From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

On 2/7/2026 11:22 AM, Kenny McCormack wrote:

No worries; I have no desire to post any screenshots here.

I was just amused by the idea of someone requesting a screenshot on Usenet.

As Tim Walz would say, weird!

And, the point is: Usenet *is* a text-only medium, by definition and
decree, even if lots of people have abused it over the years.

Well, sometimes this is easier for the discussion. I have met users who
don't quite understand how to capture text directly in a Command Prompt window. Old-time DOS or terminal users surely know how.

I am NOT trying to break any customs, rules nor netiquette (network etiquette). :)
--
@~@ Simplicity is Beauty! Remain silent! Drink, Blink, Stretch!
/ v \ May the Force and farces be with you! Live long and prosper!!
/( _ )\ https://sites.google.com/site/changmw/
^ ^ https://github.com/changmw/changmw
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

Mr. Man-wai Chang wrote:

And, the point is: Usenet *is* a text-only medium, by definition and
decree, even if lots of people have abused it over the years.

Well, sometimes this is easier for the discussion. I have met users who don't quite understand how to capture text directly in a Command Prompt window. Old-time DOS or terminal users surely know how.

I've always been the best of the best in almost everything that I do.

Point being I must have posted, oh, I don't know, maybe thousands of screenshots over the decades to these newsgroups, where I think only the
best of the best (of the best) post screenshots to help explain things.

<https://i.postimg.cc/sD6sDsgw/dsclock02.jpg>
<https://i.postimg.cc/mrCGrsVY/dsclock03.jpg>
<https://i.postimg.cc/hGrL20ZK/dsclock04.jpg>
<https://i.postimg.cc/3r42Dnz6/dsclock05.jpg>

I've noticed of a million posters to Usenet, only about six are that caring (where Paul is one of them, as is Andy, and, I believe Chris is too, and
maybe even Carlos, but all that is as I recall so there may be many more).
--
Those who are the best of the best are those who care most to help people.
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

On 2/10/2026 2:04 AM, Maria Sophia wrote:

Mr. Man-wai Chang wrote:

Well, sometimes this is easier for the discussion. I have met users who
don't quite understand how to capture text directly in a Command Prompt
window. Old-time DOS or terminal users surely know how.

I've always been the best of the best in almost everything that I do.

Point being I must have posted, oh, I don't know, maybe thousands of screenshots over the decades to these newsgroups, where I think only the
best of the best (of the best) post screenshots to help explain things.

Kids that grow up in the era of GUI most likely don't understand console
text, and the difference between graphical text and real text. Letting
them to take a screenshot is easier for them to ask for help.

You can always take the chance to teach them how to cut-and-text from a console window, that there is something called text in the old computing
days.
--
@~@ Simplicity is Beauty! Remain silent! Drink, Blink, Stretch!
/ v \ May the Force and farces be with you! Live long and prosper!!
/( _ )\ https://sites.google.com/site/changmw/
^ ^ https://github.com/changmw/changmw
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

Mr. Man-wai Chang wrote:

Kids that grow up in the era of GUI most likely don't understand console text, and the difference between graphical text and real text. Letting
them to take a screenshot is easier for them to ask for help.

You can always take the chance to teach them how to cut-and-text from a console window, that there is something called text in the old computing days.

The console window, on Windows anyway, is the weirdest thing nowadays when
it comes to how you capture text after the fact (i.e., sans redirects).
<https://i.postimg.cc/jdZ94dLY/bsod107.jpg>

Most of us have been using the console since prior to the existence of
Windows, where even now, the Windows console probably still feels strange
to modern users because it is one of the oldest surviving UI components in
the operating system that Bill Gates luckily beat out CP/M for IBM's deal.

It does not behave like a normal text widget. Instead of treating output as
a flowing document, it uses a fixed grid buffer that dates back to Tim
Paterson QDOS-era design that Microsoft bought from SCP for PC DOS 1.0.

This leads to several odd behaviors:

1. Selecting text is non-intuitive.
Until recently you had to enter "Mark" mode, drag a rectangle,
and press Enter to copy. This is the opposite of how almost every
other GUI text field works.

2. The buffer is not the same as the visible window.
The buffer may be wider than the window, and resizing the window
often can reflow or even truncate text. Programs that write directly
to screen coordinates can make copying even harder.

3. Selecting text can pause the running program.
This is a legacy behavior from the days when console output
and input were tightly coupled.

Because of all this, taking a screenshot is often the easiest way for newer users to capture what they see. It always works, it preserves formatting,
and it matches the habits they already have from phones and tablets.

Windows Terminal supposedly fixes most of these issues. Dunno much about it though as I don't like it. I'm used to the old school. But it supports
normal click-and-drag selection, Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V, proper Unicode
handling, and a modern text rendering engine. It behaves like a
contemporary terminal emulator instead of a historical artifact.

I'm old school. That's for the kids under about the age of 60. :)

--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

On 10/02/2026 5:04 am, Maria Sophia wrote:

Mr. Man-wai Chang wrote:

And, the point is: Usenet *is* a text-only medium, by definition and
decree, even if lots of people have abused it over the years.

Well, sometimes this is easier for the discussion. I have met users
who don't quite understand how to capture text directly in a Command
Prompt window. Old-time DOS or terminal users surely know how.

I've always been the best of the best in almost everything that I do.

Gee Whiz. Got tickets on yourself much, What's-your-name-this-year??
--
Daniel70
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

Daniel70 wrote:

Gee Whiz. Got tickets on yourself much, What's-your-name-this-year??

Ignoring your insults, given you felt the need to post to this newsgroup to
add value, what is your suggestion for graphical screenshots?

For an example of added value, which screenshot archive do you prefer to
use when you invest time and energy into edifying people on this newsgroup?
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

On 2/10/2026 4:59 PM, Maria Sophia wrote:

Windows Terminal supposedly fixes most of these issues. Dunno much about it though as I don't like it. I'm used to the old school. But it supports
normal click-and-drag selection, Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V, proper Unicode
handling, and a modern text rendering engine. It behaves like a
contemporary terminal emulator instead of a historical artifact.

I'm old school. That's for the kids under about the age of 60. :)

Kids don't see a console in most iOS and Android devices. I dunno
whether kids need to use Windows. Maybe they don't need to do any real homework, especially the rich and the armed. :)
--
@~@ Simplicity is Beauty! Remain silent! Drink, Blink, Stretch!
/ v \ May the Force and farces be with you! Live long and prosper!!
/( _ )\ https://sites.google.com/site/changmw/
^ ^ https://github.com/changmw/changmw
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

On Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:55:40 +0800, "Mr. Man-wai Chang" <toylet.toylet@gmail.com> wrote:

On 2/7/2026 11:22 AM, Kenny McCormack wrote:

No worries; I have no desire to post any screenshots here.

I was just amused by the idea of someone requesting a screenshot on Usenet. >>
As Tim Walz would say, weird!

And, the point is: Usenet *is* a text-only medium, by definition and
decree, even if lots of people have abused it over the years.

Well, sometimes this is easier for the discussion. I have met users who >don't quite understand how to capture text directly in a Command Prompt >window. Old-time DOS or terminal users surely know how.

I am NOT trying to break any customs, rules nor netiquette (network >etiquette). :)

The South African archives made their indexing system (called STAIRS. originally by IBM) available via the web. As it was a text-only
system, results were displayed as text, and could be copied as text,
which made it easy to copy elsewhere, as text.

Nevertheless many users would send graphical screenshots of the
output, which wasted bandwidth, as well as making it necessary to
retype whatever was on the screen if one wanted to use it.
--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk --- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

On Thu, 12 Feb 2026 06:00:06 +0200
Steve Hayes <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> wrote:

On Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:55:40 +0800, "Mr. Man-wai Chang" <toylet.toylet@gmail.com> wrote:

On 2/7/2026 11:22 AM, Kenny McCormack wrote:

No worries; I have no desire to post any screenshots here.

I was just amused by the idea of someone requesting a screenshot on Usenet.

As Tim Walz would say, weird!

And, the point is: Usenet *is* a text-only medium, by definition and
decree, even if lots of people have abused it over the years.

Well, sometimes this is easier for the discussion. I have met users who >don't quite understand how to capture text directly in a Command Prompt >window. Old-time DOS or terminal users surely know how.

I am NOT trying to break any customs, rules nor netiquette (network >etiquette). :)

The South African archives made their indexing system (called STAIRS.

Gosh that takes me back! IBM 3033 era.

Batch NG dropped, that Arlen/Maria does enjoy over xposting.

originally by IBM) available via the web. As it was a text-only
system, results were displayed as text, and could be copied as text,
which made it easy to copy elsewhere, as text.

Nevertheless many users would send graphical screenshots of the
output, which wasted bandwidth, as well as making it necessary to
retype whatever was on the screen if one wanted to use it.

--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

--
Bah, and indeed Humbug.
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

On 2/12/2026 12:00 PM, Steve Hayes wrote:

Nevertheless many users would send graphical screenshots of the
output, which wasted bandwidth, as well as making it necessary to
retype whatever was on the screen if one wanted to use it.

I tried to attach a screenshot.jpg to a message in another newsgroup,
but was rejected. In the end I had to use image-hosting. :)
--
@~@ Simplicity is Beauty! Remain silent! Drink, Blink, Stretch!
/ v \ May the Force and farces be with you! Live long and prosper!!
/( _ )\ https://sites.google.com/site/changmw/
^ ^ https://github.com/changmw/changmw
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

On Mon, 2/16/2026 8:09 AM, Mr. Man-wai Chang wrote:

On 2/12/2026 12:00 PM, Steve Hayes wrote:

Nevertheless many users would send graphical screenshots of the
output, which wasted bandwidth, as well as making it necessary to
retype whatever was on the screen if one wanted to use it.

I tried to attach a screenshot.jpg to a message in another newsgroup, but was rejected. In the end I had to use image-hosting. :)

By charter, some groups have MIME filters which prevent MIME messages
of any sort. An HTML message will not post. A MIME with image attachment
will not be accepted either. That's not an image filter as such -- the
image filter would be a tool that analyzes the body of the main message
and rejects the submission (on a non-MIME message where the image
is in-line).

Some read-only servers have stopped receiving messages,
which means they cannot be relied upon for completion.

An image-hosting server is all you need. But those, the
behavior can change on a daily basis. Like the advertising
based server where the advertising seems to be turned off,
very weird.

Paul




--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

Mr. Man-wai Chang,

I tried to attach a screenshot.jpg to a message in another newsgroup, but was rejected.

