Suddenly neither E-S nor AIOE can find the MS newsgroups.
I visit microsoft.* regular for VB, vbscript, and the most active
XP group. Does anyone know the story here? Have they been
discontinued? Threats from Microsoft or some such? Historicallt
the MS groups have been among the best because they had
a long history of use by MVPs and Windows professionals.

On 2/2/2023 8:37 AM, Newyana2 wrote:
> Suddenly neither E-S nor AIOE can find the MS newsgroups.
> I visit microsoft.* regular for VB, vbscript, and the most active
> XP group. Does anyone know the story here? Have they been
> discontinued? Threats from Microsoft or some such? Historicallt
> the MS groups have been among the best because they had
> a long history of use by MVPs and Windows professionals.
>
>

This is the status of Eternal September.

http://al.howardknight.net/?STYPE=msgid&MSGI=%3Cm2v8kkbbds.fsf%40raybanana.net%3E

"Date: Thu, 02 Feb 2023 11:38:23 +0100

More than 11 years after Microsoft closed down their news server and the
microsoft support groups, and in the light of the current influx of spam
from Google to the microsft.* groups, this hierarchy has now been
removed from Eternal-September.
"

*******

AIOE had a RAID failure a week ago (not a "degrade", a complete
and utter "fail").

It will be a number of weeks, to bring it up from scratch.
Reinstall INN. Redo all the peering, and so on.

At the current time, the rental machine in the COLO, answers
a ping on just one address, and that is about the level of
support you get in a COLO. When local DNS is re-added to the machine,
then the multiple machine names will work again.

Paul

On 2/2/2023 9:37 pm, Newyana2 wrote:
> Suddenly neither E-S nor AIOE can find the MS newsgroups.
> I visit microsoft.* regular for VB, vbscript, and the most active
> XP group. Does anyone know the story here? Have they been
> discontinued? Threats from Microsoft or some such? Historicallt
> the MS groups have been among the best because they had
> a long history of use by MVPs and Windows professionals.
>

Per Paul said, Micro$oft has switched to web-based forums.

Microsoft Community
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us

On 2/2/2023 5:37 AM, Newyana2 wrote:
> Suddenly neither E-S nor AIOE can find the MS newsgroups.
> I visit microsoft.* regular for VB, vbscript, and the most active
> XP group. Does anyone know the story here? Have they been
> discontinued? Threats from Microsoft or some such? Historicallt
> the MS groups have been among the best because they had
> a long history of use by MVPs and Windows professionals.
>
>

Both AIOE and Eternal September have:
alt.comp.lang.vbscript
alt.windows-xp

However, neither of them seem to be very active. Also AIOE is down and
there is no estimate how long it will take for it to be up.

--

David E. Ross
<http://www.rossde.com/>.

The only reason we have so many laws is that not enough people will do
the right thing. (© 1997 by David Ross)

Thanks to you both. It sounds like maybe AIOE will eventually
bring them back. It's a shame with E-S. As you noted, David, there
are alternatives, but the MS groups were the only ones being
used. The VB6 group has actually been fairly active recently.

Op 2-2-2023 om 16:40 schreef Paul:
> On 2/2/2023 8:37 AM, Newyana2 wrote:
>>   Suddenly neither E-S nor AIOE can find the MS newsgroups.
>> I visit microsoft.* regular for VB, vbscript, and the most active
>> XP group. Does anyone know the story here? Have they been
>> discontinued? Threats from Microsoft or some such? Historicallt
>> the MS groups have been among the best because they had
>> a long history of use by MVPs and Windows professionals.
>>
>>
>
> This is the status of Eternal September.
>
> http://al.howardknight.net/?STYPE=msgid&MSGI=%3Cm2v8kkbbds.fsf%40raybanana.net%3E
>
>
>    "Date: Thu, 02 Feb 2023 11:38:23 +0100
>
>     More than 11 years after Microsoft closed down their news server
> and the
>     microsoft support groups, and in the light of the current influx of
> spam
>     from Google to the microsft.* groups, this hierarchy has now been
>     removed from Eternal-September.
>    "
>
> *******
>
> AIOE had a RAID failure a week ago (not a "degrade", a complete
> and utter "fail").
>
> It will be a number of weeks, to bring it up from scratch.
> Reinstall INN. Redo all the peering, and so on.
>
> At the current time, the rental machine in the COLO, answers
> a ping on just one address, and that is about the level of
> support you get in a COLO. When local DNS is re-added to the machine,
> then the multiple machine names will work again.
>
>    Paul

Which is a pity,
especially for microsoft.public.windowsxp.general ,
which is the busiest English language newsgroup
for Windows XP, as Newyana2 already wrote.

