Windows 7 - why no Windows 7 account or folder here yet?

Asked By Ritter197

20-Nov-09 05:31 PM

why no Windows 7 account or folder or category here yet?
This is MS and they do not have Anything here about Win7?

20-Nov-09 05:58 PM

Ritter197 wrote this, with guidance from inner voices:


Because they made a web based forum, no Win7 group on
microsoft.public.windows

There is an alt.windows7.general, but I do not think msnews(or whatever the
standard server is for Windows Live Mail) has alt groups.

You would need to add a new server, plenty are free.
news.x-privat.org is an example (all you need is to register).

Here are some others
http://www.xmarks.com/site/news.aioe.org/

--
Vita brevis breviter in brevi finietur,
Mors venit velociter quae neminem veretur.

20-Nov-09 07:24 PM

MSFT has not created any Win 7 groups on their news server.
They may not ever, as they seem to now prefer forums.
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/category/w7itpro/

Other forums are:
http://www.sevenforums.com
http://forums.mydigitallife.info/forumdisplay.php?f=16
http://www.w7forums.com/
http://windows7forums.com/
http://www.windowsbbs.com/windows-7/


--
Windows 7  Ultimate
http://get.live.com/wlmail/overview
http://download.live.com/wlmail

20-Nov-09 08:17 PM

Microsoft has no Windows 7 newsgroups. And unfortunately it is highly
unlikely that there will be. Apparently Microsoft has decided that
web-based forums are better than newsgroups and they are putting their
efforts there. I am personally sorry that is the case, but it is their
decision, not mine.

However there is at least one non-Microsoft Windows 7 newsgroup:
alt-windows7.general. Not all servers carry it (at least not yet), but
here is one free news server that does: aioe.org


--
Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP (Windows Desktop Experience) since 2003
Please Reply to the Newsgroup

20-Nov-09 08:32 PM

--->

Hi Ken.  I am sorry to hear your assessment, but I agree with it too.  I
like NGs much better than web-based-anythings.  I can keep track of many
NGs using Thunderbird that I just cannot with a browser.  Darn shame.

Questor

20-Nov-09 09:16 PM

To me the main difference is that a newsreader can download all the
messages at once, not one at a time, the way a browser does. The
result is that I can go through the downloaded messages in a newsgroup
*much* faster than in a browser, and quickly pick out those I can or
want to reply to.

The difference in how long it takes me is at least two to one.

--
Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP (Windows Desktop Experience) since 2003
Please Reply to the Newsgroup

20-Nov-09 10:20 PM

--->

Yep.  And Thunderbird also has the "Right-click watch/ignore" extension.
If I do not' want to deal with it I just 'ignore' it.  "Stacked view"
is good too for arranging all the posts.

Later,

Q

21-Nov-09 11:15 AM

Is it reasonable to assume that the blame for this decision from
Microsoft can be laid at the feet of that long list of trolls that
infect the public NG's?

Dave T.

21-Nov-09 11:34 AM

--->

Doubtful; but one never knows.  I suspect that a web-based interface is
much easier to implement and maintain than a NG.

Q

21-Nov-09 11:42 AM

I'd say the reasoning was its easier to place advertisements on web
based forums.
--
Patrick in IL.

21-Nov-09 12:44 PM

No, it is not at all. MS has been planning to go web for years and even
have a "bridge" so you can access them via Windows Live Mail. The "long
list of trolls" has been around MS newsgroups since Win 98.

Alias

21-Nov-09 02:19 PM

No, I do not think so. I do not know why Microsoft made this decision or
any other decision, and I am not willing to make any assumptions about
why they do anything they do. Your view that the long list of trolls
are to blame is a reasonable guess, but a guess is a long way from an
assumption.

And personally, my view is that there were other better ways to deal
with trolls, and what they did was not necessary. So that is not even my
guess.

--
Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP (Windows Desktop Experience) since 2003
Please Reply to the Newsgroup

21-Nov-09 02:56 PM

You two are still humping legs I see.

21-Nov-09 05:18 PM

Patrick Phillips wrote this, with guidance from inner voices:


Marked as answered.

--
Vita brevis breviter in brevi finietur,
Mors venit velociter quae neminem veretur.

21-Nov-09 08:22 PM

Great advice and hyperlinks.
I still prefer Newsgroups, but will use the hyperlinks and forums.
I think they are much harder to navigate.

Ritter197

22-Nov-09 09:23 AM

There is a Windows 7 newsgroup available. It is alt.windows7.general. I get
it from free.teranews.com. Many ISPs have chosen to discontinue alt groups
and some have chosen to not provide any at all (e.g. Verizon).

Isn't there isome kind of NNTP add-in available or being developed (I think
by Microsoft) that will convert the forum format to that of the newsgroups?

Gordo

22-Nov-09 10:36 AM

There is this:
http://microsoft-forums-nntp-bridge-aug-09-beta.software.informer.com/1.0/download/
but it looks like they are going another route.
There is also MAPIlab NNTP  http://www.mapilab.com/outlook/nntp/
that allows reading and posting to newsgroups.
I have used the latter and it works well enough, but not the MS bridge. Others
have, and seem to like it from the posts I have read.

SC Tom

22-Nov-09 11:09 AM

P.S. I should have mentioned these are for Outlook  :-)

22-Nov-09 06:45 PM

Trolls are not restricted to NNTP either, they can follow you to the web.
If you are willing to start banning trolls, this is no more or less
difficult on the web vs NNTP, either way you just need to ensure all
users login.

In the case of microsoft.public.* groups which are propagated to the
rest of the world, this would either need to stop (easy) or the groups
would need to become robomoderated (a change which is not impossible to
implement, but is not trivial)