Herbert Kleebauer mentioned the newsgroup de.alt.dateien.misc (on news.eternal-september.org) for messages with attachments. I just tried it
(I was curious) and it did accept my (18KB) test PNG.

Something for the next time ?

Regards,
Rudy Wieser


--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

On 17/02/2026 2:35 am, R.Wieser wrote:

Mr. Man-wai Chang,

I tried to attach a screenshot.jpg to a message in another newsgroup, but
was rejected.

Herbert Kleebauer mentioned the newsgroup de.alt.dateien.misc (on news.eternal-september.org) for messages with attachments. I just tried it (I was curious) and it did accept my (18KB) test PNG.

Something for the next time ?

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

Yeah!! Sure! Polluting another newsgroup makes more sense than posting
your image to a Web-site that is made for that image hosting purpose
then just posting a link in the required newsgroup!!
--
Daniel70
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

On 2/17/2026 2:50 AM, Daniel70 wrote:

On 17/02/2026 2:35 am, R.Wieser wrote:

Herbert Kleebauer mentioned the newsgroup de.alt.dateien.misc (on
news.eternal-september.org) for messages with attachments. I just tried it >> (I was curious) and it did accept my (18KB) test PNG.

Yeah!! Sure! Polluting another newsgroup makes more sense than posting
your image to a Web-site that is made for that image hosting purpose
then just posting a link in the required newsgroup!!

de.alt.dateien.misc

Beschreibung
Nicht-Text-Dateien ohne eigene Gruppe.

Charta
Hierher geh||ren Bilder, T||ne, Programme und sonstige Nicht-
Text-Dateien, die nicht in die anderen de.alt.dateien-Gruppen
passen. Crosspostings zwischen dieser Gruppe und Gruppen
au|ferhalb von de.alt.dateien.* sind hier unerw|+nscht und k||nnen
gecancelt werden. Fremdcancels sind den |+blichen Konventionen
entsprechend durchzuf|+hren und zumindest in de.admin.net-
abuse.announce bekanntzugeben.


Google translation:


Description

Non-text files without their own group.

Charter
This group includes images, sounds, programs, and other non-
text files that don't fit into the other de.alt.files groups.
Crossposting between this group and groups outside of
de.alt.files.* is not permitted and can be canceled.
Cancellations from other groups must be carried out according
to standard conventions and announced at least in de.admin.net-
abuse.announce.


--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

On 2/16/2026 9:52 PM, Paul wrote:

On Mon, 2/16/2026 8:09 AM, Mr. Man-wai Chang wrote:

On 2/12/2026 12:00 PM, Steve Hayes wrote:

Nevertheless many users would send graphical screenshots of the
output, which wasted bandwidth, as well as making it necessary to
retype whatever was on the screen if one wanted to use it.

I tried to attach a screenshot.jpg to a message in another newsgroup, but was rejected. In the end I had to use image-hosting. :)

By charter, some groups have MIME filters which prevent MIME messages
of any sort. An HTML message will not post. A MIME with image attachment
will not be accepted either. That's not an image filter as such -- the
image filter would be a tool that analyzes the body of the main message
and rejects the submission (on a non-MIME message where the image
is in-line).

Some read-only servers have stopped receiving messages,
which means they cannot be relied upon for completion.

My screenshot was just 50K in side. Well.... it's still considered big
by old standard (MS-DOS days). :)

I could try MIME (binary) attachment, but that's not directly supported
and displayed by Thunderbird. You will need to use Outlook Express to
see it directly.

I think MIME attachment is also not considered good behavior by Usenet,
in the strictest sense. Well.... :)
--
@~@ Simplicity is Beauty! Remain silent! Drink, Blink, Stretch!
/ v \ May the Force and farces be with you! Live long and prosper!!
/( _ )\ https://sites.google.com/site/changmw/
^ ^ https://github.com/changmw/changmw
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

On 2/16/2026 11:35 PM, R.Wieser wrote:

Herbert Kleebauer mentioned the newsgroup de.alt.dateien.misc (on news.eternal-september.org) for messages with attachments. I just tried it (I was curious) and it did accept my (18KB) test PNG.

Something for the next time ?

But that's a different newsgroup. Not a good idea in terms of
discussion. You also need a way to tell others to go that newsgroup to
see the image by what, message-id? :)
--
@~@ Simplicity is Beauty! Remain silent! Drink, Blink, Stretch!
/ v \ May the Force and farces be with you! Live long and prosper!!
/( _ )\ https://sites.google.com/site/changmw/
^ ^ https://github.com/changmw/changmw
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

Daniel70,

Yeah!! Sure! Polluting another newsgroup makes more sense than posting
your image to a Web-site that is made for that image hosting
purpose then just posting a link in the required newsgroup!!

Your blunt rejection would be *way* more impressive if you would have
checked that newsgroup out first.

And funny that you did not respond the same way to Herbert, when he
suggested that newsgroup to us.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser


--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

Mr. Man-wai Chang,

But that's a different newsgroup. Not a good idea in terms of discussion.

And uploading a file to another, completely unrelated server is better ? :-p

But yes, people would need to be aware that responding to the post with the attachment would do little good. Just like an uploader would need to be
aware that file servers have their own rules and hurdles (cough, javascript, cough) for anyone wanting to take a peek at their upload.

You also need a way to tell others to go that newsgroup to see the image
by what, message-id? :)

Thats the same problem as with those image/file servers.

I could imagine prefixing the name of image with the subject of the thread
its referred from. Perhaps with the posters name appended. Or even just the posters name.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser


--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

On 17/02/2026 5:51 pm, Herbert Kleebauer wrote:

On 2/17/2026 2:50 AM, Daniel70 wrote:

On 17/02/2026 2:35 am, R.Wieser wrote:

Herbert Kleebauer mentioned the newsgroup de.alt.dateien.misc (on
news.eternal-september.org) for messages with attachments.-a I just
tried it
(I was curious) and it did accept my (18KB) test PNG.

Yeah!! Sure! Polluting another newsgroup makes more sense than posting
your image to a Web-site that is made for that image hosting purpose
then just posting a link in the required newsgroup!!

-a-a-a de.alt.dateien.misc

Beschreibung
-a-a-a Nicht-Text-Dateien ohne eigene Gruppe.

Charta
-a-a-a Hierher geh||ren Bilder, T||ne, Programme und sonstige Nicht-
-a-a-a Text-Dateien, die nicht in die anderen de.alt.dateien-Gruppen
-a-a-a passen. Crosspostings zwischen dieser Gruppe und Gruppen
-a-a-a au|ferhalb von de.alt.dateien.* sind hier unerw|+nscht und k||nnen
-a-a-a gecancelt werden. Fremdcancels sind den |+blichen Konventionen
-a-a-a entsprechend durchzuf|+hren und zumindest in de.admin.net-
-a-a-a abuse.announce bekanntzugeben.

Google translation:

Description

Non-text files without their own group.

Charter
This group includes images, sounds, programs, and other non-
text files that don't fit into the other de.alt.files groups.
Crossposting between this group and groups outside of
de.alt.files.* is not permitted and can be canceled.
Cancellations from other groups must be carried out according
to standard conventions and announced at least in de.admin.net- abuse.announce.
Fine, not a problem ..... but is that just a UseNet group (which MAY or

MAY NOT be carried by E-S. I haven't checked) but is NOT an E-S group.
--
Daniel70
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

On Tue, 2/17/2026 5:01 AM, R.Wieser wrote:

Mr. Man-wai Chang,

But that's a different newsgroup. Not a good idea in terms of discussion.

And uploading a file to another, completely unrelated server is better ? :-p

But yes, people would need to be aware that responding to the post with the attachment would do little good. Just like an uploader would need to be aware that file servers have their own rules and hurdles (cough, javascript, cough) for anyone wanting to take a peek at their upload.

You also need a way to tell others to go that newsgroup to see the image
by what, message-id? :)

Thats the same problem as with those image/file servers.

I could imagine prefixing the name of image with the subject of the thread its referred from. Perhaps with the posters name appended. Or even just the posters name.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

The M-ID would work, but only for M-ID enabled News Clients.
Betterbird or Thunderbird, may be about to gain this function.

Storage in "de.alt.dateien.misc" would only be as deep
as the retention on the server, so that could scroll off.

Posting a URL to an image-server item isn't difficult, but
you have to use a browser suited to the job. Some of the image-servers
expect to be running their Javascript on the web page, and the
web page may remain blank if the Javascript does not run.

And in the UK, at least one of the image-servers is blocked.

Paul
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

On 17/02/2026 8:39 pm, R.Wieser wrote:

Daniel70,

Yeah!! Sure! Polluting another newsgroup makes more sense than posting
your image to a Web-site that is made for that image hosting
purpose then just posting a link in the required newsgroup!!

Your blunt rejection would be *way* more impressive if you would have
checked that newsgroup out first.

Sorry!! Which E-S NG should I have checked out first?? And I'm talking
E-S NG NOT UseNet NG that are carried by E-S.

And funny that you did not respond the same way to Herbert, when he
suggested that newsgroup to us.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

Sorry, I'm not on-line 24/7 .... and I think I just have replied
similarly to Herbert.
--
Daniel70
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

On 17/02/2026 8:10 pm, Mr. Man-wai Chang wrote:

On 2/16/2026 11:35 PM, R.Wieser wrote:

Herbert Kleebauer mentioned the newsgroup de.alt.dateien.misc (on
news.eternal-september.org) for messages with attachments.-a I just
tried it
(I was curious) and it did accept my (18KB) test PNG.

Something for the next time ?

But that's a different newsgroup. Not a good idea in terms of
discussion. You also need a way to tell others to go that newsgroup to
see the image by what, message-id? :)

If I wanted to direct your attention to a picture that I had posted to,
for example, at https://postimages.org (other websites are available)
.... and then posted the link to the specific postimages.org website
image into which ever newsgroup your discussion is occurring in.
--
Daniel70
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

Daniel70,

Sorry!! Which E-S NG should I have checked out first?? And I'm talking E-S NG NOT UseNet NG that are carried by E-S.

You have no idea ? Than what are you complaining about ?

Sorry, I'm not on-line 24/7 .... and I think I just have replied similarly to Herbert.

Than you should have known the newsgroup you are asking for in the above.

Kiddo, you're starting to loose trustworthyness points.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser


--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

On 17/02/2026 10:24 pm, R.Wieser wrote:

Daniel70,

Sorry!! Which E-S NG should I have checked out first?? And I'm talking E-S >> NG NOT UseNet NG that are carried by E-S.

