lower prices on Ceton’s InfiniTV tuner.

Question of the Week: Will a new CPU help out my GPU?

I like this brief thread started by member nadspink on whether or not a new CPU will help out a GPU on an HTPC that is displaying some signs of sluggishness, because it’s a question I’ve often had myself. As often is the case, the question of fan noise vs. fanless implementations came up; we also got an update from the OP telling us what he chose to do and how it’s working out.

Wiki Continues to Grow

One of the highlights of the new community has been the Wiki, which has continued to grow and now has more than 70 articles. We’ve now completed migrating all of the FAQs from TGB into Wiki articles, and this week started a Windows branch, where you can add any quick tips or tricks you’ve found helpful in your use of Windows over the years. We’ve got some fun plans for the wiki in the coming weeks as well – so stay tuned.

As always, if you’re interested in contributing to the Wiki – please do – all registered members can create new articles and edit existing articles. Check out this thread for article ideas or to add requests for articles.

Site Issues

The Search issues we saw last week should be resolved now, as are the issues we saw with RSS feeds and email earlier this week. Please let us know if you are still experiencing issues with either on the site. More to come on site issues...

Windows Experts Community Update: 5.20.2011

PeteBrownMSFT — Fri, 20 May 2011 23:29:00 GMT

Happy Friday, folks:

The big news in the community this week was Silicondust beginning to take preorders on their forthcoming HDHomeRun Prime CableCARD tuner. Silicondusts’ HD Home Run line of networked tuners have always been popular among enthusiasts, but the Prime is their entry into the CableCARD™ tuner market, the first new CableCARD™ tuner we’ve seen in the US since Ceton’s InfiniTV 4 rolled out last year. The Prime has both 3- and 6-tuner models and is expected to begin shipping in July.

This news comes on the heels of last week’s release by Ceton of a networked tuner wizard that lets you assign its 4 tuners to different PCs across the network. This was one of our busiest threads last week.

Time for a new switch?

We saw some interesting recent threads on home networking this week: two separate threads seeking advice on a new network switch. Lots of great recommendations in both threads. Meanwhile, member CadeFoster asked the community if separating his Media Center Extenders onto a separate home network might address some stuttering issues he’s seeing. While most folks thought this step was not necessary, a few offered up some great alternatives to try. Anybody want to pitch in on a wiki article - "10 Ways to Optimize your Network for Whole Home Entertainment?" Throw out some ideas in the comments here, and we'll start to pull an entry together.

Troubleshooter of the Week

In a somewhat-related thread, user Skirler noticed stuttering in WMC mainly when someone sent something to a home printer or started the washer in his place. A number of community members pointed out a variety of electrical reasons this could be happening. Stonethecrows offered up this advice:

If network cables have to run parallel to power, I always make sure they are at least two feet apart.

You can cross power and network cables at 45-90 degrees to one another (ideally 90), but try and do this as infrequently as possible.

The interference from voltage cables running alongside network cables can cause the kind of stuttering the OP reported. Did some digging (shout to Pauldon for the background) and learned that this is because of the Hall Effect, discovered in 1879 by Edwin Hall. Basically, the current travelling through one wire can affect that travelling in another wire alongside. As stonethecrows pointed out, he separates network from power wires by at least 2 feet, and when they cross over, he uses a higher angle (90 degreesi optimal) to minimize the amount of area where the wires are adjacent. Check out this related article on Techrepublic with some brief details about Ethernet and twisted pair cable.

This is definitely a great thread to check out if you’ve seen performance issues or flakiness every time someone uses a hair dryer in your home. This is also the reason I love enthusiast communities - I'm always learning new things. And by the way, Edwin Hall discovered the Hall effect 18 years before the electron was discovered. I'm pretty sure if he was still around today, he would be here with a 25+ Wiki badge and a list of his preferred codecs.

Community Tip: Hover over Subject Lines lets you peek at the OP

This week’s tip: when scrolling through threads, you can get a quick peek at the starting text of an original post by hovering over the subject:

This gives you a quick look into the original post so you can decide if you want to dive in all the way or not.

Community Issues

We believe we’ve closed in on the intermittent Search issue that some of you have reported. This was a tricky one, and isolated on a specific server, so it was hit-or-miss whether you’ve gotten it or not. We hope to have this one resolved in short order. We anticipate receiving some patches from the platform provider for some of the browser issues you’ve reported. These will have to be tested and reviewed before we can deploy them, but we will keep you updated. (We’ll also be updating and cleaning up the Bug Tracker shortly). With good progress on the major bugs, we’re now turning to the design and layout feedback you all have provided, and will keep you updated as this progresses.

