What happened to the search box?

Topic

I’m not sure that this is the right place to report this, but the search box isn’t showing up in the right panel. In fact yesterday the menu bar across the top of the AskWoody page was even asking me to log in, but when I entered my credentials I was told that I was already logged in. Now the menu bar invites me to log OUT, but my username doesn’t appear anywhere, and I’m still not getting the search box.

I was hoping to do a search for discussions of KB4011276, for which the Microsoft Update Catalog mysteriously gives two listings that look identical in every respect, except the file size. Can’t determine if I should install only one of them (and which one), or both.

Thanks.

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The changes (missing functions – search box, login box, recent reply lists, etc) are a result of the problems we have been experiencing with the website. Hopefully they will be back when the upgrade is finished. Bear with up for a while longer.

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Cybertooth

Bookmark this link, it’s what I’ve been using when I wanted to search for something:

https://www.askwoody.com/forums/search/

 

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Elly, Purg2, HiFlyer, Cybertooth

Cybertooth wrote:

…I was hoping to do a search for discussions of KB4011276, for which the Microsoft Update Catalog mysteriously gives two listings that look identical in every respect, except the file size. Can’t determine if I should install only one of them (and which one), or both. Thanks.

If you haven’t found the answer yourself by now, I just did.

There are two “Download” buttons on that page of the Catalog, one on top of the other.

Clicking the top one of the two “Download” buttons yields a clickable link to a file that is meant for those who’ve set their systems up for using Chinese (not sure if it’s Traditional or simplified version of Chinese) as the default system language, because it has the string “zh-cn” towards the beginning of its file name.

The bottom one of the two “Download” buttons yields a file meant for those of us here in the U.S. who’ve set up their systems with English as the default system language, as it has “en-us” towards the beginning of its file name.

Hope this helps!

Bob99

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Cybertooth

It sure does help, thanks!

What happened is that I’d clicked on the links on the left that open a new window called “Update Details.” This window has four tabs, including one labeled Overview and the next one called Language Selection. The Overview tab says that the “supported languages” are “all,” while the Language Selection tab says “there are no additional languages to select.” So from the info that Microsoft put in the Update Details, there was no way to tell how the two patches were different or that one is for Chinese and the other for English.

This is pretty poor documentation on MS’s part. Users shouldn’t have to get as far as clicking the button to actually download a patch, to find out what the patch really is. That’s the sort of detail that you’d expect the “Update Details” to be telling you.

Keep Running Windows 7 Safely for Years to Come  
Make Windows 10 look and work like Windows 7

Cybertooth wrote:

…This is pretty poor documentation on MS’s part. Users shouldn’t have to get as far as clicking the button to actually download a patch, to find out what the patch really is. That’s the sort of detail that you’d expect the “Update Details” to be telling you.

They say that brilliant minds think alike. This just goes to show that, I guess, not all minds are brilliant!

BTW, clicking the “Download” buttons didn’t start the download, it just opened up another window with the actual file name in it and highlighted in blue, just like many other hyperlinks on many other sites. Clicking on that would’ve started the actual file download, just to clarify for others who are reading this thread.

The whole experience around this particular update is pretty poor. If you’re on Microsoft’s page describing the update, and then click on the link under Method 3 to download it, you get a 404 error saying that “the download is no longer available.” At least, I did.

Keep Running Windows 7 Safely for Years to Come  
Make Windows 10 look and work like Windows 7

Cybertooth wrote:

The whole experience around this particular update is pretty poor. If you’re on Microsoft’s page describing the update, and then click on the link under Method 3 to download it, you get a 404 error saying that “the download is no longer available.” At least, I did.

And, using your supplied link in the quote immediately above, so did I just before posting this. However, if you go back to the catalog link in your earlier post above that started this whole thread (#147468), and click on the second “Download” button (the lower one of the two) and then the resulting file name in the window that comes up, you’ll be able to download the .cab file for the fix and, probably, successfully install it. Remember, though, that it has to have the “en-us” string in the beginning part of the file name or you’ll install the wrong one. 

It did download, thanks, although I haven’t installed it yet. Susan Bradley (in Windows Secrets) gave it a green light, so I’ll be doing that soon.

My main beef was with the poorly documented way that Microsoft has “supported” this patch. Couldn’t they have made the process MORE difficult and cumbersome?  (Please don’t answer that! )

Keep Running Windows 7 Safely for Years to Come  
Make Windows 10 look and work like Windows 7

Cybertooth wrote:

…Couldn’t they have made the process MORE difficult and cumbersome? (Please don’t answer that!… 

Sorry, couldn’t resist…ROTFLOL 

As far as Windows Secrets goes, I used to subscribe to them, but grew disappointed in the direction they were taking, and was only reading Susan’s column. I was a paid subscriber but it was no longer worth the $$ they were charging to subscribe in my opinion, and the departure of some of the writers didn’t help. Much happier here!