As first spotted by Windows Latest, the answers.microsoft.com (Microsoft Answers, also called Windows Answers or Forum), which was famous for internet memes and some solid advice, has been redirected to Microsoft Q&A (learn.microsoft.com).
Microsoft Answers was the same consumer-facing support hub where millions of Windows users have asked troubleshooting questions since 2009.
In late June 2025, when visiting answers.microsoft.com forum, Windows Latest spotted a small banner at the top of the forum, which confirmed that the Windows forum will be moved to Microsoft Q&A (learn.microsoft.com). At that time, Microsoft said that the change would allow the company to build a more streamlined experience for discussions.
“Starting July 2, you will no longer be able to create new questions here in the Microsoft Support Community,” Microsoft noted. “However, you can continue to participate in ongoing discussions and create new questions on Microsoft Q&A. Thank you for your understanding and cooperation.”
Now, we noticed that answers.microsoft.com has been completely migrated to learn.microsoft.com. All links now automatically redirect.
Microsoft has set up a 301 redirect, which is a permanent redirect. Windows Latest also spotted that Google and Bing traffic to answers.microsoft.com forum is slowly dropping, as search engines pick up the change.
The new learn.microsoft.com’s Microsoft Q&A forum is more or less the same, but Windows Latest noticed that it now pushes AI. Microsoft Q&A has a “Q&A Assist” feature, which is powered by Microsoft’s in-house AI model and is trained on the discussions created across its forums.
Microsoft had created a mess of too many forums, but Microsoft Answers was special
Microsoft is no stranger to support forums. In fact, the tech giant has had four distinct official forum platforms, and at one point, all of these were active simultaneously.
The earliest one was Microsoft Newsgroups, based on NNTP, which provided support for Windows, Office, and other MS products, but was accessed via Outlook Express. It ran from the mid-1990s to 2010 and was replaced by web-based forums.
The software behemoth also managed TechNet forums for sysadmins and enterprise IT, alongside MSDN forums, which were more dev-focused (Windows SDK, APIs, debugging). However, both handled Windows-related issues as well.
Questions posed by the community often overlapped, with Windows-related topics surfacing across both forums regardless of their intended audience. I feel this might be why, in 2019, the company announced Microsoft Q&A, which was set out to replace MSDN and TechNet Forums. However, Microsoft says that it started Q&A to address the evolving needs of the community.
But answers.microsoft.com was actually quite special, not because some discussions had solid advice, but also because of the fact that the majority of the ‘answers’ were more or less limited to “run SFC.”
There were plenty of running jokes about the old Microsoft Answers/Community forum. The memes mostly poked fun at fixes like “run SFC /SCANNOW” or “Reset this PC.” Also, we would often come across the copy-paste opener “Hi, I’m <name>, an Independent Advisor…”
But don’t worry, while the forum has been redirected, all old answers are still there and I casually found dozens of recent “Run SFC” advices again, so nothing has really changed.
What is Microsoft Q&A?
Microsoft Q&A is the company’s current and only official support forum, and is hosted under the Microsoft Learn umbrella. While it was originally launched to combine MSDN and TechNet, it is now also absorbing the Microsoft Answers/Community site.
Unlike the old web-based forums, Q&A runs entirely on a modern web application layer. Since it is built on top of Microsoft’s Learn platform, your profile activity ties directly into the Microsoft ecosystem that includes Microsoft Learn’s Documentation, Training, and Certifications.
I also noticed a structured tagging system in Q&A. When I typed in “Windows update” in the search bar for the Tags section, several well-defined tags showed up, and from there I chose “Windows for home | Windows 11 | Windows update”, which was exactly the one I wanted.
While adding questions to Q&A, you can select the appropriate tags so it reaches the right experts. This helps improve discoverability and reduces duplication, which was a major issue with the previous forums.
Windows Support Community is moving to Microsoft Q&A
Microsoft Q&A looks and feels more modern than all the outgoing forums, considering that it has to include discussions of all Microsoft’s products.
Microsoft has successfully ported all content from previous forums to Q&A. Of course, I do not expect this migration to be easy for long-time users of the Microsoft Community.
For example, when I searched “How can I connect with Microsoft expert directly” in Bing, the second result was from Microsoft Learn. In the screenshot below, the web page in Microsoft Q&A shows a user expressing concerns about connecting with a support agent, and they want to know how they can directly connect with a Microsoft expert.
An independent advisor responded to this query. But if you look closer, you can see a note mentioning that this question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community.
The question is also locked, which means that you can’t add comments or replies. Upvoting is possible, though.
If you have spent years sharing solutions to questions in the forums, this might feel like a big step backward. Bookmarked links could break. However, I have noticed that the links from the Windows forum redirect to a particular section in Q&A.
TechNet and MSDN are now fully archived in Microsoft Q&A
MSDN TechNet forums are completely archived in Microsoft Learn. You can’t do anything else here apart from viewing the questions and replies.
Also, I have noted that, unlike the Microsoft Q&A pages that I showed earlier, these archived pages are not always showing up at the top of search results, even when I used the same text as in the questions. Only very specific questions come at the top.
How to use Microsoft Q&A?
When you search for Microsoft Q&A in Bing, the most prominent link takes you to the Questions section. Here, you’ll find the combined questions from all of Microsoft past forums.
Currently, there are more than 1.6 million questions, and it’s fair to say that Q&A is getting good traction. Every day I open the page, there are numerous new questions. You can filter through these questions with the options on the left.
I recommend that you sign in with your Microsoft account, so your Q&A contributions, if any, may live alongside any certifications or documentation feedback you might do.
To search for any specific issue, like Windows updates, click the Tags option on the top left. Here, you can search for any issues or select the right one from the list of tags shown.
As of writing this article, there are 1,110 tags. You cannot create tags, which is good and avoids clutter. But you can follow Tags to see the questions and solutions from the specific issues that you are interested in knowing about. I also like the filter option, which lets me see only the tags I follow; great for power users. As expected, clicking on a tag shows all questions related to that particular tag.
If you click Q&A on the top left, just below the Microsoft logo, you’ll be taken to the page that shows all of Microsoft’s top products and categories.
Select one category and you’ll see all questions related to it. You can also follow these categories, just like you would in tags.
How to ask a question in Microsoft Q&A
Click the Ask a question button on the top right of the Q&A page. You can give a Title here, and Microsoft recommends we write the question as if we ask a colleague, which means you can be as specific as you like. But remember to select the right tag.
The Details section has formatting options as well, along with the ability to add code, images, files, and tables.
Once you fill out these, you can ask it directly to Q&A Assist, which is Microsoft’s AI assistant for Q&A. It’s nice not to see Copilot for a change. It can either answer your question or help you out by finding similar questions or improving your existing question.
If you aren’t satisfied with the AI’s answer, you can click the Post your question button, and hopefully get a response soon.
Answering and contributing to Q&A
When you open a question in Q&A, you can upvote it with “I have the same question” button, follow the question to see updates, comment on the question if you have any extra information to provide, and you can answer the question with a solution that feels fit. While answering, you have access to the same formatting options for asking questions.
Q&A might have a stricter code of conduct than the old forums. Threads may be locked or removed if they go off-topic.
With the shutdown of Microsoft Community’s Windows forum, we now have a single hub for all issues and doubts related to any and all of Microsoft’s services.
The fact that Q&A shares the Microsoft Learn domain suggests that the company considers it a place to learn and share knowledge. Based on my initial impressions, the better tagging system, formatting, and filter options make Q&A easy for community adoption.
