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New Subscriber Downloads and Product Keys UI is LIVE

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As of 20:00 (8:00PM US PDT), the new Subscriber Downloads and Product Keys UI is live for MSDN and TechNet Subscribers.

There are a few site-wide (all MSDN and TechNet) CSS issues that were noticed in advance of the release, that will continue to be looked into by the appropriate teams.

Let us know what you think. Check out the walkthroughs and FAQ pages to assist you in using the new capabilities, and Enjoy!

Comments

  • Anonymous
    April 10, 2008
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    April 10, 2008
    I dont like it. The Download Tab is going away, if you dont click on the right link. 2 tiers is too deep for this.

  • Anonymous
    April 11, 2008
    PingBack from http://www.alvinashcraft.com/2008/04/11/dew-drop-april-11-2008/

  • Anonymous
    April 11, 2008
    Good morning all - You guys are brutal :) But seriously - thanks for the feedback. Let me hit a few issues I can respond to quickly and I will follow up with more later. So - the navigation control is not silverlight. It is AJAX, but we would like to implement a Silverlight version when the time is right. We did evaluate it for our v1.0 implementation and decided it was not the right time due to a number of issues. So you don't like two layers of navigation? Did you ever use the old system? Somehow I don't think so as you often had to go 10 or 15 mouse clicks through possibly 5 or more layers of hierarchy to get to your desired file, and then you had to do the same thing for every file in a multipart image. Yes - the navigation control is admittedly touchy in how it behaves to clicking and mousing. More later.... Happy Friday.

  • Anonymous
    April 11, 2008
    I like the new UI.  But Puleeze, can you bring back the resume downloads link??  If it's already there, it sure is hard to find so far.  Tnx.

  • Anonymous
    April 11, 2008
    Hi I think overall it will take some getting used to, It has potential though. One Thing that is strange, I have 11 keys that under the new system say "This product requires a Volume License Key (VLK). To retrieve your VLK:  " however all 11 keys were visable on the old system. Infact I have all 11 keys in a Excel file for ease of use so its not a major issue but it would be nice to have them listed on the site again withouht going to other pages.

  • Anonymous
    April 11, 2008
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    April 11, 2008
    I have to agree with Martin and Walter, the new control is a giant step backwards functionally, and it smacks of late 90s web design visually.

  • Anonymous
    April 11, 2008
    Personal opinion : Cannot find the "latest new" anymore. Why do I have to choose "all" or just "one language" now? Had three languages that were shown. Now the new UI is a big regression. How can I see how many "VLK activations are left for me" All by all, I liked what I had (no problem with it) and was looking forward how that could even be improved. The new UI is a big disappointment, Just regression for me on all area's, Would love to reverse the changes. Why changing things that work? Just because there has to be UI changes once in a while? This is usuability, not eyecandy I'm looking for. Main thing that has to be brought back is: I will have to set only the languages I want to see AND the Latest new/changed must come back. But then again, it could be I didn't look that good, but heck I shouldn;t even have to find such things. Have a nice day!

  • Anonymous
    April 11, 2008
    PS - ok, now I've searched every Category, and still no sign of the WDK/DDK - or even that little .doc file that used to be there saying that it was temporarily removed to be fixed and would be back by March 15th - which was still there when I last checked around March 20th or so...

  • Anonymous
    April 11, 2008
    I used to be able to see the number of activated licenses for MAK. Where can if find this info now?

  • Anonymous
    April 11, 2008
    Ok, you want my opinion but you will most likely hate me for that: The menu system:

  • Is too slow, especially when you need to scroll down to the very bottom
  • Hard to handle, menu is collapsing before reaching the next level Content
  • Is hard to find
  • No dates using search just basic title
  • No new items list
  • No languages shown If I use the menu and manage to go to MSDN Library 2006 (just an example to show how bad it works for me) and I survived the menu I get a list of MSDN Library 2006 entries with only the last update date. That tells me nothing, it's the posted date that is important. Now I have to pick one... maybe June? Oh shoot after opening that entry it appears to be Japanese. July? D*mn Chinese ... how many times do you have to do this? Details in the list gives you CRC/ISO information and not much more... So maybe search is better than the menu? No way... same search MSDN Library 2006 gives you a tiny list showing no titles, no language, no publishing datas etc. Sure, the old tree let's you click a couple of times extra, but the hierarchy is completely clear leading you to the right product, and giving the product information that is needed. To be not all negative... I (think) I prefer the new Key system. Maybe some more information about the various key types. I do however miss how many times certain keys are used. So ... I'd prefer you to restore the old system and work some more on the new one. Sorry. -= Maarten =-

  • Anonymous
    April 11, 2008
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    April 11, 2008
    It has potential, but some old features has to come back, especially the new releases (in my preferred languages). Anyone tried to request the key for 'Virtual Server 2005 Enterprise Edition'. Do you also get an errorpage?

