# MSDN

17 Hacker News commenters recommended MSDN and 10 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 10 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Developers recommend its well-organized documentation and code examples, and the offline CD library of the past. Critics say search is poor and older material has gone missing.

## Why people recommend it

- Thorough, well-organized documentation (3 comments): "at least the MSDN library (the entire stack of CDs & DVDs it was on) had extensive documentation" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50064104)) "MSDN is surprisingly good, understandable, well organized, lots of examples." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49438372)) "the documentation available was excellent" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47019750))
- Lots of code examples (4 comments): "MSDN is surprisingly good, understandable, well organized, lots of examples." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49438372)) "The value was the multiple CDs of MSDN documentation and code samples" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49032834)) "MSDN, another great site with its examples" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49343571))
- Offline CD library for programming (4 comments): "at least the MSDN library (the entire stack of CDs & DVDs it was on) had extensive documentation" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50064104)) "it was reasonable to program offline. We should bring that model back." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49296963)) "The value was the multiple CDs of MSDN documentation and code samples" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49032834))

## What people warn about

- Search is poor and hard (2 comments): "MSDN search is awful and the bits of info you need are scattered across three different articles, none of which link directly to each other" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48512556)) "god is it a quest to find anything in there." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50304971))
- Expensive subscription prices (2 comments): "You'd be up for a thousand dollars annually an MSDN academic subscription just to get Visual Basic." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48257165)) "their access prices for the services in the late 90s and early 00s were eyewatering" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47019863))
- Old versions and resources disappearing (3 comments): "The VS2008 version purged all API information regarding pre-Windows 2000." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45952547)) "Today's Docs site seems to keep info only for a few versions." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45951945)) "now most resources are either gone or unfindable" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46117158))

## Where to get it

- [Visit the official site](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "MSDN", https://hackerapproved.com/p/msdn/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).