There are two problems with NNTP, from Microsoft's viewpoint:

1. It's old and unshiny.
2. It was not invented in Redmond.

- Jon
-------
Jon Peltier
Peltier Technical Services, Inc.
http://peltiertech.com/


On 5/5/2010 7:26 PM, Bruce Sinclair wrote:
In , "T. wrote:
I didn't go to this link to read about the replacement forum:

http://www.microsoft.com/communities...s/default.mspx

So I have no idea if that link mentions the location of the new forums.

The new Excel forums are located at:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/default.aspx

I've started posting there. The UI is completely different but it's still a
web based forum!

This is a backward step IMO. To me, newsgroups have everything that is good
with nothing (well, OK, very little :) ) that is bad about the on line
community. A short list of these would include:

Quick and easy.
Simple disply.
Can get headers only and download just what you want to read.
Properly threaded discussions.
Access to hundreds/thousands of helpful knowlegeable people not only willing
but eager to help.
Text only (ie *not* web based).
Many news readers available ... there's is bound to be something out there
to suit everyone.
Archived.

Negatives ? Well, a few spammers and idiots ... but most news software has
excellent filters, so that's taken care of. :)


For myself, I will never use a browser to read news or "forums". It's too
slow, too clunky and cumbersome, has bad to non existent threading, bad to
no filters and is ugly, to name a few reasons.

I guess there will be a few die hards<puts up hand that stick with MS news
groups, for a while at least, and it is likely there will still be some
traffic for a while with a few people willing and able to help ... but it
sounds like MS is trying to kill off this helpful support line.

Given it's free to them, I can't imagine why they think this is a good idea.