This:

I've read in other forums that at least one admin will of another newsserver
will respect the request and remove the newsgroups. (It may have been
eternal-september, but I don't recall for sure.)

Should have been:

I've read in another forum that at least one admin of another newsserver will
respect the requests and remove the newsgroups. (It may have been
eternal-september, but I don't recall for sure.)

Dave Peterson wrote:

Verizon.net is my ISP, but they've stopped carrying newsgroups a while ago. I
connect directly to the MSServers to post here.

I think the main problem will be if MS sends out remove group command. I don't
know if others servers will respect those requests.

I've read in other forums that at least one admin will of another newsserver
will respect the request and remove the newsgroups. (It may have been
eternal-september, but I don't recall for sure.)

So for me, finding a replacement newsserver (cheap, preferably free) that still
carries these groups would be the challenge. (I don't like the web based google
groups any better than the web based MS forums/Answers.)

I would expect that most people (non-regulars) would migrate to the MS hosted
answers forum just to avoid costs/aggrevation. And traffic will diminish (I bet
significantly).

BTW, I think MS changed their limit to 90 days a year or more ago. They may
have even cut it to 30 days. But I agree, if I'm looking for something more
than a day or two old, I'll use google groups.

Harlan Grove wrote:

Dave Peterson wrote:
Just testing to see if I can post to MS Servers.

There's a BIG difference between posting to the microsoft.public.*
newsgroups generally vs posting to them specifically on
msnews.microsoft.com nntp servers. Microsoft has pulled the plug on
their own msnews.microsoft.com servers, but as long as ISPs and Google
Groups continue to support the microsoft.public.* newsgroups, they
won't disappear.

Consider: there are still postings to
microsoft.public.excel.worksheetfunctions (note only 3 periods). They
just don't go through the msnews.microsoft.com servers. I'd note that
it appears you posted through a Verizon account, and I'm reading and
responding to it through Google Groups.

This is the strength of USENET/NNPT. It was meant to keep working even
if a country or even a continent or two sank into the ocean. As long
as ISPs retain microsoft.public.* newsgroups in their NNTP servers'
newsgroups lists, it'll remain possible to continue to use them. In
the short term the only thing that won't be possible is accessing them
through msnews.microsoft.com.

That said, the one drawback to ISP-hosted newsgroups is latency. ISPs
tend to delete newsgroup messages after a short period of time, as
short as 2 days on some, as long as a few months on others, but there
won't be 12 months or more of postings like there was on
msnews.microsoft.com servers. Google Groups remains the best archive
of old postings.

--

Dave Peterson

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Dave Peterson