FWLinks, LinkIDs--What the heck?!

This post is not explicitly about Group Policy, but we thought you'd find it useful for our content and any other content you navigate and read on Microsoft.com.

Have you ever encountered a Microsoft URL that looks like https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=63080? No doubt you have, and no doubt you have wondered what all of that seemingly unrelated goobledygook has to do with Group Policy or whatever product you are reading about.

Here's the explanation. We call these strange-looking URLs "FWLinks" or "forward links." We use them because it's far easier to change on the back end the target of a published URL than it is to find every last instance of a "real" URL on Live Web sites and update those, if a change occurs. Clear as mud? Trust us--it's the better way to do things. :)

Here's a trick: If you ever see one of these forward links, just write down the number at the very end. In the example above, you would write down 63080. Now go to your favorite search engine--Live Search, of course--and type:

linkid 63080   (or whatever your linkid number happens to be)

The first result will be the forward link, and you are on your way without having to write down or remember all the other stuff that comes before it in the forward link.

CraigLi