First, let me describe my top three personal favorite subareas, and then I'll tell you what your fellow readers liked. Because of the number of links here, you may want to read this column online (http://www.winmag.com/library/1999/0801/ana0010.htm), where all the links will be live and clickable.

Microsoft Personal Support Center: At http://support.microsoft.com/support/default.asp, you can gain access to a broad range of technical info for just about all Microsoft products and technologies. It includes pointers to newsgroups, ways to order tech-support documents by e-mail, support addresses and phone numbers, and information on additional resources. It's a great place to start when you're trying to solve a particular problem.

MSDN (Microsoft Developer Network) Online: The pages at the Developer Network (http://msdn.microsoft.com/default.asp) are rich with free, practical, hands-on information, tutorials, downloads and more. It's where I go to learn about new tools and techniques, or to refresh my skills in an area where I've gotten rusty. By the way, don't let the name put you off: Just about all of us build Web pages and sites, and many of us write scripts or other programmatic applets. There's good info here for anyone beyond the "newbie" level.

Still, if the very idea of software development turns you off, jump straight to http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.htm to see an easily accessible trove of sample code, documentation, technical articles and references.

TechNet: Located at http://www.microsoft.com/technet, TechNet has a number of subsections, and the deeper you go the better it generally gets. For example, at CD-Online (http://technet.microsoft.com/cdonline
/default.asp), you'll get free access to much of the content on the $299 TechNet CD subscription software series-all you have to do is fill out a short questionnaire.

While those are my personal top picks, with 250,000 pages to choose from, there's lots, lots more. Here are some of the best-as nominated by your fellow readers:

Make the Most of Windows 95: http://support.microsoft.com/support
/windows/serviceware/win95/default.asp.

Make the Most of Win98: http://support.microsoft.com/support
/windows/serviceware/win98/default.asp.

Make the Most of WinNT: http://support.microsoft.com/support
/default.asp?PR=ntw&FR=0&SD=SO&.

Download Center: The pages starting at http://www.microsoft.com/msdownload contain most of the free downloads, broken into myriad subcategories.

MS Office Sites: You'll find a huge array of info and tools for deploying, maintaining and supporting Office 97/98/2000 at the Office Resource Kit site: http://www.microsoft.com/office
/ork/home.htm. You can keep your copy current with the Office Update site at http://officeupdate.microsoft.com; and if you're developing for or with Office, check out the Office Developer Forum at http://www.microsoft.com/officedev/.

Compatibility Lists: Need to check whether your hardware or software will work with a particular Microsoft OS or application? Go to http://www.microsoft.com/windows/compatible.

Year 2000 Resource Center: http://www.microsoft.com/y2k/.

Research Center: Microsoft currently spends more on pure R&D than any other software company. Over at http://research.microsoft.com, you can see what the company is working on, and even download free working samples and kits of what may eventually become future products.

Typography Group: You can download a surprising number of free fonts, tools and utilities at http://www.microsoft.com/typography/default.asp.

Free Online Seminars and Tutorials: Many business-oriented online training and background information seminars can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/seminar.

Direct Access: If you're a reseller or consultant, you might find the information located at http://www.microsoft.com/directaccess particularly useful.

Microsoft Internet Developer Magazine: http://www.microsoft.com/mind.

Interoperability Center: Help make your MS products work better with other non-MS platforms and systems. See http://www.microsoft.com/interoperability.

Intranet Center: If you need help building or managing an intranet, see http://www.microsoft.com/intranet.

And just for fun, visit the TerraServer: Take 2.9 terabytes of high-resolution satellite images of earth from the U.S. Geological Survey and the Russian Space Agency's Sovinformsputnik, dump it in a gigantic database spanning 324 separate 9GB hard drives, and you have a really interesting demo. You may be able to see your own office or house from space: http://www.terraserver.microsoft.com.

subscribe@langa.com. Contact Fred through his home page at http://www.langa.com, or care of the editor at the addresses on page 20.