Where do you want to go tomorrow?

H

Hector Santos

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
 
L

Lem

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
 
J

Jochen Kalmbach [MVP]

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/
 
S

Stefan Kuhr

Hello everyone,



On 5/7/2010 4:56 AM, Hector Santos wrote:

> Pavel A. wrote:

>

> 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:

>



Down anyone have more insight as to how the nntp bridge works with

regards to authenticating the user? I wonder how it deals with my live

ID user name and password and whether it is safe to use it with the same

live ID credentials that I use to access my technet plus subscription or

msdn subscriber downloads, or if this might reveal my credentials to

wiretappers. All information it exposes in its UI is that it obviously

accesses

http://social.microsoft.com/ForumsServicePreview/ForumsService.svc. Note

that this is an http URL, not https.



--

Stefan
 
H

Hector Santos

Yes, I did noticed that, and AFAICT, the REST requests are all HTTP.



Note: the correct url is:

http://services.social.microsoft.com/forumsServicePreview/ForumsService.svc



This is a primitive 3rd party program. The author seems to be new at

communications requirements. It uses the Live ID Framework Client

SDK for this.



http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb404791.aspx



And it comes with a C# example illustrating the authentication.



For me, since my live id account is a junk account anyway, I don't

worry about it - although they are beginning to force me to use it

more now.



--

HLS



Stefan Kuhr wrote:



> Hello everyone,

>

> On 5/7/2010 4:56 AM, Hector Santos wrote:

>> Pavel A. wrote:

>>

>> 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:

>>

>

> Down anyone have more insight as to how the nntp bridge works with

> regards to authenticating the user? I wonder how it deals with my live

> ID user name and password and whether it is safe to use it with the same

> live ID credentials that I use to access my technet plus subscription or

> msdn subscriber downloads, or if this might reveal my credentials to

> wiretappers. All information it exposes in its UI is that it obviously

> accesses

> http://social.microsoft.com/ForumsServicePreview/ForumsService.svc. Note

> that this is an http URL, not https.

>
 
H

Hector Santos

Ok, "Works as an beta" :)



Yes, I noticed that myself with TBIRD.



--

HLS



Lem wrote:



> 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.
 
H

Hector Santos

Jochen Kalmbach [MVP] wrote:



> 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.





But there is a main HOP source. There still needs to a common source.



> 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.



And given the fact that the new systems were not merged anyway, the

only real lost is the Microsoft NNTP server. That is a big lost as

not everyone wants to go OUTSIDE the Microsoft server and other

services will be lost too.



So it will be a big change from that standpoint.



A good solid bridge is all that is needed to use the new storage

forums. This 3rd party bridge "works" but still has issues and is

missing many basic features.



--

HLS
 
J

Jochen Kalmbach [MVP]

Hi Hector!



>> Why not just stay here?

>

> But there is a main HOP source. There still needs to a common source.



No. NNTP is a peer-to-peer system... there is no "main"...





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

>

> And given the fact that the new systems were not merged anyway, the only

> real lost is the Microsoft NNTP server.



Exactly!



--

Greetings

Jochen



My blog about Win32 and .NET

http://blog.kalmbachnet.de/
 
P

Pavel A.

"Jochen Kalmbach [MVP]" wrote in message

news:#SwHHJb7KHA.1888@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...

> 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/



Thank you Jochen and Mr. Burn,



I share concerns expressed by Hector Santos, that MS won't like Google

or others carrying their newsgroups. The distributed and free Usenet has its

merits,

but these techical NGs are focused on Microsoft ecosystem, so naturally

they better should stay with Microsoft.

If we can continue to use newsreaders rather than web interface (with all

due respect to AJAX....)

and still conect to the central MS server, then this bridge indeed looks

like a good solution for me.



Thanks,

-- pa
 
H

hector

"Jochen Kalmbach [MVP]" wrote in message

news:eRXK0we7KHA.356@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...

> Hi Hector!

>

>>> Why not just stay here?

>>

>> But there is a main HOP source. There still needs to a common source.

>

> No. NNTP is a peer-to-peer system... there is no "main"...



Jochen, we are vendors of NNTP software. In addition, we are providers of

newsgroups for our technical support where we have other customers gating

the technical support news mail into their servers and so on.



Of course there is a MAIN source. It has to start from somewhere. Most

PEERS are going to start with the MAIN source, others will use a mirror.

The topology is more like a star network where you main have many hubs. But

there is a main HUB source which is not going to be gating to other servers.



In other words, if you post on the MAIN (Microsoft), they are not exporting

it to others - others servers are importing it. And so on.



That means once this main hub is lost, so are its end users. They will have

to go to another hub, but these hubs will now lose the MAIN source of input.



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

>>

>> And given the fact that the new systems were not merged anyway, the only

>> real lost is the Microsoft NNTP server.

>

> Exactly!



Plus the lost of the nodes (users) off the star hub.



Do not take it for granted the that world of users take complete openness to

user external or 3rd party servers as a given.



