Cannot search for anything here

[CW]

Is there a problem with this discussion group page? Or is it me? I use it a
lot and always start off by signing in and then entering my topic in the
search field and seeing if there are previous posts.
However, yesterday and today when I do this, whatever term I put in there
(even something absolutely standard such as "form" or "value" or "error" the
system says it cannot find any records of this.
Wot's going on?
Thanks
CW

 

[John W. Vinson]

Is there a problem with this discussion group page? Or is it me? I use it a
lot and always start off by signing in and then entering my topic in the
search field and seeing if there are previous posts.
However, yesterday and today when I do this, whatever term I put in there
(even something absolutely standard such as "form" or "value" or "error" the
system says it cannot find any records of this.
Wot's going on?
Thanks
CW

You may have the impression (carefully fosterd by Microsoft) that this
discussion group is a webpage.

It isn't.

The support.microsoft.com (or however you're getting to it) webpage is just
one of MANY ways to get to the NNTP "Usenet" newsgroups, which were around
long before the World Wide Web or http: web pages came into existance.

You can use a Newsreader (there are many, but you surely already have one,
Outlook Express to wit) to connect to the msnews.microsoft.com news server, or
one of the other thousands of news servers around the world.

You can also look at archives of newsgroup posts at
http://groups.google.com/advanced_search?q=& and specify (for instance)
microsoft.public.access.* in the newsgroups; you can search for messages
you've posted, subjects that interest you, date ranges, etc.

I'll admit that Google has been having some sporadic problems with the
newsgroup archives lately (ironic because that's where they got their start,
with DejaNews!!) but it's a much better way to search for messages than the
Microsoft website provides.

John W. Vinson [MVP]

 

[CW]

Thanks for all the background, John. It's just that I've never had this kind
of problem before and I wondered what was going on, whether I had a probl;em
locally I needed to fix. However it happens on both my desktop and my laptop
so I don't think it's down to me or my settings. There's another strange
thing too - after signing in and then being re-directed, I get the IE "page
cannot be found" error. If I then hit the back button, I get into where I
want to be i.e. here, Office Online. Most odd. Oh well, hopefully it's just
having Sunday off and will revert to normal tomorrow!
Thanks again
CW

 

[John W. Vinson]

Thanks for all the background, John. It's just that I've never had this kind
of problem before and I wondered what was going on, whether I had a probl;em
locally I needed to fix.

I strongly suspect that it's the webpage getting screwed up... *again* (and
again, and again, and again). I've used it rarely enough that I don't know all
its idiosyncracies, but I've certainly heard reams of complaints.

John W. Vinson [MVP]

 

[emre]

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