  • Anonymous
    April 11, 2008
    I mostly like the layout, much simpler categories. The only problem I see so far is the [very] slow scroll, I'd rather prefer a scrollbar.

  • Anonymous
    April 11, 2008
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    April 11, 2008
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    April 11, 2008
    The interface itself may take some getting used to but why is there no "New Items List"? How are you supposed to know when new items are available on MSDN now? How could this be left out? This needs to come back ASAP!

  • Anonymous
    April 11, 2008
    Where is my way of quickly expanding a couple of tree nodes and seeing a summary of all the main products I'm interested in on my screen at once.  At least the tree control was functional, even if there sometimes was an extra level or 2 in the tree that wasn't needed. The slow scrolling thing is useless.  I gave up waiting for it to scroll down to see if the product I wanted was in the list.  I couldn't remember the exact name, so I tried hitting search with no text to see if I could get a simple list of products available.  This didn't work, so I searched for "a" (no quotes). Search results only show 10 at a time.  I usually change any searches I do to show 100 results and use the browsers scroll bar to quickly scan for the result I want. I ended up using the keyboard to scroll the list (as I could then scroll quicker), but ended up with the down arrow "scroll button" in the middle of my list obstructing my view.

  • Anonymous
    April 11, 2008
    So..... let me respond to some of the items above. If I didn't respond to yours specifically, I will still have it captured and we'll be considering them as well. The "What is new in downloads" did get cut from v1.0 but is still in the list of future enhancements. Based on your feedback, we are working on something that can address this in the short term as well as pulling up the longer term item in priority. WDKs and SDKs and DDKs are now listed with the product they apply to, if one exists. For instance Vista SDKs and DDKs are with the Vista downloads. Search results show 10 at a time by default because with this new basic search it will be unlikely to have more than 10 results in total. As far as languages go, the new system looks at your browser preferred language, and if the Product you are navigating to is available in that language, that would be the default filter selection. If there is not a version of the product in that language, English would become the default. Another way to say this is that we are trying to respect your browser set language preferences and show you files based on them when available. The navigation control is admittedly sensitive. I will look into whether there are any keyboard interactions available for it. Re: Virtual Server 2005 Enterprise Edition Keys - failure when claiming keys. Thanks for the heads up. We will alert the appropriate team that more keys need to be made available. RE: Partner Program product availability. You should not be seeing differences in the files available to you today from that previously. We did have a bug today where VS Pro with Pro Subscribers were only seeing OS files. We fixed that today however. I will look into this issue a bit further. Be sure to see the "architecture" filter. Many older files don't have architectures so may show as "unspecified". So I hear that many of you don't like the new UI. That is disappointing. We understand change can be a painful thing but our goal is to improve your experience not make it worse. The usability study participants we talked to while planning the updates had mostly positive things to say. We do appreciate your feedback - both positive and negative - and we will continue to consider it as we proceed with additional enhancements and feature development, and prioritization of those items.

  • Anonymous
    April 12, 2008
    I don't mind the new menu, it appears quick enough for me.  I do agree with previous poster that it should expand with the window size.  That should be basic UI design (but too often is not). However, should not the menues filtered according to your subscription levels.  The old version had that.  Now, I wade through the menues and click on the product, just to get to a details page where all the choices are grayed out.  I liked the feature of the old menu system that did not show the entries that I was not entitled to have.

  • Anonymous
    April 12, 2008
    > As far as languages go, the new system looks at your browser preferred language This is something I defin. don't want. Our company is completely En/US minded and certainly not focused on our local languages. Assumptions like this forces us to switch between languages used in the browser to get the right responses without any need. If my prefered language is needed make that an option in my profile. -= Maarten =-

  • Anonymous
    April 12, 2008
    I think the reason you're getting so much negative feedback isn't the interface fundamentally, but it's few (theoretically) fixable shortcomings, and the fact that it's lacking in very significant features - which should also be fixable. Search should most definitely not return only the top level stuff - particularly since a lot of the top level stuff doesn't contain even all the basic stuff. "WDK" shouldn't return 0 results! Putting the DDK(s) and SDK(s) (and the hypothetical WDK) ;)  with the OS does not make sense. How many people buying or using Vista could care at all about WDK's and such? By that logic, almost all of the development stuff should go with Vista (or 2008)... except that they're also for other (multiple) versions of Windows, so they should also be under those. Developing for Windows and using Windows are completely separate categories, however... so I don't agree that it's the right place to put that stuff. Also, since the latest WDK, which I'm told by someone else at MSFT should be out already... ("... supposed to be up on MSDN by 4/9 at the very latest ...") is supposed to be for 2008 (6001.18001) - then it should be under 2008. And while that has sort of a not-entirely-logical sense to it... how am I supposed to browse for it, if I don't even know if it'll be in the Vista section, or the 2008 section (or the XP section, or whatever, etc...) There wasn't really anything wrong with the old interface, (except for that left hand column width thing with the tree view) - and while updating it to be slicker and more responsive (Ajax, etc.) is a great idea... you also basically removed numerous and very basic (important!) features in the process, so I'd think you should expect significant negative feedback. Sure maybe you got good feedback in the useability studies, because it's not all bad, as I say.. but it really isn't all that close to being finished, IMHO) Thanks for responding to the comments and stuff - much appreciated! Cheers