Maybe I'm old school but there are MANY people who prefer to stick with the

resources and solutions that Microsoft offers. There is a reason why they

even bothered to post the announcement here, even though the storage was

already separate from the new MS Forums storage and they already have began

to create and migrate customers there.



Quite frankly if I was more aware of the fact that the two storages were not

one, I probably would of left this venue long ago. Buts that me, I'm old

school - I don't use 3rd party solutions. Its either Microsoft or we write

it.



That said, the MS related information has grown rich outside of Microsoft

so it does help many and for that reason, maybe, it won't change much.



You would hope not, but you don't know for sure until the plug is actually

pulled from the wall and people actually began to feel that something is no

longer the same.



That is why the NNTP Bridge is important for Microsoft. My only concern

there is that it's a 3rd party tool and they might be underestimating how

important it will be for to minimize the impact on people's long time usage

of the Microsoft NNTP based newsgroups.
 
J

John John - MVP

hector wrote:

>

>

> "Jochen Kalmbach [MVP]" wrote in

> message news:eRXK0we7KHA.356@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...

>> Hi Hector!

>>

>>>> Why not just stay here?

>>>

>>> But there is a main HOP source. There still needs to a common source.

>>

>> No. NNTP is a peer-to-peer system... there is no "main"...

>

> Jochen, we are vendors of NNTP software.



And that software is?



John
 
H

Hector Santos

John John - MVP wrote:



> hector wrote:

>>

>>

>> "Jochen Kalmbach [MVP]" wrote in

>> message news:eRXK0we7KHA.356@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...

>>> Hi Hector!

>>>

>>>>> Why not just stay here?

>>>>

>>>> But there is a main HOP source. There still needs to a common source.

>>>

>>> No. NNTP is a peer-to-peer system... there is no "main"...

>>

>> Jochen, we are vendors of NNTP software.

>

> And that software is?





Wildcat! Interactive Net Server (WINSERVER)



http://www.santronics.com (sales)

http://www.winserver.com (tech support)



NNTP is just one small part of a totally integrated mail system.



--

HLS
 
J

John John - MVP

hector wrote:



> Of course there is a MAIN source. It has to start from somewhere. Most

> PEERS are going to start with the MAIN source, others will use a mirror.

> The topology is more like a star network where you main have many hubs.

> But there is a main HUB source which is not going to be gating to other

> servers.



That is certainly not my (and many others, I'm sure) understanding of

the Usenet network. It may have been a star network in the very early

days but it is now, and has for quite a while been described as a mesh

network.



John
 
H

Hector Santos

John John - MVP wrote:



> hector wrote:

>

>> Of course there is a MAIN source. It has to start from somewhere.

>> Most PEERS are going to start with the MAIN source, others will use a

>> mirror. The topology is more like a star network where you main have

>> many hubs. But there is a main HUB source which is not going to be

>> gating to other servers.

>

> That is certainly not my (and many others, I'm sure) understanding of

> the Usenet network. It may have been a star network in the very early

> days but it is now, and has for quite a while been described as a mesh

> network.





Ok, first, the microsoft.public.* newsgroups are not usenet.



Second, call it what it want, it is still the same thing. A mesh is

just a form of a star network.



No matter what you can wish to call it, it requires coordination and

each node knowing who are their Uplinks and Downlinks which is what

experts in the mail distribution market, who still run the show, know

it as. Otherwise you will have redundancy (and hence duplicity).



An uplink is who you send data too, and downlink is who you get data from.



Now, in a mesh, redundancy may be part of the expectation with

duplicity considered a lower overhead operation then it was in other

days where hardware did did not allow for such low efficiency however

it still needed to be checked.



In a well coordinated network, to minimize duplicity, the nodes are

usually going to go to a more centralize hub (lets call it MAIN). If

the Nodes are going to also serve as HUBS for others, then they better

have dupe checking because they don't KNOW if their own nodes are also

using the MAIN hub.



In general, old and current, every node has a list of remote host they

will connect too to IMPORT and EXPORT information.



If you wish to see the PATH a messge takes from any server, see the

Path: header in a newsgroup article.



Viewing your message from the Microsoft NNTP server, I see:



Path: TK2MSFTNGP01.phx.gbl!TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl



That means that it was posted at



TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl



but it was also imported to:



TK2MSFTNGP01.phx.gbl



You can tell it was posted at TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl because of the

message-ID: header:



Message-ID:



Now if I go to google groups and see your message from there, I see

(all one line)



Path: g2news1.google.com!

news1.google.com!

news.glorb.com!

feeder.erje.net!

weretis.net!

feeder1.news.weretis.net!

TK2MSFTNGP01.phx.gbl!

TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl



Starting from the bottom, the feeder1.news.weretis.net! server it

pulled from Microsoft TK2MSFTNGP01.phx.gbl! and it was gated thru a

number of 5 additional servers.



Well, #1 once the MS servers goes down, Google will not be able to

pull from TK2MSFTNGP01.phx.gbl! It will have find some thing else.



#2, you won't have MS server to post, and if you found another, you

don't know if Google will be pulling from it or that your Serer will

be posting to GOOGLE.



So no matter want you wish to call it, there is is a "backbone"

concept where there is a main hub who is normally known as the OWNER

of the newsgroup.



