Microsoft said it plans to end support for more than 4,000 old-style newsgroups starting next month

Joining the leagues of censorship activists, obviously.

-
"Microsoft said it plans to end support for more than 4,000 old-style
newsgroups starting next month, pushing users instead to discussion
forums such as those found on the Microsoft Answers, TechNet and MSDN
sites.

Although venerable, Microsoft said that so-called NNTP newsgroups have
past their time in terms of being usable and secure."

More at

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-20004109-56.htm

***********
Date 5/4/2010
Starting in early summer 2010, Microsoft will begin progressively closing down the
Microsoft public newsgroups to enrich conversations in the rapidly-growing forum
platform.  This decision is in response to worldwide market trends and evolving
customer needs.

Microsoft continues to invest in forums to reduce customer effort, consolidate
community venues and make it easier for active contributors to retain their
influence. Forums provide a healthy community environment with less spam and make
answers easier to find by customers and search engines.  Additionally, forums offer
a better user and off-topic management platform that will improve customer
satisfaction by facilitating discussions in a clean space.

We understand that some newsgroups are still active, and important to the community.
In the coming days and weeks, we will be rolling out tools and resources to minimize
disruption to the community discussions.

We are working diligently on providing additional resources and information in local
languages later this week.  In the meantime, please refer to the official Microsoft
Newsgroup website http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/default.mspx
concerning this issue.  The Microsoft Newsgroup website will be made available in
additional languages in the next few days.


--
Peter

Please Reply to Newsgroup for the benefit of others
Requests for assistance by email can not and will not be acknowledged.
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

"PA Bear [MS MVP]" <PABearMVP@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:%23ze0U%23%236KHA.5848@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
> At some point in the future, this newsgroup will NOT be accessible or available
> via the MS newsserver (news://msnews.microsoft.com) nor via web-access
> (http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/list/en-us/default.aspx?dg=microsoft.public.windowsxp.general).
>

NNTP was designed for SLOW connections, it's perfect for it.

If you think that NNTP was slow on slow connections I can't imagine how
you will find web groups interfaces - they will be even slower.

*********************
I would only say that Microsoft is fed up of its customer base and
is deciding to wind-up its business.  The examples are as follows:

1) Newsgroups shutting down;
2) IE9 not available to XP users (Mozilla and other browsers will
continue on XP systems)
3) Outlook Express not being developed
4) Hotmail can't be read in Outlook unless you also install a
Connector (new version just released on 20/04/2010)
5) If you criticize Microsoft products on forums, expect your
messages to be deleted;
6) MVP status being scaled down (hooray - who is going to miss
this? Not me for sure but Pig-Bear will)
7) Future products will only available online not on CD or DVDs
8) Microsoft Works version 10 not available on XP or Vista
9) Microsoft Office Accounting disbanded - the last version was
2009;

The list goes on and on!

hth
**********************
it couldn't possbly be due to all the jerks and idiots who post garbage on
these areas for their fun and entertainment, annoying the rest of the users.
I'm personally glad they are ending these newsgroups, however, the format of
the group for windows 7 sucks big time, you can hardly find anything, and
people want to put their entire message in the subject line, and in all caps,
idiots!!!!!
**********************
But Microsoft is going to try.  Apparently they will be moderated forums
according the FAQs listed at
http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/default.mspx. While this
will get out the junk, you will have to sign up and depending on the method
of moderation the responses could be delayed hours while someone decides if
the post is legitimate or not.  Other forums allow open posting with
improper messages removed by the moderator.  Don't know which type MS will
decide to use.  I don't like the forums set up for Win 7.
*************************
Also jerks won't be able to use the word "idiots" on forums.  As
soon as this word is used to describe a microsoft customer, that
person would be censured very severely!

hth
************************
These newsgroups are on Microsoft servers.  All they need to do is pull the
plug.

***********************