ws.istar.net!van.istar!west.istar!not-for-mail
Subject: Introduction to comp.os.*.win95 groups and FAQ
Date: Mon, 1 Sep 97 08:09:50
Summary: Please read this document and the FAQ before posting to any of the
         comp.os.*.win95 newsgroups.
X-NoSpamWanted: This address is not for unsolicited commercial e-mail
X-ImNotKidding: By sending UCE to this address you agree to pay $50.00 CDN
X-pensive-Spam: Payable to G. Fecyk, c/o P.O. Box 373 Oakville, MB  R0H 0Y0
27912 news.answers:111484

Archive-name: windows/win95/faq/intro
Posting-frequency: Twice Monthly

================================================================
=         Introduction to comp.os.ms-windows.*.win95,          =
=         comp.os.ms-windows.win95.misc,                       =
=         and the Windows 95 FAQ                               =
================================================================

Table of Contents:

0.  New developments affecting the FAQ or the newsgroups
1.  Who are you, and why are you wasting your time?
2.  Where can I find the main FAQ?
3.  Posting Etiquette: Friendly advice
        3.1.  Hint to Advertisers
4.  Tell me about the *.win95 Usenet groups...
        4.1.  comp.os.ms-windows.win95.misc
        4.2.  comp.os.ms-windows.apps.compatibility.win95
        4.3.  comp.os.ms-windows.apps.utilities.win95
        4.4.  comp.os.ms-windows.networking.win95
        4.5.  comp.os.ms-windows.setup.win95
        4.6.  comp.os.ms-windows.win95.moderated
5.  Tell me about the microsoft.* groups.
6.  Tell me about the main FAQ...
        6.1.  Administrivia
        6.2.  Installation, Re-Installation, Un-Installation
        6.3.  Usage
        6.4.  Hardware
        6.5.  Modems and TAPI
        6.6.  Novell NetWare (tm) Networking
        6.7.  Networking (Not including NetWare)
        6.8.  Dial-up Networking and The Internet
        6.9.  Maintanence and Annoyances
        6.10. Windows Messaging, AKA: MS Exchange
        6.11. Disk Compression and You
        6.12. Running MS-DOS Games
        6.13. Microsoft Plus! Add-on, and other MS add-ons
        6.14. Miscelaneous
7.  Where else can I find good information?
8.  Why do you have an Amiga (tm) logo in your .signature?
9.  Why do you have anti-commercial junk in your .signature?

----------------------------------------------------------------

Contents:

0.  New developments affecting the FAQ or the newsgroups

I found it!  I searched so hard for it that I forgot to make the last
posting! :-) PUTINENV.EXE now lives at the orca web site, linked to from
FAQ page 7.

Unfortunately you'll notice that there aren't any other changes yet! :-) I
have lots of e-mail to sort through yet, and a bit more writing to finish
up before I can post the main FAQ properly.

Got to look at MSIE 4.0 and the shell extensions (Someone should make a
rock band out of that name... Ladies & Gentlemen: MSIE & the Shell
Extensions!) but I've grown too used to the std Explorer to see any
benefit.  You might have different ideas though, and I want to hear about
them.

Topics looking for input on:

ACER (and others) MisDesigned for Windows 95
Speaking of which, doesn't anyone bother designing for Win95?  Or do all
              developers just kluge their stuff together and hope it works?
              Or do they pull a "MS" and re-write the OS to suit them?
Internet connection sharing tools
(of course) MSIE 4.0 and the future of Windows
The future (or lack of it) of MS Exchange (Sue Mosher actually has the
              goods on this topic: http://www.slipstick.com/exchange/)

----------------------------------------------------------------

1.  Who are you, and why are you wasting your time?

I'm Gordon Fecyk, graduate of Red River Community College and an IEEE
associate member.  I spent the last three years working on DOS box
hardware, mainly supporting Windows 3.1 and Windows 95.

I spent that last year answering stupid questions over and over in my last
Helpdesk job at In-Line (jimf@in-line.bc.ca) and checking into said
newsgroups.  I noticed that everyone had their own opinions but none of
them made the Usenet archives, save Win95NetBugs.  Rich Graves needs
commendation for his work, but he focuses on networking only, and 
he stopped maintaining his WWW site.  I decided it was time to do something
myself and I did, with the launch of my FAQ in early May 1996.  

Since then, though, pages sprang up all over.  I especially like the L-FAQ 
and Exchange Resource Centres.

I waste my time to learn about software systems, and for the occasional
apreciative E-MAIL telling me how great a guy I am. :)  This stuff is quite
fascinating actually, and I hope to maintain this FAQ until MS finally
drops Intel-only Windows/DOS and pushes us into NT once and for all.

