Direct URL to a Microsoft Community Discussion Entry

== Direktadressierung von Diskussionsbeiträgen in Microsoft’s Community ==

Discussions in Microsoft’s »Community« can get quite lengthy, e. g. »KB3035583 Installing Windows 10 using Windows Update?« with some 250 replies on 25 web pages up to now, seen by over 40 000 people.

Referring directly to a given entry, say this one, saves a lot of time for the reader, but requires some effort by the writer. Typical for good text … I’ll try to show how it’s done.
1. First we must find the lengthy message number we want to refer to, also called message id, like
8cf5b78a-c203-4101-89bf-f4d08f02368b. That’s tedious. To do this, look at the message in your browser and mark some text around it. Example, with Firefox:
         …

         …

Mark some text around the start (head) of your entry, more or less at your discretion, that you want to directly address, in this case the reply of September 3, 2015:

3. Now have your browser show you the selected HTML code (Firefox click right mouse, popup menu: »show selected source code« – »Auswahl-Quelltext anzeigen«). Don’t panic: You get lots of code to see.

4. Look for the »msgid« (message identification). You can do this by Ctrl-F Find, or by eye. I give you an example (in a shrunk box for easier display here):

»msgid« found and marked by the search function. Frame resized. Lots of other HTML code around all this.

If you don’t find »msgid«, try to select another part of the original reply, and look again. It took me two tries here; first I got none, then one too much, you’ll see.

5. OK, now you have the message ID, here 9f11a770-fc05-4d17-be67-de20b73c3c88. The difficult part is done.
   Take the URL from the top of your screen, add &msgID=, add the message ID itself, and you’ve got a working direct URL:
 http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/kb3035583-installing-windows-10-using-windows/e8dc58af-18c4-4ab6-9906-02658b8f402d?page=9&msgID=8cf5b78a-c203-4101-89bf-f4d08f02368b.
   If it’s the message id of the previous or some other entry, bad luck, go back to the search and try the next msgid by down arrow:

Here we have msgid="e6f7220e-2072-4398-ab08-22aaf3f7a506". The resulting URL becomes http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/kb3035583-installing-windows-10-using-windows/e8dc58af-18c4-4ab6-9906-02658b8f402d?page=9&msgid=e6f7220e-2072-4398-ab08-22aaf3f7a506 – Try it, you’ll like it.

There must be an easier way.
   Noel Burgess knew, thank you Noel!
1. Once you have the message ID, the most direct link to the message is simply
http://answers.microsoft.com/message/{msgid}, e.g.
http://answers.microsoft.com/message/4a994164-0eb2-4b29-89c3-190e3bb0ad75
2. If the message you want to link to is in the latest 40 posts, click the RSS feed button  on the page and find the post you want to link to. Its heading is the direct link to it, e.g.
KB3035583 Installing Windows 10 using Windows Update?
   Using IE, right-click on the heading and Copy shortcut (»Link-Adresse kopieren«) will place the direct link on your clipboard.
   This works similarly for whole threads, too:
http://answers.microsoft.com/thread/e8dc58af-18c4-4ab6-9906-02658b8f402d
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Screenshots courtesy free Gadwin Print Screen. Top bar with date courtesy Title Time. Little courtesy to Microsoft, stealing time from us. Why not – instead of likes and other wasteful crap – display the message ID and give a link? And letting us run Win 7 instead of pushing Win 10? Even I can add a direct link:
   Link to this »blog a bissl« (»Blog a Bit«) here blog entry: 
http://blogabissl.blogspot.com/2015/10/direct-url-to-microsoft-community.html