Outlook Express 6.0, Newsgroups

Location:   http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/ie/oe6nws01.htm
Home page: http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/excel.htm
[View without Frames]

Getting Started   (#begin)

Once you are set up for newsgroups, please continue in Setting up Message Rules in OE6.

Separate email account:  Before continuing I would suggest you use your name (first and last) in newsgroups, but get a free hotmail account or other free “throw away” email account or use one of the additional email addresses that your ISP probably allows you to have.  That way you can find your postings by your name or by your email in past postings so you don't lose track, and so someone who come up with something for you much later say a couple of weeks later might post a reply with an email as well to make sure you get an answer.  You probably want to chose a hotmail email address different than your normal one as spammers simply take a valid email address and suffix it with hundreds of different domain names or at least the most popular ones and would find you or someone else with the same name even if the address were never publicly used.  from people you don't know it is almost certainly spam. 

The instructions here are for those already using Outlook Express 5.0 for their Email, and are not yet set up to read newsgroups.  The fact that you are already using OE6 for your Email indicates that OE6 is available to read your newsgroups.

You may already have a news server set up with directions from you ISP.  It is best to connect directly to the Microsoft Newsservers, so if you do not see a folder marked msnews.microsoft.com in your Outlook Express, you should set this up (see step #7, below).

Identify yourself and our News Server (on your own machine)  (#identify)

  1. Go to your Outlook Express where your read Email.
  2. Tools --> Accounts --> (Mail - Tab) --> [Add - button] --> news
  3. Display name: John E. Smith (this is the name you will be seen as)
  4. [next]
  5. Email address: JohnESmith@myISP.com (this is your email address)
  6. [next]
  7. News (NNTP) Server: msnews.microsoft.com † to connect directly to Microsoft newsservers for Microsoft products,
    † or use news.mozilla.org to connect directly to Mozilla newsserver for Firefox.
    Please checkmark the Include the account when checking for new mesages.
  8. [next] --> [Finish]
If you made a mistake in your Email address, or name you may fix this by going to tools --> Accounts --> [Properties]

Select Newsgroups to be accessed   (#select)

  1. Select the msnews.microsoft.com server (or other server) you identified abive, if you do not see the folder click on the word INBOX on the large grey titlebar.
  2. After selecting the server, --> [Newsgroups] -->
  3. Select your msnews.microsoft.com † server with icon left side.
  4. Type in partial name or something like excel.misc into the display/contain box, † or mozilla.support.firefox for the only Firefox newsgroup at mozilla.org
  5. >[Subscribe]

Get Rid of MSN Butterflies (#nomsn8)

If you sign up with MSN from a current CD, MSN will be installed so that you would not be using Outlook Express but an HTML newsgroup reader.  You will not be able to do much from HTML newsgroup readers so you want to eliminate that and switch to Outlook Express using DUN (Dial-Up Network) access.  See directions "Create a new dun connection and use it instead of the Msn software" http://www.urx.com/jforbes/dun.htm [bad link]

Connecting Directly to the Excel newsgroups   (#direct)

Check your headers (Rclick on your post, properties, details, message source then look at Path, each exclamation point represents a hop to another server.  You should be connecting directly the Microsoft servers and should see either one exclamation point or none -- not five of them.

The following describes the need to install directly, but not how:
    http://www.cpearson.com/excel/DirectConnect.htm

How to connect directly using Outlook Express   (#OE_direct)

To connect directly to Excel newsgroups from Outlook Express
Tools, Accounts, Add, News ...
  fill in your name then on next dialog your email address, then
    msnews.microsoft.com
Select   msnews.microsoft.com   folder
    --when you look at this acount later with properties, set the following
    [x] Include this account when checking for new messages.
  select newsgroups, select those that you want, i.e.
    microsoft.public.excel.misc
    microsoft.public.excel.programming
    microsoft.public.excel.worksheet.functions
representing: (warning: clicking on these links will start reading those groups)
    news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.excel.misc
    news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.excel.programming
    news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.excel.worksheet.functions
Also look at (like the above they will go out to the newsgroups)
    newusers, links, and setup.