You can still read the microsoft.* hierarchy on the newsservers:
- paganini.bofh.team
- freenews.netfront.net

Both are free newsservers.
If you can post, I don't know, because I do not follow microsoft.*
groups anymore.

Rink

On 2023-02-03 14:42, Rink wrote:
> Op 2-2-2023 om 16:40 schreef Paul:
>> On 2/2/2023 8:37 AM, Newyana2 wrote:

....

> Which is a pity,
> especially for  microsoft.public.windowsxp.general ,
> which is the busiest English language newsgroup
> for Windows XP, as Newyana2 already wrote.
>
> You can still read the microsoft.* hierarchy on the newsservers:
> -    paganini.bofh.team
> -    freenews.netfront.net
>
> Both are free newsservers.
> If you can post, I don't know, because I do not follow microsoft.*
> groups anymore.

I have a bunch of microsoft.* groups listed on News.Individual.NET, but
no idea if they work.

--
Cheers,
Carlos E.R.

"Rink" <rink.hof.haalditmaarweg@planet.nl> wrote

| You can still read the microsoft.* hierarchy on the newsservers:
| - paganini.bofh.team
| - freenews.netfront.net
| | Both are free newsservers.
| If you can post, I don't know, because I do not follow microsoft.*
| groups anymore.
|

I just tried Netfront. It worked fine, but says I can't post.
What would be the point of a newsgroup where you can't post?!
I tried to visit the domain, netfront.net. It seems to be a
Chinese website.

Individual.net looks like an option, but it costs me more than
$30 to make a bank transfer, I would never use PayPal, and
I don't trust the security with either. I'm happy paying a few
dollars per year, but I'm not happy giving out payment details
online.

In message <trj4be$1ffi2$1@dont-email.me>, Newyana2
<Newyana2@invalid.nospam> writes
> Individual.net looks like an option, but it costs me more than $30
>to make a bank transfer

Good grief! That's daylight robbery.
--
John Hall "Do you have cornflakes in America?"
"Well, actually, they're American."
"So what brings you to Britain then if you have cornflakes already?"
Bill Bryson: "Notes from a Small Island"

On 2023-02-03 15:05, Newyana2 wrote:
> "Rink" <rink.hof.haalditmaarweg@planet.nl> wrote
>
> | You can still read the microsoft.* hierarchy on the newsservers:
> | - paganini.bofh.team
> | - freenews.netfront.net
> |
> | Both are free newsservers.
> | If you can post, I don't know, because I do not follow microsoft.*
> | groups anymore.
> |
>
> I just tried Netfront. It worked fine, but says I can't post.
> What would be the point of a newsgroup where you can't post?!
> I tried to visit the domain, netfront.net. It seems to be a
> Chinese website.
>
> Individual.net looks like an option, but it costs me more than
> $30 to make a bank transfer, I would never use PayPal, and
> I don't trust the security with either. I'm happy paying a few
> dollars per year, but I'm not happy giving out payment details
> online.

In Spain, and probably in the rest of the EU, making the transfer is
gratis and safe, if done using the bank web page. If I go to the bank
office then there is a fee, but not much.

I have been paying them for some years now.

I also have been using Paypal for some years, no issues.

--
Cheers,
Carlos E.R.

In article <trgeb1$tcg3$1@dont-email.me>, Newyana2@invalid.nospam
says...
>
> Suddenly neither E-S nor AIOE can find the MS newsgroups.
> I visit microsoft.* regular for VB, vbscript, and the most active
> XP group. Does anyone know the story here? Have they been
> discontinued? Threats from Microsoft or some such? Historicallt
> the MS groups have been among the best because they had
> a long history of use by MVPs and Windows professionals.

They are still there on Paganini server

--
Jim the Geordie

On 2/3/2023 9:05 AM, Newyana2 wrote:
> "Rink" <rink.hof.haalditmaarweg@planet.nl> wrote
>
> | You can still read the microsoft.* hierarchy on the newsservers:
> | - paganini.bofh.team
> | - freenews.netfront.net
> |
> | Both are free newsservers.
> | If you can post, I don't know, because I do not follow microsoft.*
> | groups anymore.
> |
>
> I just tried Netfront. It worked fine, but says I can't post.
> What would be the point of a newsgroup where you can't post?!
> I tried to visit the domain, netfront.net. It seems to be a
> Chinese website.
>
> Individual.net looks like an option, but it costs me more than
> $30 to make a bank transfer, I would never use PayPal, and
> I don't trust the security with either. I'm happy paying a few
> dollars per year, but I'm not happy giving out payment details
> online.

