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I have a question which is very similar to an old question which has no answer (as of June 7, 2012).

The old question (Querying remote system via WMI returns access denied) includes some of the detail which I would include in my own question, but if I post my own question I would add additional detail (e.g., specific C# code to show what I am trying to do). While the additional detail might help to narrow down the cause of the problem, if it were added to the original question it might change the OP's intent (if his scenario was different from my, though with possibly the same root cause).

But since the original question has no answer yet, I am kind of thinking that it might be better for me to "hijack" the post, heavily edit the original question, get it bumped to the front page and try to get an answer. If instead I simply post a new question, it seems likely that the old, dead question will never be answered anyway.

I know my "meta" question here is similar to etiquette: how to “bump” a question that's the same as the one you wanted to ask? and Should I ask a new question, or edit the existing?. But the difference I see is that here I am asking about a new or transformed question which is enough different in the level of detail to possibly change the final answer for what appears to be a dead question.

Any guidelines for this sort of situation?

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    Is your more detailed question less or more general than the original? If it makes it more general then edit it. If its less general ask a new question. If its exactly the same edit to improve and give it a bounty.
    – Some Helpful Commenter
    Commented Jun 7, 2012 at 19:27
  • My details would make the question less general.
    – Shannon Wagner
    Commented Jun 7, 2012 at 19:32
  • And you weren't able to resolve it via this article
    – Some Helpful Commenter
    Commented Jun 7, 2012 at 19:35
  • No - I've already worked through the information in the article you linked above.
    – Shannon Wagner
    Commented Jun 7, 2012 at 19:45
  • IMHO I think you should go ahead and ask your question. Plenty of people do a lot less then you have in terms of researching existing questions and online documentation and get high quality answers. Just remember though, I'm just one guy, I have no idea how the rest of the community will respond.
    – Some Helpful Commenter
    Commented Jun 7, 2012 at 20:31

1 Answer 1

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That's a pretty old question and I doubt that the bump it would get from an edit would be effective enough to get it seen for long enough, especially for a niche area such as WMI and security.

There's a world of difference between the avalanche of duplicate questions that we see umpteen times a day in the C#, Java, PHP and Javascript tags and solving gnarly security problems in WMI, also you actually bothered to do some research.

If you can do better in your own new question by providing code samples and by providing more precise information about your environment then I can't see any reason for not creating a new question. As a mod I certainly wouldn't close as a dupe.

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