Reminder - Microsoft Responds to the Evolution of Community

Microsoft Office Evolves Community as Part of Office 2010 Launch:
As you know, this is a big year for Microsoft as we are launching the latest
version of Office. Office 2010 is all about making it easy for you to get
and use Office on your terms. Office 2010 lets you work from the office,
from home, or at school across the PC, the Phone, and the Browser. You
can purchase Office 2010 from retail, from our OEM manufactures when you
purchase a new PC, or get it direct from Microsoft, faster than ever via a
new software delivery mechanism called Click-To-Run.

And, we're working hard to provide you the customer support you want, when
you want it. We are offering 1-year of technical support included in our
Office Professional 2010 SKU. We are expanding and improving our community
to provide free, 24/7 support. The details of this evolution are outlined
below, but suffice it to say, we're really excited about this as it aligns
with our Office 2010 vision of Office on your terms

What is Happening?
This message is to inform you that Microsoft will soon begin discontinuing
newsgroups and transitioning users to Microsoft forums.

Why?
As you may know, newsgroups have existed for many years now; however, the
traffic in the Microsoft newsgroups has been steadily decreasing for the
past several years while customers and participants are increasingly finding
solutions in the forums on Microsoft properties and third party sites. This
move will unify the customer experience, centralize content, make it easier
for active contributors to retain their influence, mitigate redundancies and
make the content easier to find by customers and search engines through
improved indexing. Additionally, forums offer a better user and spam
management platform that will improve customer satisfaction by encouraging a
healthy discussion in a clean community space. To this end, Microsoft will
begin to progressively shift available resources to the forums technology
and discontinue support for newsgroups.

In addition to offering a compelling online browser experience, for those
users who prefer to use an NNTP (newsgroup) reader to participate in the
newsgroups community, we have developed a solution called the NNTP Bridge
which allows a user to connect a variety of supported NNTP readers to the
forums they would like to participate in and continue having the NTTP reader
functionality. You can find instructions on how to download and set up the
NNTP Bridge he http://connect.microsoft.com/MicrosoftForums/


When will this Happen?
Effective June 1, 2010 this newsgroup will be closed.

Where Should I go with the Closure of this Newsgroup?
Microsoft has a large selection of forums, many of which cover either the
same or closely related technologies to the ones found in the newsgroups.
The forums have seen amazing growth and are an excellent place to continue
the discussion. We recommend that you start with: http://social.answers.microsoft.com/...addbuz/threads

Should you want to visit the other Microsoft Forums, please go to
http://www.microsoft.com/communities...s/default.mspx

Who Should I Contact with any Questions?
Send any questions about the process, recommended forums and timing to

NO, it is NOT a "Reminder" when it is new information.

Effective June 1, 2010 this newsgroup will be closed.

This was NOT one of the newsgroups which received notification that it would
close on June 1.

I am not surprised to see MS withdraw support for News Groups,
but I am still shocked at what a schmozzle this has been. Faulty
information, closed forums, a general air of incompetence and
corruption.

There were several groups which were notified of early (June 1)
closure. There are several groups which have not yet been
notified of a specific closure date. And then there is this group.

(david)


wrote in message
...

Microsoft Office Evolves Community as Part of Office 2010 Launch:
As you know, this is a big year for Microsoft as we are launching the
latest version of Office. Office 2010 is all about making it easy for
you to get and use Office on your terms. Office 2010 lets you work from
the office, from home, or at school across the PC, the Phone, and the
Browser. You can purchase Office 2010 from retail, from our OEM
manufactures when you purchase a new PC, or get it direct from Microsoft,
faster than ever via a new software delivery mechanism called
Click-To-Run.

And, we're working hard to provide you the customer support you want, when
you want it. We are offering 1-year of technical support included in our
Office Professional 2010 SKU. We are expanding and improving our
community to provide free, 24/7 support. The details of this evolution
are outlined below, but suffice it to say, we're really excited about this
as it aligns with our Office 2010 vision of Office on your terms

What is Happening?
This message is to inform you that Microsoft will soon begin discontinuing
newsgroups and transitioning users to Microsoft forums.