You have no idea ? Than what are you complaining about ?

Sorry, I'm not on-line 24/7 .... and I think I just have replied similarly >> to Herbert.

Than you should have known the newsgroup you are asking for in the above.

Kiddo, you're starting to loose trustworthyness points.

Ah!! Well!! C'est la vie!! (and I had to look that up!!)
--
Daniel70
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

On Tue, 2/17/2026 5:39 AM, Daniel70 wrote:

On 17/02/2026 5:51 pm, Herbert Kleebauer wrote:

-a-a-a-a de.alt.dateien.misc

MAY NOT be carried by E-S. I haven't checked) but is NOT an E-S group.

Is carried by news.eternal-september.org/de.alt.dateien.misc .

I got a very nice picture of a keyboard.png there not two minutes ago :-)

Make sure to refresh your newsgroup list.

Paul
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

On Tue, 2/17/2026 5:44 AM, Daniel70 wrote:

On 17/02/2026 8:39 pm, R.Wieser wrote:

Daniel70,

Yeah!! Sure! Polluting another newsgroup makes more sense than posting
your image to a Web-site that is made for that image hosting
purpose then just posting a link in the required newsgroup!!

Your blunt rejection would be *way* more impressive if you would have
checked that newsgroup out first.

Sorry!! Which E-S NG should I have checked out first?? And I'm talking E-S NG NOT UseNet NG that are carried by E-S.

And funny that you did not respond the same way to Herbert, when he
suggested that newsgroup to us.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

Sorry, I'm not on-line 24/7 .... and I think I just have replied similarly to Herbert.

E-S has more than one group, with binary picture capability.

alt.binaries.schematics.electronic

de.alt.dateien.misc

If you're on Thunderbird, you will notice a bunch of hostinfo.dat
files. Some of those are large, and list all the groups that
the GUI lists in Thunderbird. The list is not necessarily sorted. Some items will require scrolling (or search in Notepad), to locate that
they do indeed exist. That's a Profile folder, and the eight characters
are randomly generated at installation time. I am not giving the rest
of the path. Using Agent Ransack, I can easily find a bunch of hostinfo.dat .

abcd1234.default\News\news.eternal-september-1.org\hostinfo.dat 923,045 bytes

The file is a little bit short of 30,000 lines.

Each time you open the subscription dialog in Thunderbird,
Thunderbird is supposed to re-fetch that list to keep it fresh.

If there is any "trouble" with these picture groups, then Ray will just remove them.

When you subscribe to a group, a *second* file holds your subscriptions.
Such a text file, has way fewer than 30,000 lines.

news.eternal-september.org.rc <=== your selected groups are in here

Paul
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

On 2026-02-17 16:19, Paul wrote:

On Tue, 2/17/2026 5:39 AM, Daniel70 wrote:

On 17/02/2026 5:51 pm, Herbert Kleebauer wrote:

-a-a-a-a de.alt.dateien.misc

MAY NOT be carried by E-S. I haven't checked) but is NOT an E-S group.

Is carried by news.eternal-september.org/de.alt.dateien.misc .

I got a very nice picture of a keyboard.png there not two minutes ago :-)

Make sure to refresh your newsgroup list.

My provider doesn't carry it.
--
Cheers,
Carlos E.R.
ESEfc-Efc+, EUEfc-Efc|;
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

Carlos E. R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

On 2026-02-17 16:19, Paul wrote:

On Tue, 2/17/2026 5:39 AM, Daniel70 wrote:

On 17/02/2026 5:51 pm, Herbert Kleebauer wrote:

-a-a-a-a de.alt.dateien.misc

MAY NOT be carried by E-S. I haven't checked) but is NOT an E-S group.

Is carried by news.eternal-september.org/de.alt.dateien.misc .

I got a very nice picture of a keyboard.png there not two minutes ago :-)

Make sure to refresh your newsgroup list.

My provider doesn't carry it.

Probably because it *is* a binary group. I just checked and indeed News.Individual.Net does not carry any de.alt.dateien.* groups.

So much for an alternative 'solution'! :-(

BTW, just to be sure, I stripped characters one-by-one from the end of 'de.alt.dateien.misc' and am happy to report that I found a very good alternative:

de.alt.dummschwatz --> 'nonsense' or BS for the PIC.
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

On 2026/2/17 11:24:42, R.Wieser wrote:
[]

Kiddo, you're starting to loose trustworthyness points.

[]

Aggressive, are they, these points?
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()ALIS-Ch++(p)Ar++T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

I'd rather trust the guys in the lab coats who aren't demanding that I
get up early on Sundays to apologize for being human. -- Captain
Splendid (quoted by "The Real Bev" in mozilla.general, 2014-11-16)
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

On 2026/2/17 10:43:40, Paul wrote:

On Tue, 2/17/2026 5:01 AM, R.Wieser wrote:

Mr. Man-wai Chang,

But that's a different newsgroup. Not a good idea in terms of discussion. >>

And uploading a file to another, completely unrelated server is better ? :-p

On the whole, yes; it doesn't put any load on newsservers.

But yes, people would need to be aware that responding to the post with the >> attachment would do little good. Just like an uploader would need to be
aware that file servers have their own rules and hurdles (cough, javascript,
cough) for anyone wanting to take a peek at their upload.

Yes, they're a pain (and see below re one of them and the UK) - though understandable, they have to be funded somehow! [For something like a screenshot, I tend to just stick it in a temp directory on my website,
but obviously that's only an option for those who have a website.]

You also need a way to tell others to go that newsgroup to see the image >>> by what, message-id? :)

Thats the same problem as with those image/file servers.

I could imagine prefixing the name of image with the subject of the thread >> its referred from. Perhaps with the posters name appended. Or even just
the posters name.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

The M-ID would work, but only for M-ID enabled News Clients.

Exactly.

Betterbird or Thunderbird, may be about to gain this function.

Interesting; I didn't know that.

Storage in "de.alt.dateien.misc" would only be as deep
as the retention on the server, so that could scroll off.

On the whole, the requirement for a screenshot isn't long, though. (And
what is the retention on the image/file sharing sites?)

Posting a URL to an image-server item isn't difficult, but
you have to use a browser suited to the job. Some of the image-servers
expect to be running their Javascript on the web page, and the
web page may remain blank if the Javascript does not run.

I've noticed some posters (including you) include a hint to how to
minimise the worst effects.

And in the UK, at least one of the image-servers is blocked.

Indeed; when UK introduced responsibility legislation, that site just
decided to block UK, rather than - presumably - employ people to vet all uploads; seems a reasonable action to me.

Paul

John
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()ALIS-Ch++(p)Ar++T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

I'd rather trust the guys in the lab coats who aren't demanding that I
get up early on Sundays to apologize for being human. -- Captain
Splendid (quoted by "The Real Bev" in mozilla.general, 2014-11-16)
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

On Tue, 17 Feb 2026 05:43:40 -0500, Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote:

On Tue, 2/17/2026 5:01 AM, R.Wieser wrote:

Mr. Man-wai Chang,

But that's a different newsgroup. Not a good idea in terms of discussion. >>

And uploading a file to another, completely unrelated server is better ? :-p >>
But yes, people would need to be aware that responding to the post with the >> attachment would do little good. Just like an uploader would need to be
aware that file servers have their own rules and hurdles (cough, javascript,
cough) for anyone wanting to take a peek at their upload.

You also need a way to tell others to go that newsgroup to see the image >>> by what, message-id? :)

Thats the same problem as with those image/file servers.

I could imagine prefixing the name of image with the subject of the thread >> its referred from. Perhaps with the posters name appended. Or even just
the posters name.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

The M-ID would work, but only for M-ID enabled News Clients.
Betterbird or Thunderbird, may be about to gain this function.

I assume you mean natively. In the meantime...

Google says Thunderbird has had the capability to one-click copy or
search by M-ID for a number of years now, via one or more extensions.
I don't use Tbird so I haven't tested those functions.

c/p
AI Overview
The best extensions to view, copy, or search for email Message-IDs in Thunderbird are "Copy Message ID" and "Open by Message-ID". These
add-ons allow users to quickly identify unique message headers, which
are essential for troubleshooting, command-line usage, or locating
specific emails. (<-- I assume they also mean Usenet M-IDs.)

Copy Message ID (Add-on): Adds a button to the message toolbar that
copies the Message-ID directly to your clipboard. It also offers options
to copy raw headers (including < and > characters). <https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-us/thunderbird/addon/805362/versions/>

Open by Message-ID (Add-on): Allows you to select a mid: or
message-id URI in an email body and immediately open that corresponding message. <https://services.addons.thunderbird.net/en-GB/thunderbird/addon/open-by-message-id/>

Alternative - Built-in Search: Without an extension, you can search
for a message by its ID by creating a custom search filter, though this
is less convenient than using extensions.

--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

John,

Kiddo, you're starting to loose trustworthyness points.

Aggressive, are they, these points?

Well, in a kind they are. :-) But I take it I used an "o" too much ? I
seem to be unable to remember which one means what. :-(

Thanks for mentioning it.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser.


--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

On 2026/2/17 21:26:4, R.Wieser wrote:

John,

Kiddo, you're starting to loose trustworthyness points.

Aggressive, are they, these points?

Well, in a kind they are. :-) But I take it I used an "o" too much ? I seem to be unable to remember which one means what. :-(

Thanks for mentioning it.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser.

I try to do it humorously. How to remember which is which? Good
question; I suppose think of loose as related to the adjective - a loose thread, catch, etc. is something that might release or come undone;
therefore the verb loose (as in "loose the dogs on him!") is also to do
with releasing something, whereas lose meaning misplace isn't. Hope that
helps!

John
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()ALIS-Ch++(p)Ar++T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

England and France will forever remain the best enemies
- @maxmaxime8380, ~2025-4 (YouTube comment)
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

John,

Aggressive, are they, these points?

Thanks for mentioning it.

I try to do it humorously.

I took it as such, and responded in kind.

How to remember which is which? Good question; I suppose think of loose
as related to the adjective - a loose thread, catch, etc. is something
that
might release or come undone;

Thats pretty much the problem, I can't seem to connect either word to the above (and similar) situations (I've got the same problem in my own
language). :-(

therefore the verb loose (as in "loose the dogs on him!") is also to do
with releasing something, whereas lose meaning misplace isn't. Hope
that helps!