Windows Experts Community Update: 5.13.2011

PeteBrownMSFT — Fri, 13 May 2011 14:27:00 GMT

Where did that week go?

We’re into our second week now on Windows Experts, and are making some good progress on some of the issues we saw at launch time, and are keeping engaged with the Feedback tracker. We’re still following and assimilating the feedback you’ve been giving us – and we appreciate that it’s been detailed, clear and unvarnished. We’ll keep you updated on upcoming community developments.

Lots of New Wiki Entries

We’re seeing a lot of great content getting posted to the Wiki. This week, we finished adding in all of the FAQs from TheGreenButton.com, and now turn our attention to bringing over many of the great how-to blog posts found on TGB over the years. But seeing the new content being posted is also really exciting. Two entries this week to call out: Configuring a Display Adapter by richard1980 – a detailed guide to making sure your picture is the best it should be, and a nice piece from Stuart (aka cw-kid, one of our MVPs) on how to change the default Windows audio device in 7MC.

Remember – anyone can create a Wiki entry once they’ve registered here, and you can upload images when doing so (something we always lacked on TGB). If you’ve got a great how-to or best practice, please share it. Check out our Wiki Primer to get started. Alternatively – maybe there’s an article you really needed, but never found the right info.

I’ve started a Wiki Article Ideas thread where you can post your idea and maybe someone in the community will be inspired to post an article. The Wiki is collaborative. You can also post the start of an article and see if the other community members can jump in and help round things out.

This Week’s Tip: Using Favorite Places

One new feature this version of the platform provides us is Favorites – which lets you bookmark specific forums or groups that you frequent and get to them quickly and easily with a dedicated Favorite Places drop-down. Here’s mine at the moment:

This lets me jump right in to the forums in which I participate or read the most. To add an entire Group to your favorites, head to that group’s landing page, then click the Add Group to Favorite link found next to the group title:

To add a forum, while in that forum, click Favorite this forum in the Options menu.

Forum Highlight: The Latest in Tech

One of my favorite forums to read on TGB was the “News” forum. While ostensibly this forum was for discussing community news, in reality, it was a great place where TGBers posted their opinions and had great discussions about the latest technology developments, business moves, products and so on. It was free-form, rollicking conversation on all things tech.

All of this content has migrated here, but we’ve renamed the forum The Latest in Tech to differentiate it from Community News. The Latest in Tech is where you can put your bizdev hats on and talk about the days hi tech news – like Microsoft’s recent acquisition of Skype. What do you think this means, and what opportunities do you see here?

Issues and Updates

As I mentioned earlier, we’re actively tracking the issue reports you’re submitting, and rolling out fixes as we are able to. This week, we resolved an issue that was preventing some of your Avatars to display correctly – something we traced back to an old TGB setting that affected users who joined TGB between some specific dates.

We’re also hoping you’ll be seeing fewer BLOCKED EXPRESSION notices on the site as we investigate different security features which may allow us to be less restrictive on using certain terms that trigger the block. If someone has quoted part of a post that had BLOCKED EXPRESSION in it, then you’ll still see it in the pull quote. Otherwise, most of these should be cleared up for terms like “Style.” (The block is still triggered for profanity, etc).

Thanks again for taking part in the conversation here. As always, more to come…

Windows Experts Community Update, 5.5.2011

PeteBrownMSFT — Thu, 05 May 2011 12:17:00 GMT

Hi again, Everyone:

Just wanted to update you on where we are in our work on several issues affecting the site, and in receiving and processing the feedback you’ve provided to date.

TGB Profile Migration
Some folks have seen issues attempting to migrate the profile from thegreenbutton.com. After a good deal of research and investigation, we believe we have the TGB Profile issues resolved. If you are still struggling with this issue, please let us know in this thread, or via Private Message.

Missing TGB threads
There are still a handful of some extra-long threads from TGB that are still giving us some troubles as we move forward. If you were an OP or thread owner on one of these, feel free to start a new thread until we resolve the issue holding up their move, and we can merge the two together at a later point.

Configuration Issues
We've seen a few places where settings on TGB didn't carry forward to the new site because of changes made by the platform provider in the new version. When we come across these, we're investigating what setting is different, why it was changed, and if we need to modify it. One example: the location field was not exposed by default in the new version, so if you wanted to update your location in your profile, there was nowhere to do so. (There is now - look right under the About box on your profile page).

TheGreenButton.com URL redirection
Apologies for the delay here. We’ve just completed some testing to ensure that this change won't break links in to moved TGB content; TheGreenButton.com now redirects straight into the Windows Entertainment and Connected Home forum page.