Why?
As you may know, newsgroups have existed for many years now; however, the
traffic in the Microsoft newsgroups has been steadily decreasing for the
past several years while customers and participants are increasingly
finding
solutions in the forums on Microsoft properties and third party sites.
This
move will unify the customer experience, centralize content, make it
easier
for active contributors to retain their influence, mitigate redundancies
and
make the content easier to find by customers and search engines through
improved indexing. Additionally, forums offer a better user and spam
management platform that will improve customer satisfaction by encouraging
a
healthy discussion in a clean community space. To this end, Microsoft
will
begin to progressively shift available resources to the forums technology
and discontinue support for newsgroups.

In addition to offering a compelling online browser experience, for those
users who prefer to use an NNTP (newsgroup) reader to participate in the
newsgroups community, we have developed a solution called the NNTP Bridge
which allows a user to connect a variety of supported NNTP readers to the
forums they would like to participate in and continue having the NTTP
reader
functionality. You can find instructions on how to download and set up
the
NNTP Bridge he http://connect.microsoft.com/MicrosoftForums/


When will this Happen?
Effective June 1, 2010 this newsgroup will be closed.

Where Should I go with the Closure of this Newsgroup?
Microsoft has a large selection of forums, many of which cover either the
same or closely related technologies to the ones found in the newsgroups.
The forums have seen amazing growth and are an excellent place to continue
the discussion. We recommend that you start with:
http://social.answers.microsoft.com/...addbuz/threads

Should you want to visit the other Microsoft Forums, please go to
http://www.microsoft.com/communities...s/default.mspx

Who Should I Contact with any Questions?
Send any questions about the process, recommended forums and timing to

I went to the site they listed, and instructions say:

NNTP Bridge Guide: Installation
Create and configure your Forums Profile
Go to any of the online forums at http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/
and click "Sign in" in the upper right hand corner of the screen. Understand
the Windows Live ID is the same one that you want to use with this Client.
This is a onetime effort to create your online profile. You don't need to do
this every time you use this application. If you already have a Windows Live
ID that you have used to sign on to any of the forums below then you can
skip this step.
When logged into forums users need to click their "My Settings"
Enable the option "Use NNTP Bridge"
Click "Submit" to save the settings change
Installing the NNTP Bridge application
Unzip all the install files into a local temporary directory
Run the NntpBridgeSetup.exe. This installs all the prerequisites for this
application. It might prompt you to accept license agreement for those
prerequisites like .NET 3.5 Client Framework. Accept those license
agreements. Finally the Setup.exe starts the application installer. Follow
next steps to complete the install.
Accept the license agreement for Microsoft® Forums NNTP Bridge and click
"Install"

Everything worked until I got to "Installing the NNTP Bridge application".
Where do I find the file which needs to be unzipped and installed? Nothing
happened when I Clicked "Submit" to save the settings change - no download
or anything.

Where do you get the NNTP Bridge install files?


"david" wrote in message
...
NO, it is NOT a "Reminder" when it is new information.

Effective June 1, 2010 this newsgroup will be closed.

This was NOT one of the newsgroups which received notification that it
would close on June 1.

I am not surprised to see MS withdraw support for News Groups,
but I am still shocked at what a schmozzle this has been. Faulty
information, closed forums, a general air of incompetence and
corruption.

There were several groups which were notified of early (June 1)
closure. There are several groups which have not yet been
notified of a specific closure date. And then there is this group.

(david)


wrote in message
...

Microsoft Office Evolves Community as Part of Office 2010 Launch:
As you know, this is a big year for Microsoft as we are launching the
latest version of Office. Office 2010 is all about making it easy for
you to get and use Office on your terms. Office 2010 lets you work from
the office, from home, or at school across the PC, the Phone, and the
Browser. You can purchase Office 2010 from retail, from our OEM
manufactures when you purchase a new PC, or get it direct from Microsoft,
faster than ever via a new software delivery mechanism called
Click-To-Run.