Thanks for the explanation.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser


--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

On Tue, 2/17/2026 8:07 PM, Char Jackson wrote:

On Tue, 17 Feb 2026 05:43:40 -0500, Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote:

On Tue, 2/17/2026 5:01 AM, R.Wieser wrote:

Mr. Man-wai Chang,

But that's a different newsgroup. Not a good idea in terms of discussion. >>>

And uploading a file to another, completely unrelated server is better ? :-p

But yes, people would need to be aware that responding to the post with the
attachment would do little good. Just like an uploader would need to be >>> aware that file servers have their own rules and hurdles (cough, javascript,
cough) for anyone wanting to take a peek at their upload.

You also need a way to tell others to go that newsgroup to see the image >>>> by what, message-id? :)

Thats the same problem as with those image/file servers.

I could imagine prefixing the name of image with the subject of the thread >>> its referred from. Perhaps with the posters name appended. Or even just
the posters name.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

The M-ID would work, but only for M-ID enabled News Clients.
Betterbird or Thunderbird, may be about to gain this function.

I assume you mean natively.

Yes, a native method.

Betterbird Portable 140.7.1esr-bb18 (64-bit)

betterbirdlauncher "mid:fl3apkhbefiie5ivaljrb6n8f9nghclsf9@4ax.com"

Somehow, it knows which server out of six in my list to use.
On purpose, I "selected" a non-functional server, to try to confuse it,
and eventually it still opened a window on the server where the message exists.

Whether it is doing this, via searching all the Mork Summary Files .msf,
I don't know. It might mean, that one of the requirements would be for
the user to have all their server message lists up-to-date.

My first concern, was of the MID URI design. I figured it should
have the server name, followed by a MID string. But the above syntax worked.

It worked on that example.

I did NOT (so far), see a menu item added for this. It likely would work
with a MID buried in a message, so we should leave one here later for test.
If this feature was working well, I should be able to click one of these
that looks sufficiently like a URI and a separate tab should open after
you actuate it.

<fl3apkhbefiie5ivaljrb6n8f9nghclsf9@4ax.com>

mid:fl3apkhbefiie5ivaljrb6n8f9nghclsf9@4ax.com

And maybe one of those strings will work. We'll see.

Paul


--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

On Wed, 2/18/2026 12:56 PM, Paul wrote:

On Tue, 2/17/2026 8:07 PM, Char Jackson wrote:

On Tue, 17 Feb 2026 05:43:40 -0500, Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote:

On Tue, 2/17/2026 5:01 AM, R.Wieser wrote:

Mr. Man-wai Chang,

But that's a different newsgroup. Not a good idea in terms of discussion. >>>>

And uploading a file to another, completely unrelated server is better ? :-p

But yes, people would need to be aware that responding to the post with the
attachment would do little good. Just like an uploader would need to be >>>> aware that file servers have their own rules and hurdles (cough, javascript,
cough) for anyone wanting to take a peek at their upload.

You also need a way to tell others to go that newsgroup to see the image >>>>> by what, message-id? :)

Thats the same problem as with those image/file servers.

I could imagine prefixing the name of image with the subject of the thread
its referred from. Perhaps with the posters name appended. Or even just
the posters name.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

The M-ID would work, but only for M-ID enabled News Clients.
Betterbird or Thunderbird, may be about to gain this function.

I assume you mean natively.

Yes, a native method.

Betterbird Portable 140.7.1esr-bb18 (64-bit)

betterbirdlauncher "mid:fl3apkhbefiie5ivaljrb6n8f9nghclsf9@4ax.com"

Somehow, it knows which server out of six in my list to use.
On purpose, I "selected" a non-functional server, to try to confuse it,
and eventually it still opened a window on the server where the message exists.

Whether it is doing this, via searching all the Mork Summary Files .msf,
I don't know. It might mean, that one of the requirements would be for
the user to have all their server message lists up-to-date.

My first concern, was of the MID URI design. I figured it should
have the server name, followed by a MID string. But the above syntax worked.

It worked on that example.

I did NOT (so far), see a menu item added for this. It likely would work
with a MID buried in a message, so we should leave one here later for test. If this feature was working well, I should be able to click one of these
that looks sufficiently like a URI and a separate tab should open after
you actuate it.

<fl3apkhbefiie5ivaljrb6n8f9nghclsf9@4ax.com>

mid:fl3apkhbefiie5ivaljrb6n8f9nghclsf9@4ax.com

And maybe one of those strings will work. We'll see.

And clicking either one of those in Betterbird, reveals a menu item,
and selecting the menu item results in the selected message replacing
this message on the screen. I don't show that in the picture, merely
I report that using the menu item, it seems to work. It seems to be
searching the .msf of the newsgroup being viewed first. The delay on
this test case was shorter than the launch from the command line, as
a command line URI.

[Picture] Use "Download Original" if necessary

https://i.postimg.cc/1tCCgt20/Betterbird-140-7-Using-A-MID.gif

Paul
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote:

On Tue, 2/17/2026 8:07 PM, Char Jackson wrote:

On Tue, 17 Feb 2026 05:43:40 -0500, Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote:

[...]

The M-ID would work, but only for M-ID enabled News Clients.
Betterbird or Thunderbird, may be about to gain this function.

I assume you mean natively.

Yes, a native method.

Betterbird Portable 140.7.1esr-bb18 (64-bit)

betterbirdlauncher "mid:fl3apkhbefiie5ivaljrb6n8f9nghclsf9@4ax.com"

Somehow, it knows which server out of six in my list to use.
On purpose, I "selected" a non-functional server, to try to confuse it,
and eventually it still opened a window on the server where the message exists.

Whether it is doing this, via searching all the Mork Summary Files .msf,
I don't know. It might mean, that one of the requirements would be for
the user to have all their server message lists up-to-date.

My first concern, was of the MID URI design. I figured it should
have the server name, followed by a MID string. But the above syntax worked.

It worked on that example.

I did NOT (so far), see a menu item added for this. It likely would work
with a MID buried in a message, so we should leave one here later for test. If this feature was working well, I should be able to click one of these
that looks sufficiently like a URI and a separate tab should open after
you actuate it.

<fl3apkhbefiie5ivaljrb6n8f9nghclsf9@4ax.com>

mid:fl3apkhbefiie5ivaljrb6n8f9nghclsf9@4ax.com

And maybe one of those strings will work. We'll see.

The format should be <news:<MID>>, i.e.

<news:fl3apkhbefiie5ivaljrb6n8f9nghclsf9@4ax.com>

The 'news;' part is required, otherwise it's ambiguous, because it
also looks like an e-mail address.

It's defined in the schemes for URI, in whatever the correct RFC might
be these days. I.e. like 'http://' for a web URL, 'mailto:' for an
e-mail address, etc..

Some newsreaders try to do the right thing when the scheme part is
absent, but <news:<MID>> is the only correct way. We'll see if
Thunderbird et al understand it.

AND, there of course is still the issue that the newsreader must be
able to actually fetch ('article'/'head'/'body'commands) the article/ headers/body. I.e. like an 'http://' URL might fail, so might a 'news:'
one, for all kinds of reasons.
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

A little earlier, I wrote:
[...]

The format should be <news:<MID>>, i.e.

<news:fl3apkhbefiie5ivaljrb6n8f9nghclsf9@4ax.com>

The 'news;' part is required, otherwise it's ambiguous, because it
also looks like an e-mail address.

It's defined in the schemes for URI, in whatever the correct RFC might
be these days. I.e. like 'http://' for a web URL, 'mailto:' for an
e-mail address, etc..

I did a quick Google search on 'where is the 'news:' scheme defined'
and Google's 'AI Overview' says it's primarily defined in RFC 5538 and
gives some examples:

Format Examples
news:article-id@example.com (refers to a specific article).
(i.e. the format I gave)
news:comp.lang.python (refers to a newsgroup).
news:* (refers to all available newsgroups).

Optional Authority: A server can be specified (e.g., news://news.example.com/example.group), but if omitted, it defaults to
the user's configured news server.

'RFC 5538 The 'news' and 'nntp' URI Schemes, April 2010' <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5538>

2010, so should have settled by now! :-)

Some newsreaders try to do the right thing when the scheme part is
absent, but <news:<MID>> is the only correct way. We'll see if
Thunderbird et al understand it.

Nope, my stone-age version (60.9.0) doesn;t.

AND, there of course is still the issue that the newsreader must be
able to actually fetch ('article'/'head'/'body'commands) the article/ headers/body. I.e. like an 'http://' URL might fail, so might a 'news:'
one, for all kinds of reasons.

--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

On 18 Feb 2026 18:38:54 GMT, Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid>
wrote:

Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote:

On Tue, 2/17/2026 8:07 PM, Char Jackson wrote:

On Tue, 17 Feb 2026 05:43:40 -0500, Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote: >[...]

The M-ID would work, but only for M-ID enabled News Clients.
Betterbird or Thunderbird, may be about to gain this function.

I assume you mean natively.

Yes, a native method.

Betterbird Portable 140.7.1esr-bb18 (64-bit)

betterbirdlauncher "mid:fl3apkhbefiie5ivaljrb6n8f9nghclsf9@4ax.com"

Somehow, it knows which server out of six in my list to use.

Could it have queried more than one server? Over here with Forte Agent, retrieving a message from the server via its M-ID appears to be
instantaneous, so it's not like multiple (series? parallel?) queries
should introduce a ton of latency.

On purpose, I "selected" a non-functional server, to try to confuse it,
and eventually it still opened a window on the server where the message exists.

Whether it is doing this, via searching all the Mork Summary Files .msf,
I don't know. It might mean, that one of the requirements would be for
the user to have all their server message lists up-to-date.

If it doesn't find the message locally, it should query its configured server(s).

My first concern, was of the MID URI design. I figured it should
have the server name, followed by a MID string. But the above syntax worked.

The server name/address is not part of the M-ID.

It worked on that example.

I did NOT (so far), see a menu item added for this. It likely would work
with a MID buried in a message, so we should leave one here later for test. >> If this feature was working well, I should be able to click one of these
that looks sufficiently like a URI and a separate tab should open after
you actuate it.

<fl3apkhbefiie5ivaljrb6n8f9nghclsf9@4ax.com>

With Agent, that works fine, partly because of how I have it configured.
In the Options, I see this:

How to interpret a name@domain URL:
_ Prompt for action
_ Assume the URL is an email address
X Assume the URL is a message-id
_ Make an educated guess

Since 1995, I've had that third option checked.

mid:fl3apkhbefiie5ivaljrb6n8f9nghclsf9@4ax.com

For me, that format doesn't work, although it's easily repaired.

And maybe one of those strings will work. We'll see.

