Replacement forum?

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/Forums/en-US/w7itprovirt/threads

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

 

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


: 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).

 

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....

 

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.

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.

 

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.

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.

 

: 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.

 

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?

 

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.

 

Interestingly my own reply to VanguardLH, which had quoted his text,
is also not forwarded (or accepted) to the Microsoft newsserver...

 

OK, so, I've been using Giganews for years for everything except the
Microsoft groups. I just went over there and typed in
"microsoft.public.virtualpc" and there it is. With 54890 messages.

- Bill

 

Microsoft's NNTP server (and their webnews-for-boobs gateway) is known
to drop or not pickup (through peering) some posts. Even if you post
using Microsoft's own NNTP server, some of your posts may disappear.
Their NNTP server will respond with an +OK status so your client thinks
your post was accepted but your post won't show up (i.e., it gets
filtered out AFTER being successfully accepted from your client).

Part of the problem is with the filtering employed by Microsoft. All it
might take at times is mention of one of the "alt . *" (remove spaces)
newsgroups to have Microsoft drop the post. When this was happening in
my past posts that mentioned an alt newsgroup, another poster did the
same test and found his posts that mentioned an alt newsgroup were also
getting dropped. I don't know of any documentation detailing
Microsoft's filtering of newsgroup posts but they do have some, and it
apparently füçks up occasionally.

That's another reason why I switched away from Microsoft's NNTP server a
long time ago. You would post but it wouldn't show up there. If I post
using a non-Microsoft NNTP server, my post shows up in the rest of
Usenet and may show up on Microsoft's NNTP server. If it happens not to
show up on Microsoft's NNTP server, it still gets peered everywhere
else. That Microsoft's NNTP server drops posts really isn't a surprise
since Microsoft is well known for dropping messages, like their Hotmail
server accepting a message from another SMTP mail server, issuing an +OK
status, but the message disappears inside of Hotmail without ever
reaching the recipient's mailbox (and has nothing to do with their
blacklisting or spam filtering). It gets accepted, it goes in, and it
disappears. Microsoft doesn't have reliable NNTP or Hotmail services.
They mostly work but do have too many hiccups at times.

I'm posting using Albasani. I don't know the peering route between
Albasani and Microsoft but it isn't direct (i.e., Albasani doesn't
directly peer with Microsoft's NNTP server). So my posts will show up
in Usenet but might disappear at Microsoft. If ES peers directly from
Microsoft then the posts dropped by Microsoft won't show up at ES unless
ES has other peering relationships. Albasani lists their peering
relationships at:

http://albasani.net/generated/technical.html.en

Microsoft's NNTP server ([ms]news.microsoft.com) is not listed so
Albasani does not directly peer with Microsoft. Albasani lists ES as
one of their many peers.

I couldn't find anything at the ES web site listing their peering
relationships. A lot of the free NSPs might peer the microsoft.* groups
directly from Microsoft's NNTP server so when Microsoft's NNTP
disappears then there won't be any new posts to that group (other than
those made directly to that NSP's NNTP server) since they aren't peering
elsewhere. Some have acknowledged that they use scripts that scan
Microsoft's NNTP server (whether the peer against Microsoft's NNTP
server or elsewhere) and will keep sync with it, so when Microsoft's
NNTP server disappears then so, too, will all their microsoft.* groups.
Then there are some that will honor the 'rmgroup' control messages
submitted by who knows who which makes me wonder if such NSPs are of any
value if they honor control messages from anywhere.

Since you are subscribing to ES, maybe you could query them (via e-mail
or their private newsgroups) to discover their peering relationships and
also ask them to publish that info on their web site. If they only have
one or a couple of peers, they might not want their users to know that.
http://www.eternal-september.org/index.php?showpage=peering lists THEIR
peering hosts, not with whom else they peer (the Top1000 link is to a
site to which they send statistics, not a peering site).

 

I think Microsoft had a 90-day expiration policy on msnews, no? Every
server's different, of course.

 

Microsoft's retention policy has no effect on the retention policy
employed by non-Microsoft NNTP servers. Bo switched to Eternal-
September so he doesn't care what is Microsoft's retention policy.
Also, when Microsoft kills their NNTP server, there will be no retention
on a server that doesn't exist.

 

Thought that's what I said?

It was merely offered as a comparison value.

What brings about this hardon of yours?

 

Sorry, you aren't that sexy. If you don't want the possibility of
replies then don't post.

 

I'm not only open to, but heartily welcome, replies.

You seemed all "up" about something, and I sure didn't think it was me.
Just trying to understand. I guess I just provided good platform,
huh?

 

You replied to Bo. You mentioned (guessed at) what was Microsoft's
retention policy. Bo is using Eternal-September for his NNTP server.
Bo isn't using Microsoft's NNTP server so I didn't see the relevance of
your reply.

 

Yeah, two sentences next to each other, discussing the same topic, can
be difficult for some. I understand. To review:

Bo notes E-S has ~4mo retention, saying in passing that they apparently
don't consider it "news" after that period. To which I responded that
others have different thresholds.

It's as if someone online were saying, "It's so hot here! We actually
hit 80° today!" and someone else replies, "You think that's hot? It was
104° here yesterday!!!"

But hey, for someone who doesn't give a ratsass about the world outside
his own tunnel vision, yeah, I can see how "relevance" would be easily
lost when the discussion turns to varied experiences.

Good damn thing you jumped in to protect others from similar confusion!