And, we're working hard to provide you the customer support you want,
when you want it. We are offering 1-year of technical support included
in our Office Professional 2010 SKU. We are expanding and improving our
community to provide free, 24/7 support. The details of this evolution
are outlined below, but suffice it to say, we're really excited about
this as it aligns with our Office 2010 vision of Office on your terms

What is Happening?
This message is to inform you that Microsoft will soon begin
discontinuing
newsgroups and transitioning users to Microsoft forums.

Why?
As you may know, newsgroups have existed for many years now; however, the
traffic in the Microsoft newsgroups has been steadily decreasing for the
past several years while customers and participants are increasingly
finding
solutions in the forums on Microsoft properties and third party sites.
This
move will unify the customer experience, centralize content, make it
easier
for active contributors to retain their influence, mitigate redundancies
and
make the content easier to find by customers and search engines through
improved indexing. Additionally, forums offer a better user and spam
management platform that will improve customer satisfaction by
encouraging a
healthy discussion in a clean community space. To this end, Microsoft
will
begin to progressively shift available resources to the forums technology
and discontinue support for newsgroups.

In addition to offering a compelling online browser experience, for those
users who prefer to use an NNTP (newsgroup) reader to participate in the
newsgroups community, we have developed a solution called the NNTP Bridge
which allows a user to connect a variety of supported NNTP readers to the
forums they would like to participate in and continue having the NTTP
reader
functionality. You can find instructions on how to download and set up
the
NNTP Bridge he http://connect.microsoft.com/MicrosoftForums/


When will this Happen?
Effective June 1, 2010 this newsgroup will be closed.

Where Should I go with the Closure of this Newsgroup?
Microsoft has a large selection of forums, many of which cover either the
same or closely related technologies to the ones found in the newsgroups.
The forums have seen amazing growth and are an excellent place to
continue
the discussion. We recommend that you start with:
http://social.answers.microsoft.com/...addbuz/threads

Should you want to visit the other Microsoft Forums, please go to
http://www.microsoft.com/communities...s/default.mspx

Who Should I Contact with any Questions?
Send any questions about the process, recommended forums and timing to

Found a link to the download from someone's blog. Next question -
How do I find the groups I am currently subscribed to in the new NNTP
Bridge? e.g. if I look for access there isn't much except
msdn.en-US.accessdev.
Where are all of the microsoft.public.access.xxxxx groups I am used to - or
will they only become available once the forum is closed down?


"M Skabialka" wrote in message
...
I went to the site they listed, and instructions say:

NNTP Bridge Guide: Installation
Create and configure your Forums Profile
Go to any of the online forums at http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/
and click "Sign in" in the upper right hand corner of the screen.
Understand the Windows Live ID is the same one that you want to use with
this Client. This is a onetime effort to create your online profile. You
don't need to do this every time you use this application. If you already
have a Windows Live ID that you have used to sign on to any of the forums
below then you can skip this step.
When logged into forums users need to click their "My Settings"
Enable the option "Use NNTP Bridge"
Click "Submit" to save the settings change
Installing the NNTP Bridge application
Unzip all the install files into a local temporary directory
Run the NntpBridgeSetup.exe. This installs all the prerequisites for this
application. It might prompt you to accept license agreement for those
prerequisites like .NET 3.5 Client Framework. Accept those license
agreements. Finally the Setup.exe starts the application installer. Follow
next steps to complete the install.
Accept the license agreement for Microsoft® Forums NNTP Bridge and click
"Install"

Everything worked until I got to "Installing the NNTP Bridge application".
Where do I find the file which needs to be unzipped and installed?
Nothing happened when I Clicked "Submit" to save the settings change - no
download or anything.

Where do you get the NNTP Bridge install files?


"david" wrote in message
...
NO, it is NOT a "Reminder" when it is new information.

Effective June 1, 2010 this newsgroup will be closed.

