Linda RQ said:
I don't have a google account but do have yahoo.
It is trivial to set up a Google account, if you want to try it. You just
enter your Yahoo account name, (e-mail address removed), as the Email address and
create a password. Or you could create a more-anonynous Yahoo or Hotmail
account for this purpose. In either case, Google sends email to that
address with a link to activate the Google account. It takes me about 5
minutes.
Caveat: Personally, I like the Google Groups interface, especially since I
can use the same interface to access other Usenet newsgroups in addition to
microsoft.public ones. However, it seems that some/many messages posted to
microsoft.public newsgroups through the MS web browser interface (MS
"discussion groups") do not find their way to the Google Groups news server.