Bob I said:
Because microsoft server doesn't store the old stuff,
only current.
It is true that msnews.microsoft.com retains only the last 3 months (90
days?) of postings, or so I've been told.
However, the OP is using the MS Discussion Groups interface.
The MSDG server retains postings longer -- much longer. When I click on
"Recent posting", I find some (but probably not all) postings of my own
dating back to Nov 9, 2005.
A few possible explanations.
The MSDG interface is known to be unreliable.
Also, the MSDG interface is known to be unreliable. Also, all major news
servers use redundant sets of disks to mirror data. Sometimes, data fails
to get written to all sets of disks. Consequently, when the news server
switches to another set of disks, the data may be incomplete.
I wonder if the MSDG search has a limit on the number of found articles that
it will return. The order of the search results is unclear to me. Perhaps
the postings that the OP cannot find simply exceed the number that the
search will return.
Finally, I believe the MSDG search will find only postings entered through
the MSDG interface. I do not believe it will show postings entered through
the MSnews and Google Groups servers, for example.
PS: The Google Groups search engine might be better. But I have had
unreliable results from it as well.
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