The format should be <news:<MID>>, i.e.

<news:fl3apkhbefiie5ivaljrb6n8f9nghclsf9@4ax.com>

With or without the news: scheme, Agent recognizes that as a M-ID,
again, because of how it's configured.

The 'news;' part is required, otherwise it's ambiguous, because it
also looks like an e-mail address.

It's defined in the schemes for URI, in whatever the correct RFC might
be these days. I.e. like 'http://' for a web URL, 'mailto:' for an
e-mail address, etc..

Some newsreaders try to do the right thing when the scheme part is
absent, but <news:<MID>> is the only correct way. We'll see if
Thunderbird et al understand it.

AND, there of course is still the issue that the newsreader must be
able to actually fetch ('article'/'head'/'body'commands) the article/ >headers/body. I.e. like an 'http://' URL might fail, so might a 'news:'
one, for all kinds of reasons.

--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

On 2026/2/18 18:38:54, Frank Slootweg wrote:

Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote:

[]

<fl3apkhbefiie5ivaljrb6n8f9nghclsf9@4ax.com>

mid:fl3apkhbefiie5ivaljrb6n8f9nghclsf9@4ax.com

And maybe one of those strings will work. We'll see.

With my Thunderbird (140.7.1esr (64-bit)), hovering over either of those
(they do show in blue) shows them with "mailto:" prepended in the status
line, and actually clicking on them opens an email window; presumably it noticed the @ sign and reacted accordingly, but ...

The format should be <news:<MID>>, i.e.

<news:fl3apkhbefiie5ivaljrb6n8f9nghclsf9@4ax.com>

That one shows in the status line as news:///fl... (yes, three
slashes!); clicking it had no effect.

The 'news;' part is required, otherwise it's ambiguous, because it
also looks like an e-mail address.

It's defined in the schemes for URI, in whatever the correct RFC might
be these days. I.e. like 'http://' for a web URL, 'mailto:' for an
e-mail address, etc..

Some newsreaders try to do the right thing when the scheme part is
absent, but <news:<MID>> is the only correct way. We'll see if
Thunderbird et al understand it.

Not the (almost-)current one.

AND, there of course is still the issue that the newsreader must be
able to actually fetch ('article'/'head'/'body'commands) the article/ headers/body. I.e. like an 'http://' URL might fail, so might a 'news:'
one, for all kinds of reasons.

I'm not signed up with 4ax.com (I take it that's a news server); maybe
it would have if I was. (But it didn't give me any error or anything.)

Actually, I've just noticed that it not only converts news:fl into
news:...fl in my status line, but adds something like "downloading
messages to drafts" after the @4ax.com; I have to say "something like",
because it has changed while I was typing this: what I _now_ see in the
status line when I hover of it is "news:...fl...@4ax.com No messages to download". It does - including the <> - turn from blue to red briefly
while I'm actually clicking on it (i. e. while the mouse button is pressed).
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()ALIS-Ch++(p)Ar++T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"I'm very peachable, if people know how to peach"
- Sir David Attenborough (on being asked if he was tired of being
described as impeachable), on Desert Island Discs, 2012-1-29.
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

On Thu, 2/19/2026 5:31 AM, J. P. Gilliver wrote:

On 2026/2/18 18:38:54, Frank Slootweg wrote:

Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote:

[]

<fl3apkhbefiie5ivaljrb6n8f9nghclsf9@4ax.com>

mid:fl3apkhbefiie5ivaljrb6n8f9nghclsf9@4ax.com

And maybe one of those strings will work. We'll see.

With my Thunderbird (140.7.1esr (64-bit)), hovering over either of those (they do show in blue) shows them with "mailto:" prepended in the status line, and actually clicking on them opens an email window; presumably it noticed the @ sign and reacted accordingly, but ...

The format should be <news:<MID>>, i.e.

<news:fl3apkhbefiie5ivaljrb6n8f9nghclsf9@4ax.com>

That one shows in the status line as news:///fl... (yes, three
slashes!); clicking it had no effect.

The 'news;' part is required, otherwise it's ambiguous, because it
also looks like an e-mail address.

It's defined in the schemes for URI, in whatever the correct RFC might
be these days. I.e. like 'http://' for a web URL, 'mailto:' for an
e-mail address, etc..

Some newsreaders try to do the right thing when the scheme part is
absent, but <news:<MID>> is the only correct way. We'll see if
Thunderbird et al understand it.

Not the (almost-)current one.

AND, there of course is still the issue that the newsreader must be
able to actually fetch ('article'/'head'/'body'commands) the article/
headers/body. I.e. like an 'http://' URL might fail, so might a 'news:'
one, for all kinds of reasons.

I'm not signed up with 4ax.com (I take it that's a news server); maybe
it would have if I was. (But it didn't give me any error or anything.)

Actually, I've just noticed that it not only converts news:fl into
news:...fl in my status line, but adds something like "downloading
messages to drafts" after the @4ax.com; I have to say "something like", because it has changed while I was typing this: what I _now_ see in the status line when I hover of it is "news:...fl...@4ax.com No messages to download". It does - including the <> - turn from blue to red briefly
while I'm actually clicking on it (i. e. while the mouse button is pressed).

Did you test with a Nightly, as a check for forward-progress ?
I'm not familiar at all with running these, but this is the
quickest way to tell whether the MID mod got any traction.
You would be doing this for science <snicker>. A thing like this
should start with a private profile. The profile might even be
inside the launch folder, rather than being in AppData. When
I tested with the Betterbird Portable, that should be largely
similar to the operation of the Nightly. I would be testing
this in a VM, because I hate cleaning up a mess, and I just
shovel these VMs into the trash :-) The one I was using for
the Betterbird test, is already gone. When you do a build yourself
of Thunderbird, these days, with an HG (Mercurial pull), one of the
outputs would be one of these.

https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/thunderbird/nightly/2026/02/2026-02-19-10-01-27-comm-central-l10n/
https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/thunderbird/nightly/2026/02/2026-02-19-10-01-27-comm-central/

The method I observed being used in Betterbird is "technical"
but not "optimal", and it depends on how snooty the TB devs are
as to whether the idea would have any traction at all. The launch from
command line, as a URI, that's the slow one, the while-running selection
of Mork Summary Files to scan, seems to be faster.

There might be a small amount of similarity, if someone were implementing
a crosspost-read feature. You could clumsily do it by keeping a lot
of group.msf files open, with a resulting larger-average RAM footprint.
The current devs will always be thinking in terms of scalability,
which many people here (with one exception) would not be testing
and commenting on. My subscription list is too short to notice
how slug-slow it would be with a thousand groups subscribed (but
not actively read). There's even a danger for people on smaller
machines, they might run out of RAM if they subscribed to a thousand
groups and a MID-launch was attempted.

There seemed to be some difference, in how Netscape Communicator treated multiple USENET servers, and perhaps how Thunderbird treated them. This
led to the <cough> bug we used to see, where it would triumphantly claim
"you cannot send to two servers at once", and how it used to cherry
pick group a.b.c from AIOE and d.e.f from E-S. There is something you
can type, into the newsgroup area to stop that (basically directing
the stupid thing to stop auto-selecting servers, then denying such
a function exists), but that was an issue for quite a while.

The USENET news component was re-written in javascript, and that was
the opportunity to change the internal architecture away from the
fractured thing it used to use.

Paul

--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

On Thu, 19 Feb 2026 10:31:50 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver" <G6JPG@255soft.uk>
wrote:

On 2026/2/18 18:38:54, Frank Slootweg wrote:

Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote:

[]

<fl3apkhbefiie5ivaljrb6n8f9nghclsf9@4ax.com>

mid:fl3apkhbefiie5ivaljrb6n8f9nghclsf9@4ax.com

And maybe one of those strings will work. We'll see.

With my Thunderbird (140.7.1esr (64-bit)), hovering over either of those >(they do show in blue) shows them with "mailto:" prepended in the status >line, and actually clicking on them opens an email window; presumably it >noticed the @ sign and reacted accordingly, but ...

The format should be <news:<MID>>, i.e.

<news:fl3apkhbefiie5ivaljrb6n8f9nghclsf9@4ax.com>

That one shows in the status line as news:///fl... (yes, three
slashes!); clicking it had no effect.

That's expected because you apparently don't have the M-ID extension
installed, which I linked to earlier in this thread.

I'm not signed up with 4ax.com (I take it that's a news server); maybe
it would have if I was. (But it didn't give me any error or anything.)

No, 4ax.com is the default domain that Forte Agent uses when it creates
a Message-ID. It's not a news server and you can't sign up in any way,
except to use Forte Agent as your newsreader.

--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

On 2026/2/19 15:2:47, Paul wrote:
[]

Did you test with a Nightly, as a check for forward-progress ?
I'm not familiar at all with running these, but this is the
quickest way to tell whether the MID mod got any traction.

No, I'm on the ESR line - quite the opposite of nightlies!

You would be doing this for science <snicker>. A thing like this
should start with a private profile. The profile might even be
inside the launch folder, rather than being in AppData. When
I tested with the Betterbird Portable, that should be largely
similar to the operation of the Nightly. I would be testing
this in a VM, because I hate cleaning up a mess, and I just
shovel these VMs into the trash :-) The one I was using for
the Betterbird test, is already gone. When you do a build yourself
of Thunderbird, these days, with an HG (Mercurial pull), one of the
outputs would be one of these.

I haven't "built" anything for I think over 40 years! I don't think I
even have a compiler these days, unless there's one present as part of
Windows or similar.

https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/thunderbird/nightly/2026/02/2026-02-19-10-01-27-comm-central-l10n/
https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/thunderbird/nightly/2026/02/2026-02-19-10-01-27-comm-central/

The method I observed being used in Betterbird is "technical"
but not "optimal", and it depends on how snooty the TB devs are
as to whether the idea would have any traction at all. The launch from command line, as a URI, that's the slow one, the while-running selection
of Mork Summary Files to scan, seems to be faster.

There might be a small amount of similarity, if someone were implementing
a crosspost-read feature. You could clumsily do it by keeping a lot
of group.msf files open, with a resulting larger-average RAM footprint.

Yes, I see what you mean.

The current devs will always be thinking in terms of scalability,
which many people here (with one exception) would not be testing
and commenting on. My subscription list is too short to notice
how slug-slow it would be with a thousand groups subscribed (but
not actively read). There's even a danger for people on smaller
machines, they might run out of RAM if they subscribed to a thousand
groups and a MID-launch was attempted.