There were some floods a while back. The flood conducted
via netfront.net, resulted in the operator of that server
taking it read-only. That's the "zero labor" way to stop
a flood :-)

The flood conducted via AIOE, resulted in the admin getting
angry and doing some stuff he shouldn't have. One of the
few times I saw Paolo lose his cool.

The little things add up, so "we can't have nice things".

Paul

"Carlos E. R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote

| I also have been using Paypal for some years, no issues.
| A few yers ago I was making a side income selling my
shareware. Paypal showed up, which presented an easier
way for people to pay. But they insisted that software
authors open a bank account under their control. There
were horror stories of PP taking out peoples' money and
not returning it. It turned out they were not just a payment
service. They wanted optimum customer satisfaction, but
wanted the merchaants to be responsible. So if someone
bought software and then changed their mind, the author
would lose the payment *plus* the fee. Eventually, selling
software was threatening to cost money rather than gain it.

So I avoid PP partly out of principle, and partly because
they're just yet another unnecessary middleman sucking
money out of the transaction.

In article <trj4be$1ffi2$1@dont-email.me>, Newyana2@invalid.nospam
says...
>
> "Rink" <rink.hof.haalditmaarweg@planet.nl> wrote
>
> | You can still read the microsoft.* hierarchy on the newsservers:
> | - paganini.bofh.team
> | - freenews.netfront.net
> |
> | Both are free newsservers.
> | If you can post, I don't know, because I do not follow microsoft.*
> | groups anymore.
> |
>
> I just tried Netfront. It worked fine, but says I can't post.
> What would be the point of a newsgroup where you can't post?!
> I tried to visit the domain, netfront.net. It seems to be a
> Chinese website.
>
> Individual.net looks like an option, but it costs me more than
> $30 to make a bank transfer, I would never use PayPal, and
> I don't trust the security with either. I'm happy paying a few
> dollars per year, but I'm not happy giving out payment details
> online.

Paganini seems fine posting and receiving

--
Jim the Geordie

In alt.comp.os.windows-10 John Hall <john_nospam@jhall.co.uk> wrote:
> In message <trj4be$1ffi2$1@dont-email.me>, Newyana2
> <Newyana2@invalid.nospam> writes
> > Individual.net looks like an option, but it costs me more than $30
> >to make a bank transfer

> Good grief! That's daylight robbery.

Same for banks. Dang fees. :(
--
"God looks down from heaven on the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God." --Psalm 53:2. TGIF & yesterday's Groundhog Day repeated mostly like b4. Old Ant saw his own shadow & still hasn't napped for days! :) Black History Mo. & (L/C)NY 4721 [h2o black ????/(\_/)]!
Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly.
/\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://aqfl.net & http://antfarm.home.dhs.org.
/ /\ /\ \ Please nuke ANT if replying by e-mail.
| |o o| |
\ _ /
( )

In alt.comp.os.windows-10 Newyana2 <Newyana2@invalid.nospam> wrote:
> "Carlos E. R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote

> | I also have been using Paypal for some years, no issues.
> |
> A few yers ago I was making a side income selling my
> shareware. Paypal showed up, which presented an easier
> way for people to pay. But they insisted that software
> authors open a bank account under their control. There
> were horror stories of PP taking out peoples' money and
> not returning it. It turned out they were not just a payment
> service. They wanted optimum customer satisfaction, but
> wanted the merchaants to be responsible. So if someone
> bought software and then changed their mind, the author
> would lose the payment *plus* the fee. Eventually, selling
> software was threatening to cost money rather than gain it.

> So I avoid PP partly out of principle, and partly because
> they're just yet another unnecessary middleman sucking
> money out of the transaction.

And PP wants my banking info. No thanks.
--
"God looks down from heaven on the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God." --Psalm 53:2. TGIF & yesterday's Groundhog Day repeated mostly like b4. Old Ant saw his own shadow & still hasn't napped for days! :) Black History Mo. & (L/C)NY 4721 [h2o black ????/(\_/)]!
Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly.
/\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://aqfl.net & http://antfarm.home.dhs.org.
/ /\ /\ \ Please nuke ANT if replying by e-mail.
| |o o| |
\ _ /
( )

In alt.comp.os.windows-10 Mr. Man-wai Chang <toylet.toylet@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/2/2023 9:37 pm, Newyana2 wrote:
> > Suddenly neither E-S nor AIOE can find the MS newsgroups.
> > I visit microsoft.* regular for VB, vbscript, and the most active
> > XP group. Does anyone know the story here? Have they been
> > discontinued? Threats from Microsoft or some such? Historicallt
> > the MS groups have been among the best because they had
> > a long history of use by MVPs and Windows professionals.
> >

> Per Paul said, Micro$oft has switched to web-based forums.

