Newsgroups for MS Office 2007 Beta 2 which is now available for public download?

[JDJ]

Heh, I'm just now downloading the public beta for MS Office 2007
announced yesterday.

I thought by now there would be some newsgroups specific to the 2007
beta software?

Since beta 2 is public are we to be given access to the private (up
until now) beta news groups, or will there be new, separate newsgroups
appearing here on the public server and if so when?

Thanks.

 

[JoAnn Paules [MVP]]

It is my understanding that there will not be a newsgroup that is specific
to the beta. (And I am less than thrilled with that.)

 

[Bob Buckland ?:-\)]

Hi JoAnn,

FWIW, the nature of newsgroups is that once they are started they can't really be removed. From Google groups to the 'forums' on
various websites that put their own name on the Microsoft newsgroups hosted on news://msnews.microsoft.com there are a lot of
'copies' out there and turning off a group name on microsoft.com doesn't remove it from the others.

======================
It is my understanding that there will not be a newsgroup that is specific
to the beta. (And I am less than thrilled with that.)

JoAnn Paules
MVP Microsoft [Publisher] >>
--
Let us know if this helped you,

Bob Buckland ?
MS Office System Products MVP

Pricing and Packages for '2007 Microsoft Office System'
http://microsoft.com/office/preview

 

[Andrew Watt [MVP]]

There won't be any Office 2007-specific newsgroups if currently plans
don't change.

Ask any questions on the most appropriate existing Office-related
public newsgroups.

Andrew Watt MVP

 

[JDJ]

FWIW, the nature of newsgroups is that once they are started they can't really be removed.

No real need to REMOVE groups, why not add new ones.

So the newly added groups have some permanence, rather than call them

microsoft.public.office.2007.beta, miscrosoft.public.word.2007.beta

you could just call them

microsoft.public.office.2007, microsoft.public.word.2007

so it would be useful well into the future past the release.

These groups would complement existing groups which should still stay
up.

From Google groups to the 'forums' on various websites that put their own name on the
Microsoft newsgroups hosted on news://msnews.microsoft.com there are a lot of
'copies' out there and turning off a group name on microsoft.com doesn't remove it from the others.

As far as I'm concerned the term or word "Newsgroup" refers to a
Usenet Newsgroup which are hosted on a Usenet News Server and can be
accessed with a Usenet Newsreader.

Many Usenet Servers all over the planet sync (very quickly). How all
the Usenet Servers sync is too technical for me.

I DO know that the administrator of a News Server can decide what
groups to host and what groups not to host, and has control over
retention - (how long messages stay on the server before they roll off
because of disk space).

Microsoft carries 2,275 Usenet Newsgroups on the Usenet News Server
msnews.microsoft.com, not counting beta and other private news groups
I have no way of knowing about.

But because of who they are, and the fact that they keep their server
public (at last the 2,275) a few more groups specific to Office 2007
isn't going to be a big deal.

Also, because of who they are, I know that almost every single one of
the public Microsoft Newsgroups on their server msnews.microsoft.com
are mirrored in practically real time on both of my other News
Servers, the one supplied by my ISP and another one I pay for.

GigaNews, is a Usenet News Server you have to pay for and which is
expensive, but is famous because it carries so many groups, and
because its retention is good. My ISP Adelphia is a GigaNews Reseller,
and while I monthly transfers are limited to 5GB I assume they carry
all the groups GigaNews has to offer because I have access to 105,699
from Adelphia. I assume retention is similar to GigaNews.

My other News Server is cheaper than GigaNews and only carries 31,588
groups, but they carry almost every single one of Microsoft's
Newsgroups.

If Microsoft adds any public newsgroups to its own server you can
pretty much guarantee that they will be picked up by almost all the
other News Servers on the planet except specialty servers that are
private.

This isn't true for example of the Newsgroups on the News Server
forums.macromedia.com. My ISP doesn't carry most of them.

I'm sure Microsoft has in place a procedure for updating their web
interface to these same groups which you access with your browser (way
more inefficient than using a Newsreader) with any new groups they
carry.

As for Google Groups, I think Google actually has some Groups, they
are trying to set up, which are pretty inferior to say Yahoo Groups,
which are basically email lists that can be accessed by email
subscription or by a web interface but not by a Usenet Newsreader (not
as far as I know).

When you do a search on Google Groups, I think you are also searching
a historical database of actual Usenet Newsgroup postings. This used
to be Deja News before Google took it over.

..

 

[JDJ]

There won't be any Office 2007-specific newsgroups if currently plans
don't change.

While I'd like to see Office 2007 Newsgroups (which could be left up
after release) since they don't exist, I have set up WATCH filters in
my Newsreader Forte Agent, for all the existing Office Groups with the
filter based on Subject: = 2007 or beta

Still there are a ton of messages everyday in all these groups, which
have nothing to do with Office 2007. Even a single new Newsgroup,
entitled microsoft.public.office.2007 would be better than wading
through not just this group microsoft.public.office.misc, but groups
for all the individual modules where 2007 posts may be lurking.