Wow, I can't imagine having such a subscription list! (Can't think _why_
I would, if I wasn't going to read them.)

There seemed to be some difference, in how Netscape Communicator treated multiple USENET servers, and perhaps how Thunderbird treated them. This
led to the <cough> bug we used to see, where it would triumphantly claim
"you cannot send to two servers at once", and how it used to cherry

Now you mention it, I vaguely remember some such message when I was
using Turnpike (which _did_ handle crossposted posts properly - reading
them, or marking them as "keep", in one 'group made them so in the
others, whichever one you did them in first. I don't know if it stored
multiple copies).

pick group a.b.c from AIOE and d.e.f from E-S. There is something you
can type, into the newsgroup area to stop that (basically directing
the stupid thing to stop auto-selecting servers, then denying such
a function exists), but that was an issue for quite a while.

The USENET news component was re-written in javascript, and that was
the opportunity to change the internal architecture away from the
fractured thing it used to use.

Was the opportunity taken? (I've only stared using TB in the last year -
I think it might have been version 138; I did dabble with it decades ago [single-digit I think], but used Turnpike until I had to go 64-bit.)

Paul

John
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()ALIS-Ch++(p)Ar++T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

On 2026/2/19 17:45:18, Char Jackson wrote:

On Thu, 19 Feb 2026 10:31:50 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver" <G6JPG@255soft.uk> wrote:

On 2026/2/18 18:38:54, Frank Slootweg wrote:

[]

The format should be <news:<MID>>, i.e.

<news:fl3apkhbefiie5ivaljrb6n8f9nghclsf9@4ax.com>

That one shows in the status line as news:///fl... (yes, three
slashes!); clicking it had no effect.

That's expected because you apparently don't have the M-ID extension installed, which I linked to earlier in this thread.

Thanks. Copy Message-ID (<https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-us/thunderbird/addon/copy-message-id/>) said it works with version 68.7.0, so I decided not to risk it, but I
have installed Open by Message-ID (<https://services.addons.thunderbird.net/en-GB/thunderbird/addon/open-by-message-id/>),
and it works well. (Well, open from database and open from server do;
open in browser gives blank if Howard Knight selected, and looks as if
it's trying to access the old Google Groups if Google is selected, but
the other two options should serve me in a lot of cases.)

I'm not signed up with 4ax.com (I take it that's a news server); maybe
it would have if I was. (But it didn't give me any error or anything.)

No, 4ax.com is the default domain that Forte Agent uses when it creates
a Message-ID. It's not a news server and you can't sign up in any way,
except to use Forte Agent as your newsreader.

Thanks.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()ALIS-Ch++(p)Ar++T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

On Fri, 2/20/2026 6:54 AM, J. P. Gilliver wrote:

On 2026/2/19 15:2:47, Paul wrote:
[]

Did you test with a Nightly, as a check for forward-progress ?
I'm not familiar at all with running these, but this is the
quickest way to tell whether the MID mod got any traction.

No, I'm on the ESR line - quite the opposite of nightlies!

<snip>

The Nightly does not appear to honour <news:a@b.c>

[Picture]

https://i.postimg.cc/xCS716xC/No-Native-MID-In-TB-Nightly-149.gif

I tried from the command line too, and it seems uninterested.

Looks like Thunderbird will need an AddOn or similar.

Paul

--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote:

On Fri, 2/20/2026 6:54 AM, J. P. Gilliver wrote:

On 2026/2/19 15:2:47, Paul wrote:
[]

Did you test with a Nightly, as a check for forward-progress ?
I'm not familiar at all with running these, but this is the
quickest way to tell whether the MID mod got any traction.

No, I'm on the ESR line - quite the opposite of nightlies!

<snip>

The Nightly does not appear to honour <news:a@b.c>

[Picture]

https://i.postimg.cc/xCS716xC/No-Native-MID-In-TB-Nightly-149.gif

I tried from the command line too, and it seems uninterested.

Looks like Thunderbird will need an AddOn or similar.

Well, truth be told in The Old Days (TM), an 'Open Link In Browser'
*would* work. I.e. the news:a@b.c part was entered into the
*web-browser*, which would recognize that it got a news:-URL and would
pass that to the *newsreader* (for example Thunderbird) to handle it
[1]. I.e. much like a mailto: URL is passed to ones's email-client.

That was an ideal method to introduce people to Usenet/NetNews,
without them having to configure a News account.

For example with this URL

<news://news.eternal-september.org/news.software.readers>

a newbie would automatically get from hir web-browser into the newsgroup news.software.readers on the news.eternal-september.org and could start
reading the 'READ ME FIRST' posting on how to become a real Usenetter.

This used to work in Outlook Express and Thunderbird, but over time
was broken in Thunderbird (Can't have something which actually works,
can we!? :-(). I don't know if it still works in Outlook Express (Rudy?).

[1] Of course the web-browser/OS must be configured to pass a news: URL
to the newsreader, but in The Old Days (TM) that was the case/default.
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

Frank,

I don't know if it still works in Outlook Express (Rudy?).

Yes, it does. Both when clicking the news:// link inside a post, or when putting it into my webbrowser (FF 52) (which than handed it off to OE).


I also tried to put your posts message-ID (10na0k5.jo0.1@ID-201911.user.individual.net) after the news:// protocol header, but although OE tried, it told me that it could not find the server (ID-201911.user.individual.net).

Regards,
Rudy Wieser




--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

R.Wieser <address@is.invalid> wrote:

Frank,

I don't know if it still works in Outlook Express (Rudy?).

Yes, it does. Both when clicking the news:// link inside a post, or when putting it into my webbrowser (FF 52) (which than handed it off to OE).

Thanks! Outlook Express rocks, but you already knew that! :-)

I also tried to put your posts message-ID (10na0k5.jo0.1@ID-201911.user.individual.net) after the news:// protocol header, but although OE tried, it told me that it could not find the server (ID-201911.user.individual.net).

No, for a message-ID, the format is <news:MID> without the two
slashes, i.e. for my post:

<news:10na0k5.jo0.1@ID-201911.user.individual.net>

With the slashes, it indeed expects a server. As mentioned in an
earlier post:

Format Examples
news:article-id@example.com (refers to a specific article).
(i.e. the format I gave)
...
Optional Authority: A server can be specified (e.g., news://news.example.com/example.group), but if omitted, it defaults to
the user's configured news server.

I don't know by heart if a server without a group is also permitted,
i.e.

news://news.example.com

Anyway, as a MID contains a '@', but a server doesn't, the newsreader
could probably say something like "wrong format, server expected".

Bottom line;

<news:10na0k5.jo0.1@ID-201911.user.individual.net>

should work and I expect it to work in good old Outlook Express.
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

On 2/20/2026 2:18 PM, R.Wieser wrote:

Frank,

I don't know if it still works in Outlook Express (Rudy?).

Yes, it does. Both when clicking the news:// link inside a post, or when putting it into my webbrowser (FF 52) (which than handed it off to OE).

I also tried to put your posts message-ID (10na0k5.jo0.1@ID-201911.user.individual.net) after the news:// protocol header, but although OE tried, it told me that it could not find the server (ID-201911.user.individual.net).

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

The most logical conclusion, might be that

a@b.c <=== M-ID needs the b.c to resolve to a real email server
(email) Perhaps email does not allow fudging the b.c part ?

d@e.f <=== The M-ID on USENET News, all it needs to be, is "unique"
(News) from every other message. The designers consider there is
no requirement for e.f to be real and suited to nslookup(e.f).
But on the minus side, from a context point of view,
if we allow this, we cannot "guess" which USENET account/server
this might have come from.

Outlook wants to look at exactly one server, for d@e.f and when nsloopup(e.f) fails to work properly, it becomes wobbly. Whereas for a USENET client,
they have the option of trying any USENET news account/server to do
a lookup of the d@e.f pseudo-identifier. It only looks like an email
address, when it isn't exactly an email address (as the domain can be
fake or a vanity string).

Jeff Relf wrote his own USENET news client, and it definitely has a
"unique" string for messages like no other. The NNTP spec allows this.
You do not have to accept the INN "suggested" M-ID, you can use your
own, and that is what Jeff does.

Paul

--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

On Fri, 20 Feb 2026 17:00:46 -0500, Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote:

On 2/20/2026 2:18 PM, R.Wieser wrote:

Frank,

I don't know if it still works in Outlook Express (Rudy?).

Yes, it does. Both when clicking the news:// link inside a post, or when >> putting it into my webbrowser (FF 52) (which than handed it off to OE).


I also tried to put your posts message-ID
(10na0k5.jo0.1@ID-201911.user.individual.net) after the news:// protocol
header, but although OE tried, it told me that it could not find the server >> (ID-201911.user.individual.net).

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

The most logical conclusion, might be that

a@b.c <=== M-ID needs the b.c to resolve to a real email server
(email) Perhaps email does not allow fudging the b.c part ?

d@e.f <=== The M-ID on USENET News, all it needs to be, is "unique"
(News) from every other message.

Correct.

The designers consider there is
no requirement for e.f to be real and suited to nslookup(e.f).

Correct.

But on the minus side, from a context point of view,
if we allow this, we cannot "guess" which USENET account/server
this might have come from.

I'm not sure why you'd want to use a M-ID to guess which server was the
origin. It's not intended for that. In some/many cases, the Path header
might give you that information, if the server shows it.

Outlook

Outlook Express. Outlook has no Usenet capability.

wants to look at exactly one server, for d@e.f

Yes, the server that's configured in that instance of OE.

and when nsloopup(e.f)
fails to work properly, it becomes wobbly.

No one is doing nslookup on a Usenet M-ID. There'd be no point.

Whereas for a USENET client,

For a Usenet client? What were you referring to above?

they have the option of trying any USENET news account/server

As long as it's configured within that Usenet client. No other Usenet
servers can be queried.

to do a lookup of the d@e.f pseudo-identifier.

A stated above, no client is going to attempt to do a lookup of the M-ID domain. There'd be no point.

It only looks like an email
address, when it isn't exactly an email address (as the domain can be
fake or a vanity string).

That's why you normally need to tell your client how to treat such a
string.

Jeff Relf wrote his own USENET news client, and it definitely has a
"unique" string for messages like no other. The NNTP spec allows this.
You do not have to accept the INN "suggested" M-ID, you can use your
own, and that is what Jeff does.

I don't know the current state of affairs, but 20-30 years ago most
Usenet clients allowed you to specify the M-ID domain. Forte Agent still
does, but I haven't bothered. Hence, the @4ax.com on my messages.