> Microsoft Community
> https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us

I still remember when newsgroup users got mad for them wanting to shut
down their msnews.microsoft.com usenet server. They backed out and
years(?) later, it was finally shut down. :( I still prefer newsgroups
over web forums. Yes, I'm an old fart. ;P
--
"God looks down from heaven on the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God." --Psalm 53:2. TGIF & yesterday's Groundhog Day repeated mostly like b4. Old Ant saw his own shadow & still hasn't napped 4 days! :) Black History Mo. & (L/C)NY 4721 [h2o black ????/(\_/)]!
Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly.
/\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://aqfl.net & http://antfarm.home.dhs.org.
/ /\ /\ \ Please nuke ANT if replying by e-mail.
| |o o| |
\ _ /
( )

In alt.comp.os.windows-10 Newyana2 <Newyana2@invalid.nospam> wrote:
> Thanks to you both. It sounds like maybe AIOE will eventually
> bring them back. It's a shame with E-S. As you noted, David, there
> are alternatives, but the MS groups were the only ones being
> used. The VB6 group has actually been fairly active recently.

Hopefully, AIOE can come back. :/
--
"God looks down from heaven on the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God." --Psalm 53:2. TGIF & yesterday's Groundhog Day repeated mostly like b4. Old Ant saw his own shadow & still hasn't napped for days! :) Black History Mo. & (L/C)NY 4721 [h2o black ????/(\_/)]!
Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly.
/\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://aqfl.net & http://antfarm.home.dhs.org.
/ /\ /\ \ Please nuke ANT if replying by e-mail.
| |o o| |
\ _ /
( )

In alt.comp.os.windows-10 Jim the Geordie <jim@jimxscott.co.uk> wrote:
> In article <trgeb1$tcg3$1@dont-email.me>, Newyana2@invalid.nospam
> says...
> >
> > Suddenly neither E-S nor AIOE can find the MS newsgroups.
> > I visit microsoft.* regular for VB, vbscript, and the most active
> > XP group. Does anyone know the story here? Have they been
> > discontinued? Threats from Microsoft or some such? Historicallt
> > the MS groups have been among the best because they had
> > a long history of use by MVPs and Windows professionals.

> They are still there on Paganini server

Same for Giganews and Supernews.
--
"God looks down from heaven on the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God." --Psalm 53:2. TGIF & yesterday's Groundhog Day repeated mostly like b4. Old Ant saw his own shadow & still hasn't napped for days! :) Black History Mo. & (L/C)NY 4721 [h2o black ????/(\_/)]!
Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly.
/\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://aqfl.net & http://antfarm.home.dhs.org.
/ /\ /\ \ Please nuke ANT if replying by e-mail.
| |o o| |
\ _ /
( )

On 2023-02-03 19:17, Newyana2 wrote:
> "Carlos E. R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote
>
> | I also have been using Paypal for some years, no issues.
> |
> A few yers ago I was making a side income selling my
> shareware. Paypal showed up, which presented an easier
> way for people to pay. But they insisted that software
> authors open a bank account under their control. There
> were horror stories of PP taking out peoples' money and
> not returning it. It turned out they were not just a payment
> service. They wanted optimum customer satisfaction, but
> wanted the merchaants to be responsible. So if someone
> bought software and then changed their mind, the author
> would lose the payment *plus* the fee. Eventually, selling
> software was threatening to cost money rather than gain it.
>
> So I avoid PP partly out of principle, and partly because
> they're just yet another unnecessary middleman sucking
> money out of the transaction.

Fair enough.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

On Fri, 03 Feb 2023 19:55:04 +0000, ant@zimage.comANT (Ant) wrote:

>In alt.comp.os.windows-10 Mr. Man-wai Chang <toylet.toylet@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 2/2/2023 9:37 pm, Newyana2 wrote:
>> > Suddenly neither E-S nor AIOE can find the MS newsgroups.
>> > I visit microsoft.* regular for VB, vbscript, and the most active
>> > XP group. Does anyone know the story here? Have they been
>> > discontinued? Threats from Microsoft or some such? Historicallt
>> > the MS groups have been among the best because they had
>> > a long history of use by MVPs and Windows professionals.
>> >
>
>> Per Paul said, Micro$oft has switched to web-based forums.
>
>> Microsoft Community
>> https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us
>
>I still remember when newsgroup users got mad for them wanting to shut
>down their msnews.microsoft.com usenet server. They backed out and
>years(?) later, it was finally shut down. :( I still prefer newsgroups
>over web forums. Yes, I'm an old fart. ;P

Me too. Welcome to the Old Fart's Club.

