Has anyone found a likely replacement (substitute) forum for this news
group?

I took a look through them, and didn't see a likely one.

- Bill
_________________
Everything matters.

Microsoft is suggesting

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/...rovirt/threads

Just ignore the sticky message about it only being for Windows VPC. (the
latest version of VPC that only runs in Win7.)

--
Bob Comer <Microsoft MVP - Virtual Machine>

"Bill Leary" <> wrote in message
news:3C5EF345-B961-494F-8789-...
> Has anyone found a likely replacement (substitute) forum for this news
> group?
>
> I took a look through them, and didn't see a likely one.
>
> - Bill
> _________________
> Everything matters.

Bill Leary wrote:

> Has anyone found a likely replacement (substitute) forum for this news
> group?
>
> I took a look through them, and didn't see a likely one.

Sure. It's called microsoft.public.virtualpc. Microsoft is killing off
their own NNTP server. Microsoft is not Usenet. You'll have to use a
different NSP to continue accessing this newsgroup. Ask in the
alt.free.newsservers group on suggestions for free NSPs (the one that I
use is free, carries this newsgroup, and will continue carrying it
despite Microsoft's scrambling away from Usenet where they had no
control).

See my sig. Mhile the VB reference is of no use to you, the news group access might. Eternal september claims they will be ignoring msft's remove message, which means the heiarchy will continue.

--
Customer Hatred Knows No Bounds at MSFT
Free usenet access at http://www.eternal-september.org
ClassicVB Users Regroup! comp.lang.basic.visual.misc


"VanguardLH" <> wrote in message news:htu89g$7jj$...
: Bill Leary wrote:
:
: > Has anyone found a likely replacement (substitute) forum for this news
: > group?
: >
: > I took a look through them, and didn't see a likely one.
:
: Sure. It's called microsoft.public.virtualpc. Microsoft is killing off
: their own NNTP server. Microsoft is not Usenet. You'll have to use a
: different NSP to continue accessing this newsgroup. Ask in the
: alt.free.newsservers group on suggestions for free NSPs (the one that I
: use is free, carries this newsgroup, and will continue carrying it
: despite Microsoft's scrambling away from Usenet where they had no
: control).

On Sun, 30 May 2010 14:53:01 -0400, "C. Kevin Provance" <*@*.*> wrote:

>See my sig. Mhile the VB reference is of no use to you, the news group access might. Eternal september claims they will be ignoring msft's remove message, which means the heiarchy will continue.

Seems good to me. I just enrolled and downloaded the vpc and vs
groups. Got a few months worth of articles out of the server starting
Feb 7, 2010, I guess they don't keep everything. Maybe it is not
considered "news" after 4 months....


--
Bo Berglund (Sweden)

C. Kevin Provance wrote:

NOTE: Do *not* use quoted-printable format when posting to newsgroups.
Configure OE to post using plain text, MIME encoding (set to None), and
to wrap lines at 76 character, or less (72 allows more levels of indents
for quoting in replies before OE screws up in generating jagged
replies).

Kevin's post wrapped at 72 characters max per line for proper formatting
in newsgroup posts.

> See my sig. Mhile the VB reference is of no use to you, the news
> group access might. Eternal september claims they will be ignoring
> msft's remove message, which means the heiarchy will continue.

I used to use Eternal-September (even back when it was called
Motzarella). There was a time when he had hard disk problems too often
and then later some other problems so I left and went to Albasani.

Bo Berglund wrote:

> C. Kevin Provance wrote:
>
>> Eternal september claims they will be ignoring msft's remove message,
>> which means the heiarchy will continue.

I have heard of no official statement from a recognized Microsoft
representative that Microsoft will issue any rmgroup control messages in
a vain attempt to remove the microsoft.* newsgroups from other NSPs. It
would highly unlikely that any NSP would honor any such control messages
from Microsoft even if they were using Microsoft's NNTP server as their
primary peering host. It is some self-appointed wannabe netcop that has
threatened to issue the rmgroup control message. A few NSPs will honor
it (which means they overtly chose to let someone else regulate their
NNTP server) but most will simply ignore it along with all the other
unauthorized control messages that they've received daily for decades.

> Seems good to me. I just enrolled and downloaded the vpc and vs
> groups. Got a few months worth of articles out of the server starting
> Feb 7, 2010, I guess they don't keep everything. Maybe it is not
> considered "news" after 4 months....

Since it is a *free* NSP, they don't have the deep pockets of Google
(from ad revenue) or Giganews (with paid subscriptions) for the disk
consumption or bandwidth to carry antiquated posts. That's what Google
Groups is for (as poor as it has become in the last year and half along
with allowing a-holes to use the X-No-Archive to punch holes in threads
- I killfile any posters using this header since obviously they don't
consider their posts of any value to keep around). Threads that are
over 2 weeks old are pretty stale and usually dead, even more so when
they become a month old (I don't bother keeping any posts over 15 days
old in my newsreader). If I need to search on prior articles, that's
what the Google Groups archive is for.