Site Design and Enhancements
We have gotten a lot of feedback over this first week on the site’s layout and design, and are now categorizing it, determining how we can address it and planning what changes we can make. We have definitely heard your feedback about the white space, size of the badges and post area width. Just in case there’s a number of you quiet types out there who want to advocate for leaving the width unchanged, please pipe up or get in touch soon!

As a caveat, also, please know we are focused first and foremost on fixing as many bugs as possible before we look at layout changes.

Wiki
It’s been really great to see the Wiki begin to take off with more than 35 articles at last count. We’ve needed a feature like this for some time, and hopefully if you’ve got a great tip or advice to share, you’ll consider writing it up for the Wiki as well. Or, if you see a great post or great idea in the community, suggest that the OP add it to the Wiki.

Working together –
Finally, thanks to all of you reporting issues, providing feedback and making requests. It has been a bit of a rocky road this first week, but with some of the big bugs behind us, we’re hoping we can really work together to dial this site in to be a great resource for our enthusiast community.

Thank you all again for your time and attention; I do know that working together we can make this community a great place to be.

Pete

TGB Profile migration issue, Experts Community update

PeteBrownMSFT — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 21:16:00 GMT

Hi Everyone:

We are continuing to work on the issue which is preventing some of you from successfully having your TGB profile associated with your Windows Live ID. We are working directly with the platform provider, and do hope to have an update for you soon.

We are also monitoring and collecting your feedback on the new site as we look to improve the experience overall. We anticipate performance improvements as new servers come online, and we are anticipating a fix for some IE9 compatibility issues.

- Please use this thread to report any other issues you're experiencing.

- For design and feature feedback, please continue to use this thread.

Looking for TGB Content?

Some of you have been seeking the content from TheGreenButton.com. This content is by and large in the Windows Entertainment and Connected Home ares of the site. As we indicated earlier this month, we did consolidate the total number of forums (TGB had 65+ forums), especially older forums on XP and Vista.

When you go into Windows Entertainment and Connected Home, you will see the most recent post activity in this area:

This just like the Recent Activity area on the old TGB, though it shows more posts. You can click Your Discussion tab to see the threads you're involved in, Unread to see those youhaven't checked out yet, or Unanswered to see those no one has responded to yet.

If you click on Browse Forums, you will see the forum structure we brought over from TGB, and you can dive into any individual forum from there.

This view is what you got on the old TGB when you clickd the Forums link, only there are fewer forums since we consolidated many of them.

Again, thank you for your patience as we work these bugs out and work to improve the overall experience here.

- Pete

Welcome to the Windows Experts Community

PeteBrownMSFT — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 23:13:00 GMT

Welcome to the Windows Experts Community, the new online home for enthusiasts and power users who are creating amazing experiences with Windows PCs and other technologies. If you’re looking for advice, want to discuss the latest in tech news or have some knowledge to share, this is the place for you.

Let me show you around:

There are three main forum areas in the Windows Experts community:

When you land in one of these areas, you’ll see all the most recent posts (from all the forums in this area). You can also click the Browse Forums drop-down to see just the posts from a specific forum. You’ll also see components in the sidebars showing the Most Popular posts, and so on.

Browse Forums:

Check out Our Wiki

Perhaps the most exciting addition to this site is a new Wiki where you can find how-tos, explainers and other great tips that fellow experts have shared. Got some best practices you’ve developed? Take a few minutes and share your knowledge with a quick Wiki article – and you’ll earn the Wiki badge to boot.

Share your System Specs

Another much-requested feature we’ve had is for a dedicated area in the user profile where you can list the specs of your home PC rig(s). Take a moment to add your specs, and when you’ve got questions or are taking part in a discussion, community members can check out the system you’ve put together or troubleshoot your issues with an eye on your components.

Coming from The Green Button?

TheGreenButton.com is a community of Windows Media Center enthusiasts that has been going strong since 2003. It was acquired by Microsoft in 2008, and has been such a successful example of an enthusiast community (one that I’ve been lucky to be involved with for the past few years) that we’ve made it the foundation of Windows Experts. All of the content from TGB over the years is here in our Windows Entertainment and Connected Home area, and if you were a TGBer, you should have all of your post counts, posts and so on here on Windows Experts. Plus, you should have the much coveted TGB badge in your profile area.

More to come…

I do hope you find the new community to your liking. Today’s launch gives a modern community platform, and we’re hoping to continuously improve the experience here. Please share your thoughts, ideas and feedback with us here on how we can continue to grow and improve Windows Experts.

All the best -

Pete