On 2/2/2023 10:40, Paul wrote:
> On 2/2/2023 8:37 AM, Newyana2 wrote:
>> Suddenly neither E-S nor AIOE can find the MS newsgroups.
>> I visit microsoft.* regular for VB, vbscript, and the most active
>> XP group. Does anyone know the story here? Have they been
>> discontinued? Threats from Microsoft or some such? Historicallt
>> the MS groups have been among the best because they had
>> a long history of use by MVPs and Windows professionals.
>
> This is the status of Eternal September.
>
> http://al.howardknight.net/?STYPE=msgid&MSGI=%3Cm2v8kkbbds.fsf%40raybanana.net%3E
>
> "Date: Thu, 02 Feb 2023 11:38:23 +0100
>
> More than 11 years after Microsoft closed down their news server and the
> microsoft support groups, and in the light of the current influx of spam
> from Google to the microsft.* groups, this hierarchy has now been
> removed from Eternal-September.

Block News is a few bucks for a life-time supply of news. It's far more
reliable and less glitchy than ES. Forget about AIOE. I ditched ES on
most of my newsgroups, but I see that for some reason, I'm still using
ES to post on here. I'll switch that over, eventually.

On 2/2/2023 8:37 AM, Newyana2 wrote:
> Suddenly neither E-S nor AIOE can find the MS newsgroups.
> I visit microsoft.* regular for VB, vbscript, and the most active
> XP group. Does anyone know the story here? Have they been
> discontinued? Threats from Microsoft or some such? Historicallt
> the MS groups have been among the best because they had
> a long history of use by MVPs and Windows professionals.

Switch to news.mixmin.net:563 . Does not appear
to support port 119.

news.mixmin.net/microsoft.public.windowsxp.general

The E-S admin has removed microsoft.* , according to a post
I just read a minute ago.

It wasn't a threat, could have been an abuse issue.

Port 563 uses TLS/SSL and so there are some news agents
which do not support that. You would use STunnel as your
locally hosted interworking agent, in that case.

mesnews ----- 127.0.0.1:119 --------- stunnel ------- news.mixmin.net:563

The Mixmin server uses LetsEncrypt certificates. Which
in theory can be set up to auto-renew every three months.
But occasionally you will not be able to reach Mixmin
until that certificate issue is sorted. Will LetsEncrypt
cause grief for a Windows XP user ? Probably :-/

AIOE will be down for some time, and will likely be
rebuilt from scratch. It's not the newsgroup that is
the issue with AIOE, it's the whole server which is
not functioning right now. What is working on the server
AIOE, is one address answers a ping, and that is likely
the limit of the responsibility of the COLO rental operator.
You get a running CPU, a network connection, 25TB/mo of
network cap and so on. The RAID array on the AIOE server
failed (not "degraded" as would normally happen on
a single disk failure, but "failed" as in "data recovery time").

Paul (Send via mixmin as confirmation it is operational today)

On Fri, 3 Feb 2023 15:18:04 -0000, Jim the Geordie <jim@jimXscott.co.uk>
wrote:

>In article <trgeb1$tcg3$1@dont-email.me>, Newyana2@invalid.nospam
>says...
>>
>> Suddenly neither E-S nor AIOE can find the MS newsgroups.
>> I visit microsoft.* regular for VB, vbscript, and the most active
>> XP group. Does anyone know the story here? Have they been
>> discontinued? Threats from Microsoft or some such? Historicallt
>> the MS groups have been among the best because they had
>> a long history of use by MVPs and Windows professionals.
>
>They are still there on Paganini server

Newsgroups don't disappear until the last Usenet server on the planet
stops carrying them, which is something that hasn't happened in many
decades, AFAIK.

Individual servers may decide to stop carrying a specific newsgroup, or
individual servers may have technical issues, but the rest of the Usenet
infrastructure carries on.

On 4/2/2023 3:55 am, Ant wrote:
>
> I still remember when newsgroup users got mad for them wanting to shut
> down their msnews.microsoft.com usenet server. They backed out and
> years(?) later, it was finally shut down. :( I still prefer newsgroups
> over web forums. Yes, I'm an old fart. ;P

It's sad to see newsgroups gone from Micro$oft's radar. Micro$oft could
have sync between Micro$oft Community and Usenet. It's do-able. They got
the money to do it anyway. ;)

I remember the days of Vsiaul Foxpro being talked about in relevant
Usenet newsgroups.