How to list new or updated Microsoft Knowledge Base articles

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Here’s an example of a Google or Bing query that you can use to list Microsoft Knowledge Base articles that were added or updated on a given day (August 28, 2017 in this example):

+”aug 28 2017″ site:support.microsoft.com/en-us

The month should always contain the first 3 letters of the month that you are searching for.

I recommend using both Google and Bing because a given search engine doesn’t necessarily find everything that is relevant.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Elly

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Alternatively, you can use site kbupdate.info, which hasn’t been updated since March 2017.

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Alternative: use this search query:

site:support.microsoft.com/en-us

filtered by desired date range.

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RSS feeds for recently published KB articles (note)

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To do the same for Microsoft Office articles, use the above searches substituting site:support.office.com/en-us.

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For reasons I don’t understand, Google can have a recently updated page in its index, and yet Google’s last changed date for the indexed page is not correct. Example: the “Sep 18, 2017” version of page https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4027275/microsoft-account-rewards-regions-and-languages is in Google’s index, yet its last changed date according to Google is “Apr 17, 2017.”

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For reasons I don’t understand, Google sometimes doesn’t index all of the text in a page in its index. Example: Google has the “Sep 12, 2017” version of page https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/894199/software-update-services-and-windows-server-update-services-changes-in its index, but Google search “sep 12 2017” site:support.microsoft.com/en-us does not find it.

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The last two posts seem to indicate that for more thorough results, both of the search date methods (in posts #131064 and #131090) should be used.

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Sitemap https://support.microsoft.com/sitemap_index lists links to other pages, which in turn list updated pages within support.microsoft.com. Example: https://support.microsoft.com/sitemap_en-us_help_80 lists a number of articles that were updated today.

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This data can be imported into Excel by following the 4 steps at Extract URL Links from Sitemap.xml file using Excel. Excel will make clickable hyperlinks :).

Two programs that I didn’t try but might have if they were free: Sitemap Scraper Addon and Better Sitemap Scraper.

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abbodi86

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I briefly looked at all links at https://support.microsoft.com/sitemap_index with “en-us” in the URL. Many of the article changes in 2017 are taking place in the article range covered by https://support.microsoft.com/sitemap_en-us_help_80.

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I have developed a solution that works using Excel :).

Basic idea: For each sitemap in https://support.microsoft.com/sitemap_index that you are interested in (I used only the sitemaps that have “en-us” in the URL), create an Excel sheet and use Excel’s Data -> From Web command to import the sitemap into Excel. I created a macro that uses a sheet to combine the data from all the other sheets. The combined sheet can be sorted by the last modification date. Excel’s Refresh All command can be used to refresh the sitemap data. If anybody wants more details, let me know.

Currently there are 70,654 article links in my combined sheet. For example, here are the articles that were updated by Microsoft on September 26, 2017:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/14025/windows-movie-maker-import-photos-videos
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/10562/microsoft-account-gift-card-terms-and-conditions
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/10661/windows-phone-set-up-kid-s-corner
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4000459/windows-10-wifi-icons
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4025336/windows-8-update-kb4025336
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4025333/windows-8-update-kb4025333
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4026349/store-get-the-classic-free-solitaire-games-for-windows
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4027498/windows-run-the-troubleshooter-for-windows-apps
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4023476/surface-surface-touchscreen-problems-with-touch
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4023479/surface-Troubleshoot-Surface-Pro-4-Adapter-for-Surface-Pro-3-Docking-Station
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4018115/cumulative-update-7-for-exchange-server-2016
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4021562/hotfix-rollup-package-build-4-4-1642-0-is-available-for-microsoft
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4045645
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4045661
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4045662
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4045664
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4045673
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4045674
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4045675
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4045677
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4045680
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4045681
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4045682
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4045683
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4045686
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4045690
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4045691
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4045693
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4045694
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4045695
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4045696
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4045723
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4023540/surface-Creating-and-using-a-USB-recovery-drive
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4045592/introduction-to-microsoft-365-security-fundamentals
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4045590/technical-deep-dive-on-microsoft-365-deployment
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4045591/technical-deep-dive-on-microsoft-365-management
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4045747
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4045751
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4045752
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4000643/store-pre-orders
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4045780
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4045782
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4045786
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4045794
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4045801
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4045804
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4045805
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4045806
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4045807
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/3192130/remote-wmi-relies-on-windows-firewall-settings-incorrectly-even-if-a-third-party-firewall-is-enabled
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/3185718/enrollment-in-cloud-solutions-provider-program-within-piexp
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/3192802/incentive-eligibility-requirements-in-csp-program
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/3172614/july-2016-update-rollup-for-windows-8.1-and-windows-server-2012-r2
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/3125574/convenience-rollup-update-for-windows-7-sp1-and-windows-server-2008-r2-sp1
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/3203432/descriptionofthesecurityupdateforsharepointserver2016june13,2017
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2910626/financial-reports-from-management-reporter-do-not-match-the-general-ledger-trial-balance-reports-in-microsoft-dynamics-gp
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/3009979/partner-practice-enablement-azure-technical-training
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/3080005/description-of-activity-based-authentication-timeout-for-owa-in-office
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/837932/event-2108-and-event-1084-occur-during-inbound-replication-of-active-d

If anybody is interested, I could perhaps periodically post lists of Microsoft’s updated articles.

3 users thanked author for this post.

Elly, abbodi86, woody

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I have modified the solution to make it more automated. There are now two macros: One macro gets the desired sitemaps from https://support.microsoft.com/sitemap_index and puts them into a sheet. The second macro retrieves the data from each sitemap and copies it to a sheet where all the data is combined, and then sorted by last modification date.

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The solution now has two more macros: one that gets article titles, and one that makes clickable hyperlinks for URLs.

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Status update: the spreadsheet macros have been working without any known problems for months.

Microsoft’s sitemap data seems to be pretty accurate. I noticed one exception: KB4054517 was last updated on December 20, 2017, but its current sitemap entry indicates it was last updated on December 12, 2017.

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Wow.

There used to be a subscription service that would email you when new KBs were added, or old ones changed. Don’t know whatever happened to it. Might be something you could charge money for, if Microsoft didn’t get too upset. (I can’t imagine why they would – or, for that matter, how they could.)

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I’d be willing to release it for free if you or anybody else is interested in it though :).

2 users thanked author for this post.

Elly, woody

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You bet!

Want to put it in text, in an AKB – so people can copy and paste the macros?

Not sure how else to sponsor it on this site…..

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I will try to release it sometime this week in some form or another.

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abbodi86, woody

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“Want to put it in text, in an AKB – so people can copy and paste the macros?”

That would be fine with me, but maybe it would be better to wait a few days in order to get feedback from the first users.

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Thanks in advance 🙂

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MrBrian

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See Microsoft Knowledge Base Article Lister (Microsoft Excel macros).

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abbodi86, Elly

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Related topic: Microsoft makes web feeds available for the Microsoft Knowledge Base.

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