In regards to USENET, this is different issue. This is in industry

sponsored backbone. Not one company ones it. Its like a DNS.

Everyone has it access to add and remove from it. As long as you have

have primary uplink you can act as a primary server as well.



Anyway, with usenet, long ago, we requested an alt.* group for usenet,

It still exist:



alt.bbs.wildcat



We abandoned it long ago around 1997 when it became a high volume of

spam for us and the anonymous dirt was not something we wanted to

bother with our customers with when it was gated into our support

avenues.



The only reason we had no problem abandoning it was because it wasn't

our NEWSGROUP. We were not the main hub for it.



Thats not the case here with Microsoft.* newsgroup. These are not

usenet groups. The main hub was Microsoft where others pulled from.



Now, if someone were to migrate all the microsoft.public.* groups into

usenet groups, then you and Jochen would be correct, it wouldn't

matter if the Microsoft NNTP servers goes down because they would be

just a node off the backbone, not the main hub for it.



Hey, who knows, Maybe Google's answer to this Microsoft dropping of

their NNTP server would be to announce their own services to be

available. But they don't want people off the web for the same reason

Microsoft wants people to use the web. :)



--

HLS
 
J

John John - MVP

Hector Santos wrote:

> John John - MVP wrote:

>

>> hector wrote:

>>

>>> Of course there is a MAIN source. It has to start from somewhere.

>>> Most PEERS are going to start with the MAIN source, others will use a

>>> mirror. The topology is more like a star network where you main have

>>> many hubs. But there is a main HUB source which is not going to be

>>> gating to other servers.

>>

>> That is certainly not my (and many others, I'm sure) understanding of

>> the Usenet network. It may have been a star network in the very early

>> days but it is now, and has for quite a while been described as a mesh

>> network.

>

>

> Ok, first, the microsoft.public.* newsgroups are not usenet.



Gee, I wonder why Microsoft themselves refer to them as Usenet groups...



http://www.microsoft.com/communities/guide/newsgroupfaq.mspx



> {snip]

>

> Well, #1 once the MS servers goes down, Google will not be able to pull

> from TK2MSFTNGP01.phx.gbl! It will have find some thing else.

>

> #2, you won't have MS server to post, and if you found another, you

> don't know if Google will be pulling from it or that your Serer will be

> posting to GOOGLE.



People post to the groups from all kinds of different servers, when the

Microsoft servers are down these other servers still synchronize between

themselves without any problem and these folks who post on other servers

can still post and read without the intermediary of Microsoft servers.

We have often seen this in the past when outages of a few hours or more

at the Microsoft servers have happened and some of us use other servers

to keep on posting, when the Microsoft servers come back only line they

then "catch-up" and then all the posts show up many hours latter on

these servers. This is obvious enough when you use non Microsoft

servers to read the posts in Microsoft groups, all kinds of posts which

have not made it to the MS servers, or posts which have been removed

from the MS servers are on the other servers for all to see and read.



John
 
L

LD5SZRA

Most probably you won't be able to move to anywhere else not even

on forums because Microsoft hasn't got any plans to open forums

for Windows XP and earlier technology. Somebody suggested that

you can go to other P2P newsgroups like Google or aioe.org. This

again won't be possible because microsoft may force them to close

their newsgroups bearing Micro$hit name.



The only alternative I can think of is for somebody to organize a

group of about 10 individuals to come together and start their own

newsgroups to be financed by advertising and volunteers. I am

willing to put my name forward for this project provided there are

individuals who have some basic knowledge of hosting NNTPs which

can be expanded further as time goes by. I am good at programming

and developing websites using Java, Javascript and ASP and perhaps

some networking skills and SQL servers. that is all I know at

present.



hth





"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

>



--

THE INFORMATION IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY

KIND. LD5SZRA DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EITHER EXPRESSED OR

IMPLIED, INCLUDING THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND

FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. IN NO EVENT SHALL LD5SZRA

OR ITS ASSOCIATES BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER

INCLUDING DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, LOSS OF

BUSINESS PROFITS OR SPECIAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF LD5SZRA OR ITS

ASSOCIATES HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH

DAMAGES. SOME STATES DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OR

LIMITATION OF LIABILITY FOR CONSEQUENTIAL OR INCIDENTAL

DAMAGES SO THE FOREGOING LIMITATION MAY NOT APPLY.



Copyright LD5SZRA 2010.
 
M

Maxim S. Shatskih

> Gee, I wonder why Microsoft themselves refer to them as Usenet groups...



This is, as Hector correctly told us, "Microsoft's Usenet" :)



Usenet technically, but is not set up to be the part of the public Usenet.



Well, there are comp.xxx public Usenet newsgroups, which duplicate most microsoft.xxx ones.



Probably those of us who hate the web interfaces should move there.



Anyway for my area of interest - Windows kernel - we have excellent OSROnline forums, where the traffic is around 4 times more then on microsoft.xxx



--

Maxim S. Shatskih

Windows DDK MVP

maxim@storagecraft.com

http://www.storagecraft.com
 
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