Accessing the Microsoft Newsgroups

A newsgroup is a collection of messages on a particular topic. These messages are submitted to the news server by users. The questions asked by some users are answered by others. You can view newsgroups in a news reader (a piece of software such as Outlook Express or Opera) or on the Internet.

Using Web-based Newsgroups

To access the official Microsoft newsgroups on the Internet, use the following steps.

1. Open your Internet browser and navigate to http://support.microsoft.com/newsgroups/default.aspx.

2. Once you've chosen a language, you'll see an entry for each category of Microsoft software. Click the plus sign next to the category to expand the category. To find Microsoft OneNote, click the plus sign next to Office. Scroll down to the OneNote entry and click the plus sign.

3. Click OneNote General Questions to display Figure B.1.

   Figure B.1. You can view the existing questions in the newsgroup or ask a new question through the Web interface.

   

To ask a new question, click the New button to display Figure B.2. Type your question and click Send.

Figure B.2. Use this form to submit a new question to the Web-based newsgroups.

Accessing the Newsgroups from a Newsreader

If you have a newsreader such as Outlook Express on your computer, you can download existing messages and send new messages through Outlook Express. To add the Microsoft newsgroups to your Outlook Express installation, use the following steps.

1. Select Accounts from the Tools menu.

2. Click Add, News.

3. Enter a display name for your news account. This name can be as simple as "Anonymous." You should never use your email address as your display name. Click Next.

4. Enter an email address for use in the newsgroups and click Next.

5. Enter the NNTP (network news transfer protocol) server for the Microsoft newsgroups. The server you should enter is msnews.microsoft.com. Leave the My news server requires me to log on check box unchecked. Click Next.

6. Click Finish to complete your newsgroup setup and click Close from the Accounts dialog.

tip

When asking a question in the newsgroups, it's helpful to always include your operating system version as well as the specific build number of OneNote you're using. You can find the build number by selecting Help, About Microsoft Office OneNote while in OneNote. The build number is usually in the format of (11.5510.5606).

When you click Close, you'll be prompted to download newsgroups from the news server. Choose Yes to download newsgroups. You'll see all 1,500+ newsgroups in the Newsgroup Subscriptions dialog. To narrow down your search, type the name of the program you need assistance with in the Display newsgroups which contain text box. The list is case sensitive and no capitals are used in newsgroup names, so for OneNote newsgroups, enter onenote. Double-click the newsgroup name to subscribe.

tip

You should always use a fake email address for this step. If you use your real email address, it's quite possible that you'll start to receive spam (unsolicited commercial email). You can use just about anything as a fake email address. For example, if your email is [e-mail], try changing it to [e-mail].

When you've subscribed to newsgroups, your Outlook Express installation should look similar to Figure B.3.

Figure B.3. You can subscribe to a variety of newsgroups in Outlook Express.

To ask a question in Outlook Express, click New Post in the upper left corner of the toolbar. Click Send to send your message to the newsgroup.