Some questions from a newbie

Hello OSR community,

i’m brand new here. I’ve already read all the Guildelines and FAQs I found, but unfortunatly I still have some questions:

Community Search:
Is it possible to search in a specific category (e.g. in NETDEV)? Would be very usefull to me.
Is it possible to search for Tag like "Announcement "?
And I not mean the Announcement and Administration Category. I mean the anncouncement tag on disscussions in all categories.

Mailing List:
As fare as I understand there is a “All Mails Group” which I’m not in as a newbie, right?
Is it anyway possible to get mails about new discussions (=threads) in a specific catagory?
And would it further be possible to filter for the “annoncement” tag as well here?

Follow button:
What is the functionality of the follow button which I can chose on the category overview page?

OSR Developers Blog vs. NT Insider vs. OSR Community
Maybe what I’m looking for is the OSR Developers Blog or NT Insider?
Can I assume that all critical stuff relevant to almost every windows driver deloper in the world out there will show up quite soon on the blog or in the next NT Insider?
What I’m looking forward is a way to get notified early enough about such stuff as this “Cross Signing support runs out for all MS Windows Versions” thing?
And what ist the difference between NT Insider and the OSR Developers Blog. Should I subscribe to both?

which brings me to the next and last question:
Is there any recomendable Microsoft’s blog, mailing list, … or anthing else which I should subscribe for such information? I mean specific information for windows driver developers. Including all you need to get it work (signing, testing, …)

Thanks for your help already.

Greeting Matthias

There is no central place to get critical information. That’s been a huge problem for quite a long time. Previous generations could use the Microsoft Hardware Developer’s Conference for that, but there hasn’t been one since roughly 2005. Some of the Microsoft driver team have blogs, the NT Insider has good information, and stuff pops up on the [ntdev] list when it becomes a problem for someone. We do the best we can.

Windows is now so large, it’s simply not possible to have one place that has all the information you know. Even in the driver world. network drivers and file system drivers and streaming drivers and disk drivers all have very different needs and requirements. It’s painful on-the-job training.

  • Is it possible to search in a specific category (e.g. in NETDEV)? Would be very usefull to me.

I don’t think so.

  • Is it possible to search for Tag like "Announcement "?

It would be, if we used tags on this forum. But, we don’t. Because, in the old forum/mailing-list, they didn’t exist, and now we’re all just too lazy.

  • What I’m looking forward is a way to get notified early enough about such stuff as this “Cross Signing support runs out for all MS Windows Versions” thing?

What I suggest is that you follow us on Twitter. We post almost anything useful/important there first. If you’re not a Twitter user, sign up and use IFTTT to send you an email when we tweet something.

  • And what ist the difference between NT Insider and the OSR Developers Blog. Should I subscribe to both?

The NT Insider is a journal type publication, that we publish on a random schedule. It primarily contains long-form articles about Windows driver and file system (and filter) development.

The OSR Developer’s Blog is… a blog. When we have something that we think is of interest to the community, we post it on our blog.

  • Is there any recomendable Microsoft’s blog, mailing list,

Nope. As Mr. Roberts said, this has been a long-standing issue. There’s an entry on the WDK MSDN forum where the WDK Program Manager (who is very helpful and interested in the community, by the way) posts info of interest.

Peter

@“Peter_Viscarola_(OSR)”
Hello Peter,
thanks for you reply to this post in november last year.

I’m following OSR insider and alle blogs now via RSS Feeds, which is very helpfull for me.
Thanks a lot to your work here and the whole community. This makes a driver developer’s live much easier, although its still tough enough :smiley:

But, I’m still a little dissapointed about the search functionality in this community.
Either I’m too stupid, or it’s really as bad as i experience!?

I only have this little search box in the uper right corner which searches in the whole forum, right?
No way to filter for a specific forum, a specific type (anoucement, …) a specific state (open, closed, new,…)?
And now way to order the search results?

And last but not least I would say the search hits a somehow random? I don’t find the hits for posts I know the contain the key words I search for. Even not if they are in the headline, an even less if the are somewhere inside the posts.

What am I doing wrong?

Greetings Matthias

I only have this little search box in the uper right corner which searches in the whole forum, right?

Well, yes/no. I mean… when I want to search this community I use Google with “-site:community.osr.com”

No way to filter for a specific forum, a specific type (anoucement, …) a specific state (open, closed, new,…)?

Well, no. But you assume that we actually HAVE types like “announcement” or states like “open/closed/new” – I mean, we have “new” but that’s relative to your last visit. “Closed” just means “Locked” here.

In other communities, people use tags, they differentiate between questions and comments, questions are marked as being answered or not answered. We have the capability of all that “stuff” – but we don’t use it, because we’re under the impression that it’s not something that the community is particularly interested in. Heck, we can assign people badges and honorary titles too! Post 5,000 times, we can give you a special icon next to your name… cool? No?? Yeah, I don’t think so.

I’m happy to listen to requests/ideas from the community if they’d like to see some “modern” enhancements…

I would say the search hits a somehow random

Probably. As I said, I don’t use the site-based search. Google is my friend. How the search works is entirely out of our control. We don’t write the code for or support this site. It’s all outsourced to a lovely Canadian company named Vanilla. We pay them a truckload of money, so if something is REALLY not working, we can certainly beat them over it. If you think that’s the case, let me know and I’ll go get a stick and start beating…

Peter

@“Peter_Viscarola_(OSR)”

Ok, thanks for that hint with the google search. Its not the best soluition to me, but might be better than the forum search here.

I don’t really need votes and badges or somethink like that.

But a powerfull search would be nice :wink:

Cheers

But a powerfull search would be nice

Interestingly enough… we paid to have a very powerful, highly customized, super-flexible, search facility back in “the old days” when we hosted these forums ourselves (backed by a mailing list).

Nobody used it. No body. Seriously. Noone. Everyone said “we use Google”! So, we live, we learn.

Peter

> Nobody used it. No body. Seriously. Noone. Everyone said “we use Google”! So, we live, we learn.

I used it, but I didn’t think it was important enough to make it a must-have. As you say, google provides an alternative.

Phil B
Not speaking for LogRhythm