Inside Outlook Express - Communities and Newsgroups for Outlook Express

Microsoft's Internet Explorer Community site

This Microsoft site serves as a starting point for exploring Internet Explorer and Outlook Express communities. I have contributed several articles on Outlook Express there.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/community/default.mspx

Outlook Express Communities and Newsgroups

By far the best place to request technical support for Outlook Express, or for any Microsoft product, is MSnews, the Microsoft public news server. Many ISPs mirror some of the groups on this server, but I recommend that you connect directly to the source. You will find over a thousand groups dedicated to all MS products. Most groups retain messages for 90 days, far longer than most ISP's news servers. As you can see from the list, there are several groups specifically for Outlook Express.

To set up an account for MSnews in Outlook Express

Click Tools, then Accounts.
Click the Add... button, then News.
Enter your name.
Enter an email address.
For the name of the server, type
msnews.microsoft.com.
Do not check the box "My news server requires me to log on." If you do, you will not be able to connect.
Click Finish.
If you wish, you may rename the new account now by clicking the Properties button, then typing the new name.
Click the Close button.
OE will ask if you wish to download the list of available newsgroups. Make sure you are connected to the Internet and answer 'yes'. When the download is finished, you can subscribe to a group by double-clicking its icon.

Reading newsgroups in a browser

Google Groups

You can also access the MS newsgroups along with many thousands of others at Google Groups. Although Google does not support posting to all groups, it does support most Outlook Express groups, including the newest, Outlook Express General

Google Advanced Groups Search
This uses the powerful Google search engine to filter through years of newsgroup messages. To limit your search to Outlook Express, type keywords for your question into the Search box, then limit the search by typing outlookexpress as a single word in the Newsgroup box.

If you are unable to access newsgroups in OE, you can also access them in your web browser via the Microsoft Discussion Groups web site. When the message list appears, click the plus sign (+) at the left of a message to see the entire conversation.

Outlook Express newsgroups on msnews.microsoft.com

Links will open that group in Outlook Express (or your default news client)

Mac-specific newsgroups

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