----------------------------------------------------------------

2.  Where can I find the main FAQ?

The original location is:

http://www.orca.bc.ca/win95/

There I keep the documents themselves and a downloadable ZIP file.  Soon I
will have a Windows .HLP file thanks to William Hartley's help.  You can
reach William at william@hartley.demon.co.uk.

Other locations include:

http://www.join.ad.jp/tech/faq-e/win
http://www.faqlib.com/

Several news.answers archives including:

ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/windows/win95/faq/
http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/FAQ-List.html
http://www.cs.ruu.nl/cgi-bin/faqwais                             
http://www.lib.ox.ac.uk/internet/news/faq/by_group.index.html    

The newsgroups themselves:

news:news.answers
news:comp.answers
(and all of the .win95 groups)

And in an absolute worst case, MIT's FAQ e-mail server.  Send E-MAIL to
mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu with the command:

SEND usenet/news.answers/windows/win95/faq/partxx 
(use part filenames part01 to part14)

in the message body.  Use the commands HELP and INDEX in the message body
for other instructions on using MIT's FAQ server.

----------------------------------------------------------------

3.  Posting Ettiquite: Friendly Advice

Usenet and news.answers themselves have FAQs: 

ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/usenet/faq/

Look in the Introduction to Usenet Newsgroups in the news.answers group and 
in the FAQ archive at rtfm.mit.edu.  I'm not going to try to explain Usenet 
in this document, but let me make some important points.

FAQs attempt to reduce Usenet traffic by answering the quick questions right
away.  They also provoke meaningful discussion, better ways of answering the
questions, and new intelligent questions, maximizing the "signal to noise
ratio" in the groups.  FAQs don't do the job by themselves though.  You need
to read them.  

If you have Win95 question not in the FAQ, please post it.  If you have a
correction or other piece of advice not in the FAQ, please post it.  If you
have an announcement of value to Win95 users, please check first to see if
anyone else made the annoucement already, then post it.  Use common sense.
This kind of discussion adds to the value of Usenet.

Please don't post your Win95 question to all of these groups at
once, because 1) if you're that desparate for an answer it's probably in
the main FAQ, and 2) no one appreciates out-of-context posts.  I don't 
need to see a question about networking in the utilities group, or a 
question about setup (on a stand-alone computer) in the networking group.
Think twice and re-read your article.

ADVERTISERS and MARKETERS: I'm sure you all know how everyone feels about
spamming; the practice of posting an advertisment on multiple newsgroups
or E-MAIL addresses at once.  Please keep your posts brief, and please post
them in the *.win95.misc and alt.windows95.* groups ONLY.  Advertising does
not add to the value of Usenet discussion, and more often than not, it takes
value away.

        3.1. Hint to Advertisers

Post an article asking people, "How do you like _____ product?" or some 
such article, rather than spamming an advertisment.  If your product really
IS good, you'll get a lot of praise in this thread and a lot of free 
advertising from grateful users.  Subtle difference compared to direct 
spamming, but infintely more pleasing to readers.  And good FAQ material.

This includes SHAREWARE AUTHORS; if your program is so good, submit it to
http://www.windows95.com/.  Please don't post UUencoded or MIME encoded 
binaries in ANY of these groups, post your ads ONLY in the *.win95.misc and
alt.windows95.* groups, and please, PLEASE, don't push your product in 
someone's face as an answer to a question, unless it's really appropriate 
to do so.  Chances are, if your program really does answer a common question,
I'll refer to it in the main FAQ.

And also, unless you want your name to live forever in Rolf's MMF Hall of
Humilliation (http://www.clark.net/pub/rolf/mmf/), do not post pyramid
chain letters, MLM schemes, or anything to comitt mail fraud to any *.win95
group.  Your chain letter will find its way to your nearest postal
inspector and to Rolf. Post them in alt.business.multi-level.scam.scam.scam

Spam cancellers abound in the *.win95 groups.  Don't waste your time.

4.  Tell me about the *.win95 Usenet groups.

The *.win95 groups came out when MS went into Beta 2 testing.  I forgot
when that was, sorry.  At the time there were only *.win95.misc and .setup.
The powers that be since created several groups, around late October, to
split off the massive 1000 posts per day .misc group.  I'm sorry to say
that it didn't work. :) But, at least, the discussions grew a lot more
meaningful in the new groups.

The opinions here are my own.  I lost the original voting post regarding
these groups, so the suggestions I make here are only based on what I see
in the groups themselves.

        4.1.  comp.os.ms-windows.win95.misc

Pretty much general discussion.  Lots of noise, lots of rumors, lots of
ads.  Fun to hang around in but very lacking in answers.  Another pair of
fun groups are alt.windows95 and alt.windows95.crash.crash.crash.

