Newsgroups

Newsgroups are a collection of ongoing discussions (threads) that cover a particular topic and are available to anyone who has access to a news reader or even just a web browser. It is a lot like sending an email message, except for the fact that anybody with access to the same newsgroup can read your message.

They are great forums for sharing your own knowledge and experience, as well as seeing what others have to say. When using a newsgroup, you can either post a message in response to an ongoing conversation thread, or pose your own questions.

When you post a question, many thousands of people may read about your problem, and you are generally assured of getting an answer quickly. Where else can you ask a question at 3am and know that somebody, somewhere will be reading of your dilemma in what is the middle of their day? But always remember, the regular advisers are volunteers who help out in the newsgroups in the spare time left to them after work and family commitments. Sometimes you may have to wait a day or so, especially during business hours, or at busy times such as after the release of a new programme, upgrade or beta or during holidays periods.

How do I use newsgroups?

ISPs often provide newsgroups as part of their overall service. MSN, unfortunately, does not. MSN users can access a service such as http://news.individual.net/ (which is free) or http://www.supernews.com/ (which is not), or http://www.teranews.com/ which is 'anonymous'.

There are many 'specialised' newsgroups available - you will find a lot listed at this URL: http://www.nyx.net/~bkraft/

Newsgroups can also be accessed using your web browser (Internet Explorer, Netscape, Mozille etc), for example - http://groups.google.com/

Microsoft Newsgroups

When you have a Windows problem to solve, an excellent place to ask for help is the newsgroups on Microsoft's free public news server.

Microsoft now provides a web interface for newsgroup access. The early version was slow, and dare I say unreliable at times but things have improved and the site has been updated to make it much easier to navigate. Testing using my old fashioned 33.6k modem has shown quite satisfactory access speeds. The only groups available are those on the microsoft.public server. This list is comprehensive, if not complete.

To access the Microsoft web interface, click here.

If you wish to access the microsoft.public newsgroups using a traditional NNTP newsreader such as Outlook Express, Agent, Gravity, Xnews etc, simply click on this link to automatically subscribe to the Microsoft public news server. Once subscribed, download the complete list of newsgroups available, and choose a group of interest to you from one of the many available covering virtually every Microsoft programme.

If your interest is Internet Explorer or Outlook Express you can click on one of the links below to go directly to a Newsgroup that I frequent.

Newsgroup Rules of Conduct

Before posting to the newsgroups, it is recommended that we familiarise ourselves with how, and where, and when to post to newsgroups.

Making Effective Newsgroup Posts
Microsoft Newsgroups rules of conduct

Sandi's Site

How do I use newsgroups?

Microsoft Newsgroups

Newsgroup Rules of Conduct

Security newsgroups

Internet Explorer 5.0 and 5.01

Internet Explorer 5.5

Internet Explorer 6

Outlook Express

Windows Millennium Edition

Windows XP