This was NOT one of the newsgroups which received notification that it
would close on June 1.

I am not surprised to see MS withdraw support for News Groups,
but I am still shocked at what a schmozzle this has been. Faulty
information, closed forums, a general air of incompetence and
corruption.

There were several groups which were notified of early (June 1)
closure. There are several groups which have not yet been
notified of a specific closure date. And then there is this group.

(david)


wrote in message
...

Microsoft Office Evolves Community as Part of Office 2010 Launch:
As you know, this is a big year for Microsoft as we are launching the
latest version of Office. Office 2010 is all about making it easy for
you to get and use Office on your terms. Office 2010 lets you work from
the office, from home, or at school across the PC, the Phone, and the
Browser. You can purchase Office 2010 from retail, from our OEM
manufactures when you purchase a new PC, or get it direct from
Microsoft, faster than ever via a new software delivery mechanism called
Click-To-Run.

And, we're working hard to provide you the customer support you want,
when you want it. We are offering 1-year of technical support included
in our Office Professional 2010 SKU. We are expanding and improving our
community to provide free, 24/7 support. The details of this evolution
are outlined below, but suffice it to say, we're really excited about
this as it aligns with our Office 2010 vision of Office on your terms

What is Happening?
This message is to inform you that Microsoft will soon begin
discontinuing
newsgroups and transitioning users to Microsoft forums.

Why?
As you may know, newsgroups have existed for many years now; however,
the
traffic in the Microsoft newsgroups has been steadily decreasing for the
past several years while customers and participants are increasingly
finding
solutions in the forums on Microsoft properties and third party sites.
This
move will unify the customer experience, centralize content, make it
easier
for active contributors to retain their influence, mitigate redundancies
and
make the content easier to find by customers and search engines through
improved indexing. Additionally, forums offer a better user and spam
management platform that will improve customer satisfaction by
encouraging a
healthy discussion in a clean community space. To this end, Microsoft
will
begin to progressively shift available resources to the forums
technology
and discontinue support for newsgroups.

In addition to offering a compelling online browser experience, for
those
users who prefer to use an NNTP (newsgroup) reader to participate in the
newsgroups community, we have developed a solution called the NNTP
Bridge
which allows a user to connect a variety of supported NNTP readers to
the
forums they would like to participate in and continue having the NTTP
reader
functionality. You can find instructions on how to download and set up
the
NNTP Bridge he http://connect.microsoft.com/MicrosoftForums/


When will this Happen?
Effective June 1, 2010 this newsgroup will be closed.

Where Should I go with the Closure of this Newsgroup?
Microsoft has a large selection of forums, many of which cover either
the
same or closely related technologies to the ones found in the
newsgroups.
The forums have seen amazing growth and are an excellent place to
continue
the discussion. We recommend that you start with:
http://social.answers.microsoft.com/...addbuz/threads

Should you want to visit the other Microsoft Forums, please go to
http://www.microsoft.com/communities...s/default.mspx

Who Should I Contact with any Questions?
Send any questions about the process, recommended forums and timing to

Newsgroup support (not Microsoft-sponsored) is still available in the USENET
newsgroup comp.databases.ms-access, which pre-dates the Microsoft-sponsored
newsgroups (back then, Microsoft's support was on the for-fee service
CompuServe). Many ISPs have discontinued news server support, but there are
quite a number of news servers available, free and fee.

As a final note, quite a number of Access MVPs, whose names you will
recognize from the Microsoft-sponsored newsgroups, have posted in
comp.database.ms-access that they "are back". It's almost like a
"Homecoming".

--
Larry Linson, Microsoft Office Access MVP
Co-author: "Microsoft Access Small Business Solutions", published by Wiley
Access newsgroup support is alive and well in USENET
comp.databases.ms-access


wrote in message
...