        4.2.  comp.os.ms-windows.apps.compatibility.win95

Regarding program compatibility.  If you can't get a DOS game working, or
if a Win 3.1 app keeps crashing, you might find the answer here.  If the
answer isn't here or in the main FAQ, I suggest visiting
http://www.microsoft.com/kb/ before posting here.  That's the MS Knowledge
Base.  The app publishers themselves might have answers too.  This is a
better group for discussing Internet apps than the networking group, which
covers the clients, transports, etc instead of the apps, but there seems to
be no restriction.

This group's very quiet compared to the others.

        4.3.  comp.os.ms-windows.apps.utilities.win95

Nice add-ons, like Peter Norton's classic utilities, get lots of press
here.  Don't confuse this with the compatibility group.  This group is a
good discussion group for Win95's built in utilities as well as third party
programs.

        4.4.  comp.os.ms-windows.networking.win95

Anything where your Win95 machine talks to other machines gets discussed
here.  This one's a little more lively, and it's the best FAQ'ed group of
the bunch.  Many people post about Internet applications in this
group, but applications postings really belong in the apps.compatibility or
apps.utilities group.  This group is for Win95's networking BELOW the
application level (clients, transport protocols, net cards, etc).

        4.5.  comp.os.ms-windows.setup.win95

Win95 Setup crashed?  How to make a shared installation?  What happens if I
install with the CD-ROM but I only have the floppies now?  Answered here.
The original *.win95.setup group still exists, but this one gets a little
more reasonable than that one.  You're better off discussing network
installations of Win95 here, rather than in the networking group, unless
you have a specific problem caused by the networking rather than the setup.
TAPI's probably a good topic in this group instead of the others.  Making PC
Hardware work in Win95 is also a good topic for here, but you can find
better PC hardware answers in comp.sys.ibm-pc.hardware.

        4.6.  comp.os.ms-windows.win95.moderated

Several other fed-up admins decided to propose and maintain a
robo-moderated group to keep all the spam out of Win95 discussions.  At
current, this group shows a high level of discussion, but it isn't
separated into individual topics.  When you post a question to this group
it's sent to the robo-moderator, which checks for base violations
(cross-posting, size, header violations, etc) and is forwarded to human
moderators for final appoval.  After several approved postings, your e-mail
address is added to an auto-approval list (optionally protected with PGP if
you choose).  There is also an auto-rejection list for those who repeatedly
violate the base rules, or abuse their auto-approval status.  You can get
all the full details (and charter) by visting the group; they post it very
frequently and you can find it quickly because of the lack of spam.

----------------------------------------------------------------

5.  Tell me about the microsoft.* groups.

Microsoft has their very own NNTP server where they maintain these groups.
The only way you can reach them is by changing your news preferences to use
the server msnews.microsoft.com, or use this URL in your web browser:
news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.* to get a listing.

(It is my imagination or has this news server disapeared off the face of
the 'net?)

The MS news server does not participate in Usenet, so articles posted to
these groups do not spread to other news servers.  If articles from these
groups, or if the groups themselves appear on your news server, most likely
they came from a gateway that echos messages from Microsoft's server, or
possibly from MSN(tm).  My ISP doesn't carry the microsoft.* groups, and no
other ISP I know of in Vancouver carries the microsoft.* groups either.

----------------------------------------------------------------

6.  Tell me about the main FAQ...

It's made of text files, written in HTML using Internet Assistant for
MS-Word, has a few pretty graphics, and it comes in three flavors: HTML,
news.answers postings, and Windows .HLP format.

        6.1.  Administrivia

Basic legal stuff, disclaimers, credits, and your name in lights if you can
contribute.  I don't sell ads so don't bother asking me.

        6.2.  Installation, Re-Installation, Un-Installation

How to put Win95 on a box and yank it back off again.  Most of the
discussion in *.setup.win95 made up this page.

        6.3.  Usage

How to cope with the Start Menu, and like stuff.  Faster ways of doing
things.  How to see hidden files, copy files with long filenames, how to
run apps, etc...

        6.4.  Hardware

How to make your hardware work WITHOUT using DOS drivers.  I have a very
strict opinion that hardware in Win95 does not need DOS TSRs or device
drivers in config.sys to work.  By using these techniques you will allow
Win95 to perform like MS designed it.

        6.5.  Modems and TAPI

TAPI promises to simplify using modems.  It does, if used correctly.  Don't
forget to specify area codes in phone numbers, even if they're local, so it
knows how to dial the number.  You can even make your calling card work
with it and save yourself money for those long distance calls.  And the
coolest feature:  If a program is waiting to answer the phone, another
program can jump in and use the modem, without shutting down the answering
program!  Read about it here.

        6.6.  Novell NetWare (tm) Networking

Ahh... a favorite for discussion.  I listen in on the NetWare groups (the
comp.os.netware.* groups) for insights into this page.  Here I'll tell you
how to make your server Win95 ready, the best way to set up the client
machines, and most important of all, how to use Win95 on a NetWare network
without crashing the server!