For a free NSP (which means someone else is paying for the bandwidth,
peering, and disk space for you), a year is probably the max for
retention. As I recall for ES, their retention was 2 years for de.*,
160 days for the Big 8 hierarchy, 130 days for alt.*, and 90 days for
the other hierarchies. microsoft.* is not part of the Big 8 hierarchy
and fall under the "other hierarchies". So 90 days for the other
hierarchies which include specialty ones, like microsoft.*, looks about
what you are seeing. Albasani's retention is 300 days. As I recall,
AIOE's may only be 15 days (when it is up). Commercial NSPs are much
longer, like 2533 days for text groups (661 for binary groups) for
Giganews.

As I recall, you get free access but not unregistered access with ES.
That is, you have to register to get an account and then use that
account's login credentials to get your newsreader to connect to their
NNTP server. If you leave your account idle for over 180 days, it
expires. Albasani is the same way: you have to register for free access
to their posting server (no registration needed for read-only access).

I don't think you need to register to get an account from AIOE which is
why a lot of troll and noise posts originate from there, plus they seem
to be down a lot (I don't know if AIOE still exists as a viable
*posting* server). AIOE's operator likes to play with anti-spam quotas
that violate RFC or de facto Usenet standards and it has some low
quotas, like only 25 postings per day (so only use AIOE if you aren't a
prolific poster but then 25/day is a very low threshold for a definition
of "prolific").

Because these are altruistic NSPs paying your way to Usenet access, they
rarely carry any binary newsgroups. The porn simply consumes way too
much bandwidth and gobs of disk space. So expect only to find text
newsgroups on the free NNTP servers.

No one has to drop the microsoft.* newsgroups just because Microsoft
crawled back to web-based forums to give them control. Web-based forums
have been around for 16+ years so they are not the new means of
community-based help claimed by Microsoft. Microsoft didn't enter
Usenet with their pretend forums via their webnews-for-boobs gateway
until 2006, so this has been less than a 4-year experiment by Microsoft.
Well, 4 years is longer than the average of 2 major changes they've made
to Hotmail *every* year that has made its users scramble to catch up.
Usenet has survived many technological changes to communication venues
since its inception 30 years ago: web-based forums, messenger clients,
IRC, blogs, Twitter, Facebook, other social networking, etc - and still
Usenet provided an effective means to discuss viewpoints, discuss
problems, or share information. It's a simple concept that still works.
Usenet isn't going away because Microsoft failed in their experiment.

Some NSPs will have to change their peering relationships since
Microsoft's NNTP server was a primary peer to many NSPs. No NSP has to
honor some self-appointed Usenet admin that threatens to issue a rmgroup
control message anymore than they have to honor anyone's control
message.

"VanguardLH" <> wrote in message
news:htv67i$khu$...
: C. Kevin Provance wrote:
:
: NOTE: Do *not* use quoted-printable format when posting to newsgroups.
: Configure OE to post using plain text, MIME encoding (set to None), and
: to wrap lines at 76 character, or less (72 allows more levels of indents
: for quoting in replies before OE screws up in generating jagged
: replies).
:
: Kevin's post wrapped at 72 characters max per line for proper formatting
: in newsgroup posts.
:
: > See my sig. Mhile the VB reference is of no use to you, the news
: > group access might. Eternal september claims they will be ignoring
: > msft's remove message, which means the heiarchy will continue.
:
: I used to use Eternal-September (even back when it was called
: Motzarella). There was a time when he had hard disk problems too often
: and then later some other problems so I left and went to Albasani.

Sorry. The mime setting was set to "Quote printable" or something like
that. I'm not sure what that happened. Everything else was as you
suggested.


--
Customer Hatred Knows No Bounds at MSFT
Free usenet access at http://www.eternal-september.org
ClassicVB Users Regroup! comp.lang.basic.visual.misc

On Sun, 30 May 2010 22:14:59 -0500, VanguardLH <> wrote:

>Bo Berglund wrote:
>
>> C. Kevin Provance wrote:
>>
>>> Eternal september claims they will be ignoring msft's remove message,
>>> which means the heiarchy will continue.
>
>I have heard of no official statement from a recognized Microsoft
>representative that Microsoft will issue any rmgroup control messages in
>a vain attempt to remove the microsoft.* newsgroups from other NSPs. It
>would highly unlikely that any NSP would honor any such control messages
>from Microsoft even if they were using Microsoft's NNTP server as their
>primary peering host. It is some self-appointed wannabe netcop that has
>threatened to issue the rmgroup control message. A few NSPs will honor
>it (which means they overtly chose to let someone else regulate their
>NNTP server) but most will simply ignore it along with all the other
>unauthorized control messages that they've received daily for decades.
>
>> Seems good to me. I just enrolled and downloaded the vpc and vs
>> groups. Got a few months worth of articles out of the server starting
>> Feb 7, 2010, I guess they don't keep everything. Maybe it is not
>> considered "news" after 4 months....
>
>Since it is a *free* NSP, they don't have the deep pockets of Google
>(from ad revenue) or Giganews (with paid subscriptions) for the disk
>consumption or bandwidth to carry antiquated posts. That's what Google
>Groups is for (as poor as it has become in the last year and half along
>with allowing a-holes to use the X-No-Archive to punch holes in threads
>- I killfile any posters using this header since obviously they don't
>consider their posts of any value to keep around). Threads that are
>over 2 weeks old are pretty stale and usually dead, even more so when
>they become a month old (I don't bother keeping any posts over 15 days
>old in my newsreader). If I need to search on prior articles, that's
>what the Google Groups archive is for.
>
>For a free NSP (which means someone else is paying for the bandwidth,
>peering, and disk space for you), a year is probably the max for
>retention. As I recall for ES, their retention was 2 years for de.*,
>160 days for the Big 8 hierarchy, 130 days for alt.*, and 90 days for
>the other hierarchies. microsoft.* is not part of the Big 8 hierarchy
>and fall under the "other hierarchies". So 90 days for the other
>hierarchies which include specialty ones, like microsoft.*, looks about
>what you are seeing. Albasani's retention is 300 days. As I recall,
>AIOE's may only be 15 days (when it is up). Commercial NSPs are much
>longer, like 2533 days for text groups (661 for binary groups) for
>Giganews.
>
>As I recall, you get free access but not unregistered access with ES.
>That is, you have to register to get an account and then use that
>account's login credentials to get your newsreader to connect to their
>NNTP server. If you leave your account idle for over 180 days, it
>expires. Albasani is the same way: you have to register for free access
>to their posting server (no registration needed for read-only access).
>
>I don't think you need to register to get an account from AIOE which is
>why a lot of troll and noise posts originate from there, plus they seem
>to be down a lot (I don't know if AIOE still exists as a viable
>*posting* server). AIOE's operator likes to play with anti-spam quotas
>that violate RFC or de facto Usenet standards and it has some low
>quotas, like only 25 postings per day (so only use AIOE if you aren't a
>prolific poster but then 25/day is a very low threshold for a definition
>of "prolific").
>
>Because these are altruistic NSPs paying your way to Usenet access, they
>rarely carry any binary newsgroups. The porn simply consumes way too
>much bandwidth and gobs of disk space. So expect only to find text
>newsgroups on the free NNTP servers.
>
>No one has to drop the microsoft.* newsgroups just because Microsoft
>crawled back to web-based forums to give them control. Web-based forums
>have been around for 16+ years so they are not the new means of
>community-based help claimed by Microsoft. Microsoft didn't enter
>Usenet with their pretend forums via their webnews-for-boobs gateway
>until 2006, so this has been less than a 4-year experiment by Microsoft.
>Well, 4 years is longer than the average of 2 major changes they've made
>to Hotmail *every* year that has made its users scramble to catch up.
>Usenet has survived many technological changes to communication venues
>since its inception 30 years ago: web-based forums, messenger clients,
>IRC, blogs, Twitter, Facebook, other social networking, etc - and still
>Usenet provided an effective means to discuss viewpoints, discuss
>problems, or share information. It's a simple concept that still works.
>Usenet isn't going away because Microsoft failed in their experiment.
>
>Some NSPs will have to change their peering relationships since
>Microsoft's NNTP server was a primary peer to many NSPs. No NSP has to
>honor some self-appointed Usenet admin that threatens to issue a rmgroup
>control message anymore than they have to honor anyone's control
>message.

Interestingly, this particular reply from VanguardLH did not make it
into the Microsoft server...
At least it was not present when I updated the news content from the
microsoft server while it seems to have been posted *before* other
replies to this thread....

Was that because MS decided it had content directed against themselves
or is there a limit to the length of a post to forward it to other
serveres that is used by ES?


--
Bo Berglund (Sweden)

On Sun, 30 May 2010 14:53:01 -0400, "C. Kevin Provance" <*@*.*> wrote:

>See my sig. Mhile the VB reference is of no use to you, the news group access might.
>Eternal september claims they will be ignoring msft's remove message, which means
>the heiarchy will continue.

It seems like the replication from E-S to microsoft is incomplete....
VanguardLH replied to this thread with two posts, but only one made it
to the Microsoft server. The missing one contained critical comments
on the way Microsoft manages its newsservers.
Is this a sign of censorship on Microsoft's side?

It also seems to be a rather long delay between posting on E-S and the
actual apperanance on the microsoft server of the message.

--

Bo Berglund (Sweden)