Microsoft Office Evolves Community as Part of Office 2010 Launch:
As you know, this is a big year for Microsoft as we are launching the
latest version of Office. Office 2010 is all about making it easy for
you to get and use Office on your terms. Office 2010 lets you work from
the office, from home, or at school across the PC, the Phone, and the
Browser. You can purchase Office 2010 from retail, from our OEM
manufactures when you purchase a new PC, or get it direct from Microsoft,
faster than ever via a new software delivery mechanism called
Click-To-Run.

And, we're working hard to provide you the customer support you want, when
you want it. We are offering 1-year of technical support included in our
Office Professional 2010 SKU. We are expanding and improving our
community to provide free, 24/7 support. The details of this evolution
are outlined below, but suffice it to say, we're really excited about this
as it aligns with our Office 2010 vision of Office on your terms

What is Happening?
This message is to inform you that Microsoft will soon begin discontinuing
newsgroups and transitioning users to Microsoft forums.

Why?
As you may know, newsgroups have existed for many years now; however, the
traffic in the Microsoft newsgroups has been steadily decreasing for the
past several years while customers and participants are increasingly
finding
solutions in the forums on Microsoft properties and third party sites.
This
move will unify the customer experience, centralize content, make it
easier
for active contributors to retain their influence, mitigate redundancies
and
make the content easier to find by customers and search engines through
improved indexing. Additionally, forums offer a better user and spam
management platform that will improve customer satisfaction by encouraging
a
healthy discussion in a clean community space. To this end, Microsoft
will
begin to progressively shift available resources to the forums technology
and discontinue support for newsgroups.

In addition to offering a compelling online browser experience, for those
users who prefer to use an NNTP (newsgroup) reader to participate in the
newsgroups community, we have developed a solution called the NNTP Bridge
which allows a user to connect a variety of supported NNTP readers to the
forums they would like to participate in and continue having the NTTP
reader
functionality. You can find instructions on how to download and set up
the
NNTP Bridge he http://connect.microsoft.com/MicrosoftForums/


When will this Happen?
Effective June 1, 2010 this newsgroup will be closed.

Where Should I go with the Closure of this Newsgroup?
Microsoft has a large selection of forums, many of which cover either the
same or closely related technologies to the ones found in the newsgroups.
The forums have seen amazing growth and are an excellent place to continue
the discussion. We recommend that you start with:
http://social.answers.microsoft.com/...addbuz/threads

Should you want to visit the other Microsoft Forums, please go to
http://www.microsoft.com/communities...s/default.mspx

Who Should I Contact with any Questions?
Send any questions about the process, recommended forums and timing to

How do you access those groups - Outlook Express? a URL?

"Larry Linson" wrote in message
...
Newsgroup support (not Microsoft-sponsored) is still available in the
USENET newsgroup comp.databases.ms-access, which pre-dates the
Microsoft-sponsored newsgroups (back then, Microsoft's support was on the
for-fee service CompuServe). Many ISPs have discontinued news server
support, but there are quite a number of news servers available, free and
fee.

As a final note, quite a number of Access MVPs, whose names you will
recognize from the Microsoft-sponsored newsgroups, have posted in
comp.database.ms-access that they "are back". It's almost like a
"Homecoming".

--
Larry Linson, Microsoft Office Access MVP
Co-author: "Microsoft Access Small Business Solutions", published by Wiley
Access newsgroup support is alive and well in USENET
comp.databases.ms-access


wrote in message
...

Microsoft Office Evolves Community as Part of Office 2010 Launch:
As you know, this is a big year for Microsoft as we are launching the
latest version of Office. Office 2010 is all about making it easy for
you to get and use Office on your terms. Office 2010 lets you work from
the office, from home, or at school across the PC, the Phone, and the
Browser. You can purchase Office 2010 from retail, from our OEM
manufactures when you purchase a new PC, or get it direct from Microsoft,
faster than ever via a new software delivery mechanism called
Click-To-Run.

