Is this NewsGroup Operational

  • Thread starter Thread starter John Howard
  • Start date Start date
John

Sure is

Are you connecting to the MSNews Server? (news.microsoft.com)

--
HTH
Nick Hodge
Microsoft MVP - Excel
Southampton, England
(e-mail address removed)
 
From his headers, it doesn't look like it.

I'm not sure if it's a problem with his ISP or with syncing messages from
Outlook Express (I don't use OE as my newsreader), but I agree with Nick about
connecting to the microsoft newsservers directly:

Since you have Outlook Express installed, try clicking on these links (or copy
and paste into MSIE).

news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.excel.setup
news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.excel.misc
news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.excel.worksheet.functions
news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.excel.newusers
news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.excel.programming

(You can always connect to more later)

Here are some links that explain it better:

Chip Pearson has some notes written by Leonard Meads at:
http://www.cpearson.com/excel/DirectConnect.htm

David McRitchie's notes at:
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/xlnews.htm
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/oe6.htm

Tushar Mehta's notes at:
http://www.tushar-mehta.com/misc_tutorials/oe_ng/index.htm

And if you're looking for old posts:

Or you can use google (maybe a few hours behind) to search for stuff you've
posted (and find the replies, too)

http://groups.google.com/advanced_group_search
http://groups.google.com/advanced_group_search?q=group:*Excel*&num=100

Ron de Bruin has an excel addin that you may like:
http://www.rondebruin.nl/Google.htm
 
Hi John,
The microsoft.public.excel.programming newsgroup is definitely alive and well.
You could have checked that on Google Groups. There are probably about 2500
postings a day in this group according to Google Groups. (or 250 postings a day if you believe OE).
Based on Oct 4, 2003 to Oct 25, 2003 (52800 in Google Groups, 5513 in OE)

You are using Outlook Express so perhaps I can help you. The number of
postings retained by Microsoft is 30 days -- used to be many months, then 90 days,
and now 30 days.

You are NOT connected directly to the Microsoft newservers, so your ISP
or your feed may no longer include this newsgroups. Connecting directly
would be a lot faster for you.
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/oe6nws01.htm#oe_direct
You can set up a new account keeping your old one until you are satisfied
that the direct connection is better. You will be reading sames messages
into both accounts, but the one you have isn't reading anything so it really
won't matter..

Resynchronizing an account will get your messages, if it doesn't
you may have to reset the newsgroup. A reset will lose all of your postings
in that newsgroup and start over.
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/oe6.htm#resetnews

Since you are starting new with the newsgroup, would suggest limiting
the new messages you read in. The group used to have several months
now only 30 days so it is not as critical as it once was to limit them when
you startup.

First make up a newsgroup rule to not read in message more than xx days old (also
deletes messages more than xx days into the future). This will only
affect messages you have not read yet. You can increase it later,
but it only applies to incoming messages. For newsgroups.

Apply this rule after the message arrives
Where the message is from the msnnews.msn.com account
and Where the message was sent more than 3 days ago
Delete it
and Mark it as read
and Stop processing more rules

Check your synchronization settings for excel.programming
should be either New Messages, or All Messages
(or you could choose headers only), the box must be checked
or you won't read anything unless you go to the newsgroup.

Tools, accounts (select , properties
select msnews.microsoft.com
[x] Include this account when checking for new messages.

To read all of your messages in all newsgroups: Ctrl+Shift+M

When OE is running slow, you might want to do the following, compacting
is needed after you have read a lot of your messages or marked them as read.
You must be offline when compacting folders or risk loss of a .dbx file.
-- in your IE, tools, options, delete files (temporary internet files), then back to OE
-- file, work offline
-- file, folders, compact all folders (allow 15 minutes)
-- file, work online
-- you might want to defrag your hard drive at this point (allow at least 45 minutes)






--
 
I am not sure what those links cover but he may need to
get the headers. There is a button on the toolbar (far left)
that he can click to get any headers which are not downloaded.
Most times they download automatically but some times they
don't. The default setting is to download 100 or 300 at a time
so if there are heaps of posts to the group he may need to
click that button lots. The status bar will show if headers are
being downloading.

Chrissy.
 
Hi John, (posted with courtesy email copy to John Howard)
On second though since you have received anything since Feb, the
easiest thing to do would be to right click in OE on the newsgroup
on the pinned list of newsgroups and use the "Catch Up" option
then you will only get postings from that point on.

BUT after looking at your Headers previously you are not connected
directly so the best thing to do would be to paste
news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.excel.programming
into your Internet Explorer and it will automatically create an
account msnews.microsoft.com for you if you give it the okay.
then rather than downloading 24K postings right click on the your
excel.programming within the new account and chose "Catch Up"
then you won't be downloading a lot of stuff. In 30 days you won't
know the difference beause that is all that MS is storing on their
servers now.





Chrissy said:
I am not sure what those links cover but he may need to
get the headers. There is a button on the toolbar (far left)
that he can click to get any headers which are not downloaded.
Most times they download automatically but some times they
don't. The default setting is to download 100 or 300 at a time
so if there are heaps of posts to the group he may need to
click that button lots. The status bar will show if headers are
being downloading.

Chrissy.
Click to expand...
 
Hi Chrissy,
I am not sure what those links cover but he may need to
get the headers. There is a button on the toolbar (far left)
Click to expand...