  • Andrew

  • Anonymous
    April 12, 2008
    I played a  bit more with it now, and I really like the option that you can select mutliple releases in a specific category and download them at once. Also to view the product keys there is very useful. But it would be a lot easier if we could select multiple languages. All not native English subscribers are interested in releases in their native language, English and also the MUI-stuff at 'multi-language', so it would be very helpful if we could a) choose multiple languages or b) we get an option to add the English/Multi-language releases to our native ones. Speaking of 'multi-language', it would be nice if they are also added to a real language, e.g. English or the languages where these releases apply to. I'm also missing releases, like almost all 'Windows 2003' and 'Windows 2003 R2' as stated before. But also the x86 version the 'Nl, it, pt, ru, sv Windows 2008 MUI pack' is suddenly gone, whilst the other ones (e.g. x64) are still there :?

  • Anonymous
    April 12, 2008
    "The "What is new in downloads" did get cut from v1.0 but is still in the list of future enhancements." This removes the quickest way to make sure I have the most recent releases. There's no way for me to know what has been made available since my last visit. We really need this. My subscription is expiring soon. Will I get some free days to make up for the lack of useful availability this causes? (probably not, but I thought I'd ask...)

  • Anonymous
    April 12, 2008
    I've been an MSDN subscriber since the very first MSDN release all those years ago (I may even still have the CDs somewhere - I think there were 3 for the entire subscription). The new UI works well enough for me - it's no more twitchy than all the other AJAX multi-level menus out there in the wild.  It does make very poor use of screen space - I run at 1920x1440 on my small monitors, 2560-1600 on the 30 inchers.  I don't need or want a UI that forces me to work in 800x600 pixels. Is it an improvement?  I'd say no - the old UI wasn't broken, in fact it's worked quite well for some years.  I've never had any trouble finding what I'm looking for and would far prefer a tree control to a multi-level menu that artifically forces everything into a 3-level hierarchy.  Such rigid structures rarely work well. Get rid of the "Web 2.0" glitz and give me a fully functional download site.

  • Anonymous
    April 12, 2008
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    April 14, 2008
    I have solved the mystery of my missing downloads! One of the selection filters is 'File Type' and this was set by default (for me anyway) to DVD. I changed this to All Media and the missing bits became visible.

  • Anonymous
    April 14, 2008
    I am completely lost in the new interface. I have no time to learn to use it and my eyes do not like all these moving things. It took 1 minute in the old interface to find something and to be sure that I did not miss any new download. Now, after 15 minutes lost, I cannot say if the product I am waiting for is there or not. Is there a way to continue to use the old interface ?

  • Anonymous
    April 15, 2008
    I despair of MSDN, I really do.   It defeats me how on earth anyone could have thought this idiotic wack-a-mole of pop-ups was an improvement on the last (mediocre) effort, which could have least have been improved merely by making the treeview wider. I only looked at it today because I am looking for an up-to-date library - there are no library disks later than November (which shipped in January), and on subscriber dowloads there's nothing later than June 07!   I know the MSDN library has become almost unusable over the years, but still it must be something fairly close to your core product. Who do we all need to write to (Balmer? Gates?) to get the money/talent/whatever it is that MSDN is so obviously lacking in?

  • Anonymous
    April 16, 2008
    MSDN site has been going downhill for a long time.  JavaScript links, renamed pages creating broken URLs, the site's instability, sloth-like response time, and let’s not forget maliciously rude SilverLight popups. Now we have to deal with an even more encumbering "new UI"   I'm a developer, hence the subscription, I don't need fancy eye candy.  Your "usability study participants" apparently confuse shiny/pretty with usability/functionality.   I'll take functionality over form any day of the week. My suggestion stop letting marketing folks design your web pages.  Or perhaps let them do it without impacting those of us that work for a living.   Maybe have two sites; form.msdn.microsoft.com where you can have your little sandboxstage and function.msdn.microsoft.com where CUSTOMERS can go with the extremely reasonable expectation that it will work with any unnecessary impediments like someone's alleged creativity. OBTW:  PROVIDE A ISO MOUNTING TOOL TO YOU SUBSCRIBER CUSTOMERS!!!

  • Anonymous
    April 26, 2008
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    April 27, 2008
    Besides the size of the Control, when I select OS, why MS-DOS, Windows 9x and Windows NT4.0 are listed at the beginning of the list? Actual releases should be at the beginning of the list. In the OS list XP and Vista are the last onces. I would prefere to switch back to the old Version of downloads!