Start Reading your Newsgroups   (#reading)

There are a few things to keep in mind when using newsgroups.  A new newsgroup posting (question) starts a thread.  Replies to that question should remain in the thread. 

Please don't trample on a thread with "Me To" postings, that may delay getting a real answer as yours will look like a reply to the question.  If you have a new question and it is not directly related to the question, start a new thread. 

The subject line and content must agree and the description must not rely on rereading the subject line to find the meaning.  It is highly recommended that you read a few hours of postings to get the idea of what constitues a good posting.  It looks a lot better if you try to answer your own questions before posting by looking in HELP and in the newsgroup archives.

Be polite, try to convey what you mean in words, your words may not have the same meaning to all.  Always try to ask a question so that someone will not have to ask you what you meant.  Remember to include as appropriate: who, when, WHY, WHAT, where, how, how much, and of course your version of your Excel or other applicable software.  For Excel please read our guidelines for posting, these may vary slightly from other groups.

Notes on reading Newsgroups:

Continue on to Set up the Newsgroups   (#setup)

Once you are set up for newsgroups, please continue in Setting up Message Rules in OE6 for your Newsgroups and Email.

See Turning MIME off in Outlook Express for directions to turn off MIME for your own Email and within newsgroups.  The Excel newsgroups are text only, no attachments, no MIME/HTML postings (no bolded characters, no stationary, none of that space hogging stuff).

Netscape or Mozilla, setting up to read Newsgroups   (#netscape)

Usenet Newsgroups   (#usenet)

Skip this section if working with the Firefox newsgroup at mozilla.org, as they appear to demand inefficient, time wasting, bottom posting, despite no such requirement in their own posting rules, which definitely do not discourage the worst of all methods – interspersed replies, which make any further conversation difficult.

If you are on MSN you should be aware of a fraud that prevents you from accessing Usenet newsgroups. 

You are supposed to be able to connect to usenet newsgroups using msnnews.msn.com similar to using msnews.microsoft.com to access microsoft newsgroups.  The microsoft newsgroups are a very small part of newsgroups in general.  MSN.com, and comcast.com want you to be trapped into looking at a very restricted group of newsgroups using HTML so that they can spit in your face with advertising tying up large chunks of your expensive monitor, your connection transmissions, and your harddrive, not to mention your time which they consider worthless.  The msnnews.msn.com hasn't worked well in years, was spotty when it worked, and doesn't work at all now for non Microsoft newsgroups. 

Free servers for newsgroups.
  eagle.america.net
  news.motzarella.org
  news.datemas.de/

Some dialups to MSN are through UUNET in which case you should be able to use eagle.america.net though the UUNET facilities. More information for those that have access through UUNET.

This one appears to be free haven't checked it out, you do have to sign up

There appear to be Read Only access, making posting a reply difficult, if it is possible.

Newsgroups related to Outlook Express:  OE6 is considered part of Internet Explorer (IE5) so posting would be in such groups as Cloning OE6 databases for another computer, my own notes, based mainly on Tom Koch's web site Backup & Restore

Additional OE sites.
Marfer's Notes (zip file) Mark Ferguson's site.
Frequently Asked Questions and Tips For OE6 by Steve Cochran
MS KB Articles on OE6 Jim Pickering

http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/ofc2000.htm -- information there includes creating/moving Address Book, and moving storage location of postings and email to another disk.  Included information on getting my AOL address book information into OE6 with a little help from Excel.

http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/xlnews.htm -- Information on the Excel newsgroups, and the permanent archives and Google "Usenet Advanced Search" (formerly Deja Power Search engine for DejaNews).

This page was introduced on May 21, 2000. 

Visit [my Excel home page]   [Index page]   [Excel Onsite Search]   [top of this page]

Please send your comments concerning this web page to: David McRitchie send email comments

Copyright © 1997 - 2004,  F. David McRitchie,  All Rights Reserved