Perhaps because you are not connected directly to the microsoft
newservers. If you pasted any of David Peterson's links into
your browser you would bring up the newsgroups and be linking
directly to MS newservers. i.e.
news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.excel.newusers

An account for msnews.microsoft.com would be started if you
don't have one and you would see microsoft.public.excel.newusers
within the account. You will only connect to microsoft newsservers
with msnews.microsoft.com for other newsgroups you will probably
have to continue using whatevery you are using.

The reason we can see that both you John are not connected directly
are the number of hops in the path to get to the MS servers.
..
John's:
Path:
TK2MSFTNGP08.phx.gbl!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!newsfeed01.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!newsfeed.media.kyoto-u.ac.jp!newsfeed01.tsnz.
net!ken-transit.news.telstra.net!news.telstra.net!news-server.bigpond.net.au!53ab2750!not-for-mail

Chrissy's
Path:
TK2MSFTNGP08.phx.gbl!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!nntp-relay.ihug.net!newsfeeds.ihug.co.nz!ihug.co.nz!newsfeed01.tsnz.net!
news02.tsnz.net!news.iconz.co.nz!news.maxnet.co.nz!not-for-mail

David's Path: TK2MSFTNGP08.phx.gbl!TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl
Dave P's Path: TK2MSFTNGP08.phx.gbl!TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl


Chrissy said:
I am not sure what those links cover but he may need to
get the headers. There is a button on the toolbar (far left)
that he can click to get any headers which are not downloaded.
Most times they download automatically but some times they
don't. The default setting is to download 100 or 300 at a time
so if there are heaps of posts to the group he may need to
click that button lots. The status bar will show if headers are
being downloading.

Chrissy.
Click to expand...
 
David, that is not what I meant. What I meant was that I was
not going to read all of the links but that OE does have a problem
with NGs and clicking on Download Headers can get the posts
which appear to be missing - they are not missing but are not
downloaded. It is an OE issue and it may be part of the OPs
problem.

Connecting directly to the Microsoft server will help him cos other
servers do not have all the posts but OE has other issues which may
need addressing.

Chrissy.
PS - thanks for posting my header info - I have just changed ISPs
and was wondering who was my news hoster in NZ. It appears
to be iHug.



David McRitchie wrote
Hi Chrissy,
I am not sure what those links cover but he may need to
get the headers. There is a button on the toolbar (far left)
Click to expand...

Perhaps because you are not connected directly to the microsoft
newservers. If you pasted any of David Peterson's links into
your browser you would bring up the newsgroups and be linking
directly to MS newservers. i.e.
news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.excel.newusers

An account for msnews.microsoft.com would be started if you
don't have one and you would see microsoft.public.excel.newusers
within the account. You will only connect to microsoft newsservers
with msnews.microsoft.com for other newsgroups you will probably
have to continue using whatevery you are using.

The reason we can see that both you John are not connected directly
are the number of hops in the path to get to the MS servers.
.
John's:
Path:
TK2MSFTNGP08.phx.gbl!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!newsfeed01.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!newsfeed.media.kyoto-u.ac.jp!newsfeed01.tsnz.
net!ken-transit.news.telstra.net!news.telstra.net!news-server.bigpond.net.au!53ab2750!not-for-mail

Chrissy's
Path:
Click to expand...
TK2MSFTNGP08.phx.gbl!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!nntp-relay.ihug.net!newsfeeds.ihug.co.nz!ihug.co.nz!newsfeed01.tsnz.net!
news02.tsnz.net!news.iconz.co.nz!news.maxnet.co.nz!not-for-mail

David's Path: TK2MSFTNGP08.phx.gbl!TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl
Dave P's Path: TK2MSFTNGP08.phx.gbl!TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl
Click to expand...
 
Many thanks to all who responded.
The problems has been fixed for now by unsubscribing then re subscribing
several times.

Aren't MS products wonderful LOL
 
Hi John,
Good. Don't know why you had to unsubscribe and resubscribe several times.

You should get postings faster if you connected directly to the Microsoft newsservers
as explained earlier in this thread. If you look at your PATH in your
headers each exclamation point is a hop toward the Microsoft servers at the
beginning of the path.

Since you have subscribed and unsubscribed several times I expect there
is some cleanup that you might want to do. Do a search on your harddrive
for *.DBX you should recognize the ones that relate to your newsgroups.
I think you might find some duplicates that are not in use check the dates.
To help you check the dates you might want to open each newsgroup then
close OE.

With OE up but offline you might want to compact your folders.
File, Folders, Compact all -- make sure you are offline


John Howard said:
Many thanks to all who responded.
The problems has been fixed for now by unsubscribing then re subscribing
several times.

Aren't MS products wonderful LOL
Click to expand...
Things improve with age. Sure am glad not to have to use
a typewriter, or to compose a program on a keypunch and
wait for operations to run test programs.
 
Because compacting without going offline is a major cause of losing
the integrity of a .dbx file.

I had forgotten about background computation -- even worse, just don't do it.
You will see in the following article about doing compaction offline.

InsideOE: Maintenance (Tom C. Koch)
http://insideoe.tomsterdam.com/files/maintain.htm

--
 
I had forgotten about background computation -- even worse, just don't do it.

Result of not looking at choices from spell checker should read
I had forgotten about background compaction -- even worse, just don't do it.
Click to expand...
 
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