--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

On Fri, 20 Feb 2026 08:54:55 -0500, Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote:

On Fri, 2/20/2026 6:54 AM, J. P. Gilliver wrote:

On 2026/2/19 15:2:47, Paul wrote:
[]

Did you test with a Nightly, as a check for forward-progress ?
I'm not familiar at all with running these, but this is the
quickest way to tell whether the MID mod got any traction.

No, I'm on the ESR line - quite the opposite of nightlies!

<snip>

The Nightly does not appear to honour <news:a@b.c>

[Picture]

https://i.postimg.cc/xCS716xC/No-Native-MID-In-TB-Nightly-149.gif

I tried from the command line too, and it seems uninterested.

Looks like Thunderbird will need an AddOn or similar.

That was established the other day, when I posted links to the add-ons.

--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

On Fri, 2/20/2026 6:01 PM, Char Jackson wrote:

On Fri, 20 Feb 2026 08:54:55 -0500, Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote:

On Fri, 2/20/2026 6:54 AM, J. P. Gilliver wrote:

On 2026/2/19 15:2:47, Paul wrote:
[]

Did you test with a Nightly, as a check for forward-progress ?
I'm not familiar at all with running these, but this is the
quickest way to tell whether the MID mod got any traction.

No, I'm on the ESR line - quite the opposite of nightlies!

<snip>

The Nightly does not appear to honour <news:a@b.c>

[Picture]

https://i.postimg.cc/xCS716xC/No-Native-MID-In-TB-Nightly-149.gif

I tried from the command line too, and it seems uninterested.

Looks like Thunderbird will need an AddOn or similar.

That was established the other day, when I posted links to the add-ons.

I was checking to see if Thunderbird had picked up the Betterbird mod or not. It does not appear to have done so.

Paul
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

On 2026/2/20 23:0:4, Char Jackson wrote:

On Fri, 20 Feb 2026 17:00:46 -0500, Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote:

[]

Outlook

Outlook Express. Outlook has no Usenet capability.

[]
Mostly correct. However, on one setup I used (at work), it did: I think
it called the msimn.exe that was present. But - IIRR, it was well over a
decade ago, maybe two - it presented the news component as if it was
inside the Outlook hierarchy.

We learnt - again, I forget details - to be careful how to phrase
enquiries to the internal IT helpdesk, because "we do not support news"
or some similar phrase, but if you phrased the question in a suitable
way, they did help. (It became moot eventually, because they closed down
news - unfortunately, as it both had some access to usenet, and had some internal-to-the-company newsgroups, so there was obviously a news server.)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()ALIS-Ch++(p)Ar++T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a long time making it (Anon) --- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

On Sat, 21 Feb 2026 01:57:54 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver" <G6JPG@255soft.uk>
wrote:

On 2026/2/20 23:0:4, Char Jackson wrote:

On Fri, 20 Feb 2026 17:00:46 -0500, Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote:

[]

Outlook

Outlook Express. Outlook has no Usenet capability.

[]
Mostly correct. However, on one setup I used (at work), it did: I think
it called the msimn.exe that was present. But - IIRR, it was well over a >decade ago, maybe two - it presented the news component as if it was
inside the Outlook hierarchy.

I don't think that's right, but do you have a reference? I've never
heard of Outlook having a Usenet presence.

MSIMN.exe was the core of Outlook Express, named after Microsoft
Internet Mail and News.

...Winston would know.

--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

Frank,

Thanks! Outlook Express rocks, but you already knew that! :-)

Yes, it does. Even though it has got some ... quirks.

I also tried to put your posts message-ID

[snip]

No, for a message-ID, the format is <news:MID> without the two
slashes, i.e. for my post:

<news:10na0k5.jo0.1@ID-201911.user.individual.net>

With the slashes, it indeed expects a server.

Ah, ofcourse. I should have realized.

As mentioned in an earlier post:

Mea culpa. I thought that, as long as I was testing, I could do a quick
test of this too. I should have gone back and read (instead of skimming) that/those posts too.

Bottom line;

<news:10na0k5.jo0.1@ID-201911.user.individual.net>

should work and I expect it to work in good old Outlook Express.

Clicking it inside OE or going thru my webbrowser indeed works. Odd that OE doesn't seem to have any place to enter/drop such a MID into it directly.
Oh well.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser


--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

On 2/20/2026 6:57 PM, J. P. Gilliver wrote:

On 2026/2/20 23:0:4, Char Jackson wrote:

On Fri, 20 Feb 2026 17:00:46 -0500, Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote:

[]

Outlook

Outlook Express. Outlook has no Usenet capability.

[]
Mostly correct. However, on one setup I used (at work), it did: I think
it called the msimn.exe that was present. But - IIRR, it was well over a decade ago, maybe two - it presented the news component as if it was
inside the Outlook hierarchy.

It was not msimn.exe.
Msimn was prior to Outlook Express and IE4, though Outlook
Express(included with MSN Explorer 2.6 and with IE4 circa 1997) initial release for the most part was just a renaming msinm client as Outlook
Express. Msimn(Internet Mail and News) was included in Win95 but not
later and originally could be used(as an email and news client) in
addition to Win95 Windows Messaging(mail only client, which was also a a rename or Windows Exchange[not to be confused with Exchange Server - and
the reason for the rename to Windows Messaging).

Outlook required Exchange Server(not available in commercial Win95-XP
o/s) for newsgroups.

The *news* connection you may be recalling in Outlook with Outlook
Express was quite simple.

Afaik, at one time an Outlook Express add-in was available but it only
was a call to open Outlook Express for 'news'.
The most common and dependable version was a 3rd party add-in called
MAPILab NNTP which provided a read/post news method within the main
Outlook application(effectively using Outlook Express code as the
vehicle to read/post).
--
...w-i|#-o-#-n|#
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

On 21/02/2026 7:46 am, Frank Slootweg wrote:

R.Wieser <address@is.invalid> wrote:

Frank,

I don't know if it still works in Outlook Express (Rudy?).

Yes, it does. Both when clicking the news:// link inside a post, or when
putting it into my webbrowser (FF 52) (which than handed it off to OE).

Thanks! Outlook Express rocks, but you already knew that! :-)

I also tried to put your posts message-ID
(10na0k5.jo0.1@ID-201911.user.individual.net) after the news:// protocol
header, but although OE tried, it told me that it could not find the server >> (ID-201911.user.individual.net).

No, for a message-ID, the format is <news:MID> without the two
slashes, i.e. for my post:

<news:10na0k5.jo0.1@ID-201911.user.individual.net>

In my SeaMonkey suite, when I hover over your <news link, my SeaMonkey
suite re-inserts the three '///', so clicking on it fails to do anything.
--
Daniel70
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

On 2026/2/21 10:30:38, ...w-i|#-o-#-n|# wrote:

On 2/20/2026 6:57 PM, J. P. Gilliver wrote:

On 2026/2/20 23:0:4, Char Jackson wrote:

On Fri, 20 Feb 2026 17:00:46 -0500, Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote:

[]

Outlook

Outlook Express. Outlook has no Usenet capability.

[]
Mostly correct. However, on one setup I used (at work), it did: I think
it called the msimn.exe that was present. But - IIRR, it was well over a
decade ago, maybe two - it presented the news component as if it was
inside the Outlook hierarchy.

It was not msimn.exe.
Msimn was prior to Outlook Express and IE4, though Outlook Express(included with MSN Explorer 2.6 and with IE4 circa 1997) initial release for the most part was just a renaming msinm client as Outlook Express. Msimn(Internet Mail and News) was included in Win95 but not
later and originally could be used(as an email and news client) in
addition to Win95 Windows Messaging(mail only client, which was also a a rename or Windows Exchange[not to be confused with Exchange Server - and
the reason for the rename to Windows Messaging).

Outlook required Exchange Server(not available in commercial Win95-XP
o/s) for newsgroups.

The *news* connection you may be recalling in Outlook with Outlook
Express was quite simple.

Afaik, at one time an Outlook Express add-in was available but it only
was a call to open Outlook Express for 'news'.

We had the full Outlook - calendar, all the rest, quite useful in a work environment. Until some point, we also had news access - it included
some internal newsgroups, and at least some external.

The most common and dependable version was a 3rd party add-in called
MAPILab NNTP which provided a read/post news method within the main
Outlook application(effectively using Outlook Express code as the
vehicle to read/post).

That was the impression I got. I'd be surprised if the company I worked
for (anagram of messybeast) did things like that add-on, but maybe it
did; it obviously must have been running a newsserver, given the
in-house 'groups, so it may have.

--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()ALIS-Ch++(p)Ar++T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Odds are, the phrase "It's none of my business" will be followed by "but".
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

On 2/21/2026 6:49 AM, J. P. Gilliver wrote:

On 2026/2/21 10:30:38, ...w-i|#-o-#-n|# wrote:

On 2/20/2026 6:57 PM, J. P. Gilliver wrote:

On 2026/2/20 23:0:4, Char Jackson wrote:

On Fri, 20 Feb 2026 17:00:46 -0500, Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote: >>> []

Outlook

Outlook Express. Outlook has no Usenet capability.

[]
Mostly correct. However, on one setup I used (at work), it did: I think
it called the msimn.exe that was present. But - IIRR, it was well over a >>> decade ago, maybe two - it presented the news component as if it was
inside the Outlook hierarchy.

It was not msimn.exe.
Msimn was prior to Outlook Express and IE4, though Outlook
Express(included with MSN Explorer 2.6 and with IE4 circa 1997) initial
release for the most part was just a renaming msinm client as Outlook
Express. Msimn(Internet Mail and News) was included in Win95 but not
later and originally could be used(as an email and news client) in
addition to Win95 Windows Messaging(mail only client, which was also a a
rename or Windows Exchange[not to be confused with Exchange Server - and
the reason for the rename to Windows Messaging).

Outlook required Exchange Server(not available in commercial Win95-XP
o/s) for newsgroups.

The *news* connection you may be recalling in Outlook with Outlook
Express was quite simple.

Afaik, at one time an Outlook Express add-in was available but it only
was a call to open Outlook Express for 'news'.

We had the full Outlook - calendar, all the rest, quite useful in a work environment. Until some point, we also had news access - it included
some internal newsgroups, and at least some external.

The most common and dependable version was a 3rd party add-in called
MAPILab NNTP which provided a read/post news method within the main
Outlook application(effectively using Outlook Express code as the
vehicle to read/post).