And, we're working hard to provide you the customer support you want,
when you want it. We are offering 1-year of technical support included
in our Office Professional 2010 SKU. We are expanding and improving our
community to provide free, 24/7 support. The details of this evolution
are outlined below, but suffice it to say, we're really excited about
this as it aligns with our Office 2010 vision of Office on your terms

What is Happening?
This message is to inform you that Microsoft will soon begin
discontinuing
newsgroups and transitioning users to Microsoft forums.

Why?
As you may know, newsgroups have existed for many years now; however, the
traffic in the Microsoft newsgroups has been steadily decreasing for the
past several years while customers and participants are increasingly
finding
solutions in the forums on Microsoft properties and third party sites.
This
move will unify the customer experience, centralize content, make it
easier
for active contributors to retain their influence, mitigate redundancies
and
make the content easier to find by customers and search engines through
improved indexing. Additionally, forums offer a better user and spam
management platform that will improve customer satisfaction by
encouraging a
healthy discussion in a clean community space. To this end, Microsoft
will
begin to progressively shift available resources to the forums technology
and discontinue support for newsgroups.

In addition to offering a compelling online browser experience, for those
users who prefer to use an NNTP (newsgroup) reader to participate in the
newsgroups community, we have developed a solution called the NNTP Bridge
which allows a user to connect a variety of supported NNTP readers to the
forums they would like to participate in and continue having the NTTP
reader
functionality. You can find instructions on how to download and set up
the
NNTP Bridge he http://connect.microsoft.com/MicrosoftForums/


When will this Happen?
Effective June 1, 2010 this newsgroup will be closed.

Where Should I go with the Closure of this Newsgroup?
Microsoft has a large selection of forums, many of which cover either the
same or closely related technologies to the ones found in the newsgroups.
The forums have seen amazing growth and are an excellent place to
continue
the discussion. We recommend that you start with:
http://social.answers.microsoft.com/...addbuz/threads

Should you want to visit the other Microsoft Forums, please go to
http://www.microsoft.com/communities...s/default.mspx

Who Should I Contact with any Questions?
Send any questions about the process, recommended forums and timing to

On 5/20/10 8:55 AM, M Skabialka wrote:
How do you access those groups - Outlook Express? a URL?

I don't know if OE has NNTP support but basically any newsreader client
(which could be also an email client but not always) will do. For free
NNTP server, look at Eternal September. There's supposed to be one more
but I can't remember the other name.

heresyAlternatively, if you are the sort to prefer web interface,
AccessMonster has pretty good interface./heresy

On Thu, 20 May 2010 10:02:02 -0500, "M Skabialka"
wrote:

Where are all of the microsoft.public.access.xxxxx groups I am used to - or
will they only become available once the forum is closed down?

At present there is only the one group, shared between Access, Visio, InfoPath
and Project. There's some discussion ongoing about providing more groups but
at present, that's not happening.
--

John W. Vinson [MVP]

On Thu, 20 May 2010 09:02:36 -0700, Banana Banana@Republic wrote:

I don't know if OE has NNTP support but basically any newsreader client
(which could be also an email client but not always) will do. For free
NNTP server, look at Eternal September. There's supposed to be one more
but I can't remember the other name.

OE, Windows Mail, Windows Live Mail all have NNTP support. There are of course
many newsreader programs available, Agent (www.forteinc.com) is my favorite.

www.aioe.org is another free NNTP server.

heresyAlternatively, if you are the sort to prefer web interface,
AccessMonster has pretty good interface./heresy

AccessMonster, UtterAccess, several others. All worth checking out, especially
since MS Answers is going through some major birth pains.
--

John W. Vinson [MVP]

You will need a news server that carries them; then you can access them
through Outlook Express, Windows Live Mail, or other news readers.

The server I am using is "news.individual.net", on the recommendation of a
friend and colleague, it is operated by the Free University of Berlin, and
costs 10 euro per year. I have not used it for long enough to give an
opinion, other than in more than a week of use, I have not had a problem.

Other colleagues whose opinions I trust, use the free server you can access
via http://www.eternalseptember.org. I haven't used it at all, but they seem
happy with it. According to one of the references found on a search, this
one may have its own news reader, also.

