From: Pavel A. on
Dear users of msnews.microsoft.com,

There are rumors that Microsoft plans to shut down this nntp server.

See this for example:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-20004109-56.html

Any thoughts on where we can migrate from here - besides of the web-based
MSDN forums?.
To Google groups, maybe?

Regards,
-- pa


From: Maxim S. Shatskih on
> Any thoughts on where we can migrate from here - besides of the web-based
> MSDN forums?.

Windows kernel people - to OSR's forums, surely.

--
Maxim S. Shatskih
Windows DDK MVP
maxim(a)storagecraft.com
http://www.storagecraft.com

From: Hector Santos on
Pavel A. wrote:

> Dear users of msnews.microsoft.com,
>
> There are rumors that Microsoft plans to shut down this nntp server.
>
> See this for example:
> http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-20004109-56.html
>
> Any thoughts on where we can migrate from here - besides of the
> web-based MSDN forums?.
> To Google groups, maybe?
>
> Regards,
> -- pa


Technically what Microsoft is stopping is the Microsoft.* newsgroups
in lieu of new forums style messages which can also be exposed as
"locally published" newsgroups.

As "Forums Newsgroups," you can download the MS NNTP Bridge

http://connect.microsoft.com/MicrosoftForums

that will allow you to continue to use your favorite desktop news
reader to access the Microsoft Forums Newsgroups.

It actually works pretty well. Not all the old newsgroup "names" are
available in the MS forums. There is the kernel one:

Microsoft.en-US.kernel

I'm sure in time that other providers will use the MS NNTP Bridge with
NNTP gating software to mirror the MS Forums on their own NNTP servers
as newsgroups.

Its leaves us to wonder what will happen to the old mirrors, i.e.
Google Groups. That probably depends if Microsoft will allow or not
their name sake and branding to continue to be used as newsgroup names
run by 3rd party servers. Maybe they don't care, maybe they don't
realize they will care once its highly abused more than it is now
where there was filtering going on, but no longer. :)

--
HLS
From: Lem on
Hector Santos wrote:
> Pavel A. wrote:
>
>> Dear users of msnews.microsoft.com,
>>
>> There are rumors that Microsoft plans to shut down this nntp server.
>>
>> See this for example:
>> http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-20004109-56.html
>>
>> Any thoughts on where we can migrate from here - besides of the
>> web-based MSDN forums?.
>> To Google groups, maybe?
>>
>> Regards,
>> -- pa
>
>
> Technically what Microsoft is stopping is the Microsoft.* newsgroups in
> lieu of new forums style messages which can also be exposed as "locally
> published" newsgroups.
>
> As "Forums Newsgroups," you can download the MS NNTP Bridge
>
> http://connect.microsoft.com/MicrosoftForums
>
> that will allow you to continue to use your favorite desktop news reader
> to access the Microsoft Forums Newsgroups.
>
> It actually works pretty well. Not all the old newsgroup "names" are
> available in the MS forums. There is the kernel one:
>
> Microsoft.en-US.kernel
>
> I'm sure in time that other providers will use the MS NNTP Bridge with
> NNTP gating software to mirror the MS Forums on their own NNTP servers
> as newsgroups.
>
> Its leaves us to wonder what will happen to the old mirrors, i.e. Google
> Groups. That probably depends if Microsoft will allow or not their name
> sake and branding to continue to be used as newsgroup names run by 3rd
> party servers. Maybe they don't care, maybe they don't realize they
> will care once its highly abused more than it is now where there was
> filtering going on, but no longer. :)
>

I wouldn't go so far as to say that the nntp bridge "works pretty well."
At least on T'Bird 2.x, the headers and bodies occasionally become
unsynced and the unread message indicator is unreliable.

--
Lem

Apollo 11 - 40 years ago:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/40th/index.html
From: Jochen Kalmbach [MVP] on
Hi Pavel!

> Any thoughts on where we can migrate from here - besides of the
> web-based MSDN forums?.

Why not just stay here?
You only need to use a different news-server than news.microsoft.com.
But the group will still exist in the future. And the groups will still
be peered to other news-servers.
NNTP is a peer-to-peer system, so the down of news.microsoft.com will
not matter.

So just change your news-provider and everything will work as today.

--
Greetings
Jochen

My blog about Win32 and .NET
http://blog.kalmbachnet.de/