That was the impression I got. I'd be surprised if the company I worked
for (anagram of messybeast) did things like that add-on, but maybe it
did; it obviously must have been running a newsserver, given the
in-house 'groups, so it may have.

That(your) company at that point in time really only had two options for
news in Outlook(the Outlook connector type OE add-in or the 3rd party
MAPIab product). While the possibility does exist that some type of
internal application was used for company type 'newsgroups' nntp
based(using OE or one of the earlier news or mail/news 3rd party
clients) or even a backend server based application(that appeared to
function like a news client - similar to how BBS or Compuserv groups functioned).
--
...w-i|#-o-#-n|#
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

On Fri, 20 Feb 2026 22:52:13 -0600, Char Jackson <none@none.invalid>
wrote:

On Sat, 21 Feb 2026 01:57:54 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver" <G6JPG@255soft.uk> >wrote:

On 2026/2/20 23:0:4, Char Jackson wrote:

On Fri, 20 Feb 2026 17:00:46 -0500, Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote: >>[]

Outlook

Outlook Express. Outlook has no Usenet capability.

[]
Mostly correct. However, on one setup I used (at work), it did: I think
it called the msimn.exe that was present. But - IIRR, it was well over a >>decade ago, maybe two - it presented the news component as if it was
inside the Outlook hierarchy.

I don't think that's right, but do you have a reference? I've never
heard of Outlook having a Usenet presence.

Outlook Express had news access. It wasn't that good, although I
couldn't tell you why at this distance. I used it for a few weeks
before I discovered Agent.
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

On Sun, 22 Feb 2026 19:01:34 +0000, Peter Johnson wrote:

[snip]

Outlook Express had news access. It wasn't that good, although I
couldn't tell you why at this distance. I used it for a few weeks before
I discovered Agent.

Some people had a problem when you're replying and it would start with the cursor at the top, leading to top-posting. That one never bothered me,
since I knew to click before typing anything.

There was also a problem with multi-part binaries, although I don't
remember what.

I stopped using OE (and IE) around the time that Firefox was first called Firefox (version .8).
--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"I can explain it for you, but I can't understand it for you."
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

On Sun, 22 Feb 2026 19:01:34 +0000, Peter Johnson wrote:

[snip]

Outlook Express had news access. It wasn't that good, although I
couldn't tell you why at this distance. I used it for a few weeks before
I discovered Agent.

Some people had a problem when you're replying and it would start with the cursor at the top, leading to top-posting. That one never bothered me,
since I knew to click before typing anything.

There was also a problem with multi-part binaries, although I don't
remember what.

I stopped using OE (and IE) around the time that Firefox was first called Firefox (version .8).
--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"I can explain it for you, but I can't understand it for you."
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

On Sun, 2/22/2026 2:12 PM, Mark Lloyd wrote:

On Sun, 22 Feb 2026 19:01:34 +0000, Peter Johnson wrote:

[snip]

Outlook Express had news access. It wasn't that good, although I
couldn't tell you why at this distance. I used it for a few weeks before
I discovered Agent.

Some people had a problem when you're replying and it would start with the cursor at the top, leading to top-posting. That one never bothered me,
since I knew to click before typing anything.

There was also a problem with multi-part binaries, although I don't
remember what.

I stopped using OE (and IE) around the time that Firefox was first called Firefox (version .8).

There were things like OEQuoteFix.

And OE wasn't the only USENET client that had a third party
write code to make the behavior a bit more "normal".

The stunningly helpful ones, have been binary patches to
things. The email client I used to use, one day it stopped
functioning, and it was because the ISP email server had
adopted a strange new address. I discovered someone had done
a binary patch for commercial software, causing the new email
server name to be parsed properly and accepted. And it had been
done, the binary edit, six years before I needed it. People can
do this, for software which is not signed. SuperPI (originally
written by some people in Japan), the source was lost, and
it's a benchmark, and more than one person contributed binary
changes to it to keep it going and prevent cheating.

And another example, is the "games collection" that they keep
moving forward into newer versions of Windows. You can continue
to play WinXP Solitaire, because someone knows which four bytes
in the executable that control "OS version exclusivity". These
games rest in a 100MB ZIP file.

Paul
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

On 2026/2/22 19:12:35, Mark Lloyd wrote:

On Sun, 22 Feb 2026 19:01:34 +0000, Peter Johnson wrote:

[snip]

Outlook Express had news access. It wasn't that good, although I
couldn't tell you why at this distance. I used it for a few weeks before
I discovered Agent.

Some people had a problem when you're replying and it would start with the cursor at the top, leading to top-posting. That one never bothered me,
since I knew to click before typing anything.

Some even suggested that was to encourage snipping/interposting, rather
than not doing any snipping and adding all of your response at the
bottom, which is (almost) as bad as top-posting.

This was rather countered, though, by it also putting the .sig, if you
had one, at the top.

OE-Quotefix mostly fixed it, though.

There was also a problem with multi-part binaries, although I don't
remember what.

Ditto (the not remembering part).

I stopped using OE (and IE) around the time that Firefox was first called Firefox (version .8).

What was it called before that - Netscape plus or something? (I used to
use the Netscape Communicator suite - i. e. as well as a browser, it did
email or news [or both, I don't remember]. Quite good, IIRR.)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()ALIS-Ch++(p)Ar++T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Never rely on somebody else for your happiness.
- Bette Davis, quoted by Celia Imrie, RT 2014/3/12-18
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

On 23/02/2026 4:16 pm, J. P. Gilliver wrote:

On 2026/2/22 19:12:35, Mark Lloyd wrote:

On Sun, 22 Feb 2026 19:01:34 +0000, Peter Johnson wrote:

[snip]

Outlook Express had news access. It wasn't that good, although I
couldn't tell you why at this distance. I used it for a few weeks before >>> I discovered Agent.

Some people had a problem when you're replying and it would start with the >> cursor at the top, leading to top-posting. That one never bothered me,
since I knew to click before typing anything.

Some even suggested that was to encourage snipping/interposting, rather
than not doing any snipping and adding all of your response at the
bottom, which is (almost) as bad as top-posting.

This was rather countered, though, by it also putting the .sig, if you
had one, at the top.

OE-Quotefix mostly fixed it, though.

There was also a problem with multi-part binaries, although I don't
remember what.

Ditto (the not remembering part).

I stopped using OE (and IE) around the time that Firefox was first called
Firefox (version .8).

What was it called before that - Netscape plus or something? (I used to
use the Netscape Communicator suite - i. e. as well as a browser, it did email or news [or both, I don't remember]. Quite good, IIRR.)

Netscape Navigator was just a Browser but then it incorporated a
Mail/News agent when, at about Ver 3.0, it became Netscape Communicator.

That then became Mozilla Suite .... which then became Firefox &
Thunderbird ..... or SeaMonkey Suite.
--
Daniel70
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

J. P. Gilliver <G6JPG@255soft.uk> wrote:

On 2026/2/22 19:12:35, Mark Lloyd wrote:

On Sun, 22 Feb 2026 19:01:34 +0000, Peter Johnson wrote:

[snip]

Outlook Express had news access. It wasn't that good, although I
couldn't tell you why at this distance. I used it for a few weeks before >> I discovered Agent.

Some people had a problem when you're replying and it would start with the cursor at the top, leading to top-posting. That one never bothered me, since I knew to click before typing anything.

Some even suggested that was to encourage snipping/interposting, rather
than not doing any snipping and adding all of your response at the
bottom, which is (almost) as bad as top-posting.

Well, it depends on exactly *where* "at the top" the cursor was
positioned. For best Netiquette, it should be directly below the
attribution line, because *that* encourages snipping/interposting.

OTOH, positioning the cursor really "at the top", i.e. above the
attribution line encourages top-posting.

As to top- versus bottom-posting, the latter is worse, because you
have to page through all the quotes, to see if perhaps there's a bit of interposting.

[...]
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

On 23 Feb 2026 10:49:40 GMT, Frank Slootweg wrote:

[snip]

As to top- versus bottom-posting, the latter is worse, because you
have to page through all the quotes, to see if perhaps there's a bit of interposting.

What I find worse, is neither of those. It's inadequate snipping.

[...]

--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"Men become civilized not in proportion to their willingness to believe
but in proportion to their readiness to doubt." [H. L. Menchen]
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

On Mon, 23 Feb 2026 05:16:26 +0000
"J. P. Gilliver" <G6JPG@255soft.uk> wrote:

On 2026/2/22 19:12:35, Mark Lloyd wrote:

On Sun, 22 Feb 2026 19:01:34 +0000, Peter Johnson wrote:

[snip]

Outlook Express had news access. It wasn't that good, although I
couldn't tell you why at this distance. I used it for a few weeks before >> I discovered Agent.

Some people had a problem when you're replying and it would start with the cursor at the top, leading to top-posting. That one never bothered me, since I knew to click before typing anything.

Some even suggested that was to encourage snipping/interposting, rather
than not doing any snipping and adding all of your response at the
bottom, which is (almost) as bad as top-posting.

This was rather countered, though, by it also putting the .sig, if you
had one, at the top.

OE-Quotefix mostly fixed it, though.

There was also a problem with multi-part binaries, although I don't remember what.

Ditto (the not remembering part).

[]

OK, I confess, I first connected/posted to Usenet using OE; +OE-Quotefix
when it became available - I've shifted nym (and v. computers) since then, though.

fu to alt.folklore.computers, as this is now olde history.
--
Bah, and indeed Humbug.
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

On 23 Feb 2026 18:32:00 GMT
Mark Lloyd <not.email@all.invalid> wrote:

On 23 Feb 2026 10:49:40 GMT, Frank Slootweg wrote:

[snip]

As to top- versus bottom-posting, the latter is worse, because you
have to page through all the quotes, to see if perhaps there's a bit of interposting.

What I find worse, is neither of those. It's inadequate snipping.

[...]

That, and irrelevant xposts :-)

[fu to alt.comp.os.windows-10]
--
Bah, and indeed Humbug.
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

Mark Lloyd <not.email@all.invalid> wrote:

On 23 Feb 2026 10:49:40 GMT, Frank Slootweg wrote:

[snip]

As to top- versus bottom-posting, the latter is worse, because you
have to page through all the quotes, to see if perhaps there's a bit of interposting.

What I find worse, is neither of those. It's inadequate snipping.

Of course, but I was commenting on "top- versus bottom-posting" and my comments on "interposting", both above and in the part you snipped,
clearly indicate that snipping/interposting is preferred.

So you proved that too much snipping changes/misrepresents the context
and leads to unneeded responses! :-) c.q. :-(
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2