Please keep old URLs intact

[feltel]

I just stumbled across the new designed support website. The new site looks better than the old one. Time will tell if it is as useful as the old one. One wish regarding the new site I´m having is please keep the old URLs (Warrenty lookup at http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/warrantyLookup.do?type=&serial=&warrantySubmit2.x=0&warra... or the quickpath at http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/quickPath.do?quickPathEntry=). Please set up an redirection so the links do work as before.

A lot of hardware inventory/assett management tools (like ours) using the old URLs to provide links and informations needed by sysadmins like me.

[Mark_Lenovo Administrator]

feltel,

Generically ,  I understand that URL referrals from other docs across the internet  is going to be a concern for many, myself included.   We have a large number of links from discussions and KB articles in just the forum alone that call URLs from the old site for things like International warranty lookup, driver matrix, individual files for downloads, and formal tips.   

The URLs and the old site aren't going to be able to stay up forever, and we will have redirects in place at the doccument level (as I understand it) to prevent these links from breaking.    However, I think we should plan to use this period of redirect to find the new permanent URL and make the change.   I know this will take some time, and I've got many to do myself.

Hmm ... The way quickpath is implemented on the new site, there doesn't seem to be a way to book mark just that function - it is part of the landing page.  Could you tell us more about your use case and whether you could just go to the home page in the future?  

Thanks for bringing this one up - it is an important point !

Best regards,

Mark

[feltel]

Hello Mark,

I´m using the support links in my inventory tool (LANsweeper, www.lansweeper.com) quite often weather to check for drivers, warrenty statuses and so on. As you write there seems to be no direct QuickPath URL in the new website. Please, please create one as external tools, like LANsweeper or other tools require such an URL to provide such services.

Here is a partial screenshot of my machine. The Link next to Support points to the QuickPath-URL.

[feltel]

After the old URLs were working again for some time now they are now gone, maybe forever.

Are there any plans to re-intoduce a similar feature which doesn´t require me to click through the "find my product" assistant for every single machine I have to service, check, update, whatever?

[Mark_Lenovo Administrator]

feltel,

Effective today (8/1/11) there is a hard redirect in place for all the old www-307 URLs that may have been bookmarked.  When clicked, these will take the user to the new support site and to a specific document where possible, and where not possible, will bring them to the home page.

Believe me, that I can appreciate some the impacts from your position because we have thousands of links in the forum that went to the old site and it will be a long process to update them all over time.  I am a customer of our support site in that regard as well.

Because a principle design point and architecture of the new site is built with dynamic URLs a change to provide static URLs for all pages would be a sizeable requirement for a redesign and won't be possible in the short term.

The driver matrix may help you for downloads, but access to tips and part listings will still require you to quick path and navigate that way for each one.

Best regards,

Mark

[feltel]

Mark, I think you misunderstood me a little bit. I don´t want static urls for every single page in the support site. I spoke about the QuickPath feature as a central entry point into the support site. So I have a consistant and predictable URL-format where I or the software I´m using can build the QuickPath-URLs alone. Besides this entry point URLs Lenovo can use whatever urls you want to use, it doesn´t matter.

Sample: http://support.lenovo.com/?machine=3244&model=4WG

With such an URL I can set up my inventory-software to create the links alone and I don´t have to click through the find my product assistant every single time which is annoying when you have to do it several times a day, five days a week.

[Cleo_Lenovo Administrator]

Hi feltel,

Is your software kind of like 'integrating' with our support site? I mean pulling system info from our server with our support site quick path URL and displaying it in your software?

URL for QuickPath seems a lower priority item among all other issues....Anyhow, what i can do is share your feedback with the support team.

Thank you.

Regards,
Cleo

[feltel]

Yes Cleo, you are right and thanks for relaying my request. :-)

[Cleo_Lenovo Administrator]

Hi feltel,

No worries! Nonetheless, I can't guarantee anything though. I'm more like a messenger

Cleo

[Cleo_Lenovo Administrator · Accepted solution]

feltel,

Not sure this one would help you. It may not be the best practice though. Some users may like it....

You can just change the MTM accordingly in this URL.

support.lenovo.com/en_US/default.page?submit=true&componentID=1303746740999&iwPreActions=SetProduct&QuickPath=6477-R4U&osName=Windows

Hope this helps.

- Cleo