Microsoft Developer Network

Starting in January 2020, the website was fully integrated with Microsoft Docs (itself integrated into Microsoft Learn in 2022).

Websites

MSDN's primary web presence at msdn.microsoft.com was a collection of sites for the developer community that provided information, documentation, and discussion that was authored both by Microsoft and by the community at large. Microsoft later began placing emphasis on incorporation of forums, blogs, library annotations and social bookmarking to make MSDN an open dialog with the developer community rather than a one-way service. The main website, and most of its constituent applications below were available in 56 or more languages.

Library

MSDN Library was a library of official technical documentation intended for independent developers of software for Microsoft Windows. MSDN Library documented the APIs that ship with Microsoft products and also included sample code, technical articles, and other programming information. The library was freely available on the web, with CDs and DVDs of the most recent materials initially issued quarterly as part of an MSDN subscription. However, beginning in 2006, they were available to be freely downloaded from Microsoft Download Center in the form of ISO images.

Visual Studio Express edition integrated only with MSDN Express Library, which was a subset of the full MSDN Library, although either edition of the MSDN Library could be freely downloaded and installed standalone.

In Visual Studio 2010 MSDN Library was replaced with the new Help System, which was installed as a part of Visual Studio 2010 installation. Help Library Manager was used to install Help Content books covering selected topics.

In 2016, Microsoft introduced the new technical documentation platform, Microsoft Docs, intended as a replacement for the TechNet and MSDN libraries. Over the next two years, the content of the MSDN Library was gradually migrated into Microsoft Docs. In 2022, Microsoft Docs was itself incorporated into Microsoft Learn. MSDN Library pages now redirect to the corresponding Microsoft Learn pages.

Integration with Visual Studio

Each edition of MSDN Library could only be accessed with one help viewer (Microsoft Document Explorer or other help viewer), which was integrated with the then current single version or sometimes two versions of Visual Studio. In addition, each new version of Visual Studio did not integrate with an earlier version of MSDN. A compatible MSDN Library was released with each new version of Visual Studio and included on the Visual Studio DVD. As newer versions of Visual Studio were released, newer editions of MSDN Library did not integrate with older Visual Studio versions and did not even include old/obsolete documentation for deprecated or discontinued products. MSDN Library versions could be installed side-by-side, that is, both the older as well as the newer versions of MSDN Library could co-exist.

Forums

MSDN Forums were the web-based forums used by the community to discuss a wide variety of software development topics. MSDN Forums were migrated to an all-new platform during 2008 that provided new features designed to improve efficiency such as inline preview of threads, AJAX filtering, and a slide-up post editor.

Blogs

MSDN blogs was a series of blogs that were hosted under Microsoft's domain blogs.msdn.com. Some blogs were dedicated to a product – e.g. Visual Studio, Internet Explorer, PowerShell – or a version of a product – e.g. Windows 7, Windows 8 – while others belonged to a Microsoft employee, e.g. Michael Howard or Raymond Chen. In May 2020, the MSDN and TechNet blogs were closed and the content was archived at Microsoft Docs.

Social bookmarking

Social bookmarking on MSDN Social was first launched in 2008, built on a new web platform that had user-tagging and feeds at its core. The goal of the social bookmarking application was to provide a method whereby members of the developer community could:

• Contribute to a database of quality links on any topic from across the web. By filtering on one or more tags, (e.g. ".net" and "database") users could discover popular or recent links and subscribe to a feed of those links.
• Find and follow experts' recommended sites. Each profile page included a feed of the user's contributions. Users could be discovered through a drop-down menu on each bookmark.
• Demonstrate their expertise through the links displayed in their profile.
• Store their favorite links online.

The initial release of the application provided standard features for the genre, including a bookmarklet and import capabilities. The MSDN web site was also starting to incorporate feeds of social bookmarks from experts and the community, displayed alongside feeds from relevant bloggers.

The social bookmarking feature was discontinued on October 1, 2009.