Both of these, and most of the other free news servers, are text-only, no
images/graphics. But searching at bing or google on "news server" should
retrieve you a lot of information. If I recall correctly, GigaNews (which
is somewhat more expensive) does allow access to graphics / image
newsgroups.
--
Larry Linson, Microsoft Office Access MVP
Co-author: "Microsoft Access Small Business Solutions", published by Wiley
Access newsgroup support is alive and well in USENET
comp.databases.ms-access

"M Skabialka" wrote in message
...
How do you access those groups - Outlook Express? a URL?

"Larry Linson" wrote in message
...
Newsgroup support (not Microsoft-sponsored) is still available in the
USENET newsgroup comp.databases.ms-access, which pre-dates the
Microsoft-sponsored newsgroups (back then, Microsoft's support was on the
for-fee service CompuServe). Many ISPs have discontinued news server
support, but there are quite a number of news servers available, free and
fee.

As a final note, quite a number of Access MVPs, whose names you will
recognize from the Microsoft-sponsored newsgroups, have posted in
comp.database.ms-access that they "are back". It's almost like a
"Homecoming".

--
Larry Linson, Microsoft Office Access MVP
Co-author: "Microsoft Access Small Business Solutions", published by
Wiley
Access newsgroup support is alive and well in USENET
comp.databases.ms-access


wrote in message
...

Microsoft Office Evolves Community as Part of Office 2010 Launch:
As you know, this is a big year for Microsoft as we are launching the
latest version of Office. Office 2010 is all about making it easy for
you to get and use Office on your terms. Office 2010 lets you work from
the office, from home, or at school across the PC, the Phone, and the
Browser. You can purchase Office 2010 from retail, from our OEM
manufactures when you purchase a new PC, or get it direct from
Microsoft, faster than ever via a new software delivery mechanism called
Click-To-Run.

And, we're working hard to provide you the customer support you want,
when you want it. We are offering 1-year of technical support included
in our Office Professional 2010 SKU. We are expanding and improving our
community to provide free, 24/7 support. The details of this evolution
are outlined below, but suffice it to say, we're really excited about
this as it aligns with our Office 2010 vision of Office on your terms

What is Happening?
This message is to inform you that Microsoft will soon begin
discontinuing
newsgroups and transitioning users to Microsoft forums.

Why?
As you may know, newsgroups have existed for many years now; however,
the
traffic in the Microsoft newsgroups has been steadily decreasing for the
past several years while customers and participants are increasingly
finding
solutions in the forums on Microsoft properties and third party sites.
This
move will unify the customer experience, centralize content, make it
easier
for active contributors to retain their influence, mitigate redundancies
and
make the content easier to find by customers and search engines through
improved indexing. Additionally, forums offer a better user and spam
management platform that will improve customer satisfaction by
encouraging a
healthy discussion in a clean community space. To this end, Microsoft
will
begin to progressively shift available resources to the forums
technology
and discontinue support for newsgroups.

In addition to offering a compelling online browser experience, for
those
users who prefer to use an NNTP (newsgroup) reader to participate in the
newsgroups community, we have developed a solution called the NNTP
Bridge
which allows a user to connect a variety of supported NNTP readers to
the
forums they would like to participate in and continue having the NTTP
reader
functionality. You can find instructions on how to download and set up
the
NNTP Bridge he http://connect.microsoft.com/MicrosoftForums/


When will this Happen?
Effective June 1, 2010 this newsgroup will be closed.

Where Should I go with the Closure of this Newsgroup?
Microsoft has a large selection of forums, many of which cover either
the
same or closely related technologies to the ones found in the
newsgroups.
The forums have seen amazing growth and are an excellent place to
continue
the discussion. We recommend that you start with:
http://social.answers.microsoft.com/...addbuz/threads

Should you want to visit the other Microsoft Forums, please go to
http://www.microsoft.com/communities...s/default.mspx

Who Should I Contact with any Questions?
Send any questions about the process, recommended forums and timing to