NOTE: I plan on including Novell's Client32 into this page, but I have a
strong opinion against it.  I also don't have a lot of time anymore.  Maybe
some Client32 admins out there can contribute to a FAQ page 6.5 devoted to
Client32.

        6.7.  Networking (Not including NetWare)

I cover Internet stuff briefly here, but this section mainly covers
client/server stuff, peer to peer stuff, how to use your favorite NOS with
Win95, and how to make apps behave on Win95 networks.

        6.8.  Dial-up Networking and The Internet

No one likes Win95's built in dial-up networking.  Why?  It works great for
about 99% of UNIX and NT dial-up servers when used correctly.  So what if
MS replaces winsock.dll... it's a standard OS component.  I cover how to
make it work with your ISP, and cover some stupid DUN tricks that can save
you money and improve connectivity, even if you aren't on the Internet.

        6.9.  Maintanence and Annoyances

A lot of this comes from the Win95 Annoyances page at
http://www.creativelement.com/win95ann/ but I show you safer ways of fixing
them or working around them.  I also have stuff here not found in any other
FAQ.

        6.10. Windows Messaging, AKA: MS Exchange

Like DUN and TAPI, how come no one likes Exchange?  Take the advice here
and make it work better, and you might actually like it.  This Windows
Messaging front end lets you connect to many different kinds of mail
services with the same interface.

        6.11. Disk Compression and You

Crazy enough to try it?  Here's some serious advice on making it work
faster and safer.

        6.12. Running MS-DOS Games

I know, you can't live without DOOM... or Descent... or whatever.  Here's
how to make it run without resorting to boot disks, multi-boot, or third
party memory managers.

        6.13. Microsoft Plus! Add-on, and other MS add-ons

So what's about these cool toys?  Read about them before you break your
computer with them.

        6.14. Miscelaneous

Anything left over.

I also maintain other pages on the site.  These are the *really* subjective
pages, with lots of opinionated garbage and a lot of dirt on some of the
more "popular" products.  The most popular one (meaning it actually gets
visited!) is the Logo Lamers page, where I lay waste to placebo-ware such
as Cybermedia's First Aid, and have fun with companies that use the
Designed for Win95 logo without earning it.

----------------------------------------------------------------

7.  Where else can I find good information?

You can start by reading the FAQ and checking the places I link to.  These
places include the MS Knowledge Base, Win95NetBugs, Annoyances, Ben
Goetter's Exchange FAQ, and others.  Eventually I'll link to a bunch of
other useful Win95 sites from my site, but for now these important ones I
link to from the Administrivia page.

A search on your favorite search engine will turn up a lot of useful stuff
too, and a lot of anti-MS stuff in case you're into MS abuse.  Try visiting
http://www.microcult.com/ one day.

The books are there in your bookstore too, but aside from _Windows 95 for
Dummies_ I can't recommend any of them.  The Resource Kit is OK I suppose,
but check back with the MS Knowledge Base for corrections.  

Finally, after you went through the FAQs, go ahead and ask a question on
the above groups.  Intelligent questions get lots of attention from me and
others, and often produce intelligent answers besides "RTFM".

----------------------------------------------------------------

8.  Why do you have the Amiga web site in your .signature?

I use one.  Besides, Gateway 2000 bought the rights to use Amiga
technology, so it's time to celebrate again (Oh no! Win95 for Amiga?  I
hope not)

I still use an Amiga, I'm still a fanatic, and because of this I keep the
checkmark logo in my signature file.  And it's too difficult to draw the
wavy Designed for Windows 95 logo in ASCII art. :p

----------------------------------------------------------------

9.  Who do you have anti-commercial junk in your .signature?

Anti-commercial?  Anti-death-of-the-net I would rather hope.

Like may other experienced net.users fed up with unsolicited e-mail and
Usenet abusers wasting bandwidth with spam, I'm taking an active approach
to keeping my 'net time enjoyable.  Besides the very accurate
spam.abuse.net site and the very funny (yet deadly serious) MMF Hall of
Humiliation, here are other sites that offer ways for you to keep out the
spam:

http://members.aol.com/macabrus/faqs.html (who maintains net-abuse links)
http://www.slipstick.com/exchange/ (Find the antispam plugin for Exchange)
http://www.junkbusters.com/ (Legal defense against spam)

And just to keep everything in perspective:

http://www.spam.com/ (Hormel's own site)
http://www.smalltime.com/nowhere/findthespam/ (The original and the best)

--
==============================================================================
= I am Gordon of Winterpeg. Junk mail is futile.          Post MakeMoneyFast =
= Find out why: http://spam.abuse.net/           Or eat pink meat from a can =
= World's best computer: http://www.amiga.de/          they're both the same =
= Win95 FAQ: http://www.orca.bc.ca/win95/ http://www.clark.net/pub/rolf/mmf/ =
==============================================================================
