Path: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!newsfeed.internetmci.com!newsfeed.direct.ca!nntp.portal.ca!van-bc!n1van.istar!van.istar!west.istar!news
From: gordonf@intouch.bc.ca (Gordon Fecyk)
Newsgroups: comp.os.ms-windows.win95.misc,comp.os.ms-windows.apps.compatibility.win95,comp.os.ms-windows.apps.utilities.win95,comp.os.ms-windows.networking.win95,comp.os.ms-windows.setup.win95,comp.answers,news.answers
Subject: Introduction to comp.os.*.win95 groups and FAQ
Followup-To: comp.os.ms-windows.win95.misc
Date: 17 Mar 1997 07:55:19 GMT
Organization: Hopefully someone else besides iSTAR Internet
Lines: 453
Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.EDU
Message-ID: <5gitd7$d42@nr1.vancouver.istar.net>
NNTP-Posting-Host: ras3com1.reelwest.bc.ca
Summary: Please read this document and the FAQ before posting to any of the
         comp.os.*.win95 newsgroups.
Xref: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu comp.os.ms-windows.win95.misc:240920 comp.os.ms-windows.apps.compatibility.win95:12622 comp.os.ms-windows.apps.utilities.win95:37100 comp.os.ms-windows.networking.win95:29815 comp.os.ms-windows.setup.win95:44730 comp.answers:24927 news.answers:97356

Archive-name: windows/win95/faq/intro
Posting-frequency: Twice Monthly
Last-modified: 1997/03/16

================================================================
=         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 are you so pro-Microsoft?
9.  Why do you have an Amiga (tm) logo in your .signature?

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

Contents:

0.  New developments affecting the FAQ or the newsgroups

You noticed I had to re-post the FAQ... hopefully I haven't inconvenienced
too many readers or newsadmins.  I discovered several old copies in some of
the directories and figured it was time for a purge.  Thanks to Pam Greene
for cleaning out the old copies.

The 4.00.950B additions didn't seem to increase the FAQ size too much.  If
you find something new about 950B that isn't in the FAQ, please tell me
about it.

Translations are still happening... one reader offered a German one for
posting into the de.* groups... I wish you luck.  I lost track of the
translations but somewhere they exist in:

Finnish
Chinese (in the tw.* groups)
Sweedish
Portuguese

As soon as I find URLs for them they'll go on the FAQ home page with
matching flags.  I'd appreciate knowing about other popular mirrors that
I've missed, I want at least one in the U.K. and one in the U.S.A.
somewhere.  They have to be reliable mirrors; none of this year-old stuff.

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

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 in the last year, 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 recently
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.

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
(including all six 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

(Hint to advertisers: Post an article asking people, "How do you like _____
product?" or some such article.  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.

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

One of the original Win95 groups, this still gets about a thousand posts a
day.  I don't hang around this group but I'm very sure that many of the
questions here have answers in the main FAQ.  There's no need to post into
this group with questions, but it's a good group for general announcements,
Shareware annoucements, and commercial ads.  Advertisers can get a lot of
lively discussion about their products in this group and in the
alt.windows95.* groups.

        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.

        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.  Find technical answers to questions here in
http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~llurch/win95netbugs/faq.html even though
Rich doesn't maintain this site anymore.  Rich's FAQ also exists in the
Usenet archives.  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.

        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; it's very easy to
find 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.

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.

Based on MS's lack of respecting the spirit of Usenet, I do not recommend
these groups for meaningful discussion of Windows 95.

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

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 now, 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 (NEW)

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 (NEW)

Ahh... a favorite for discussion.  I've started monitoring 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.  Novell's bypassed much of the NDIS framework to
do its job, and this de-stabilizes the system while supposedly protecting
the server.  I'll cover both Novell's, and Microsoft's, bastardizing of the
facts, and provide real answers to your questions.  I also need real input
from real users.

        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, including my very own Logo Lamers Page.  Yes, the first
of its kind that actually slams other manufacturers besides Microsoft! 

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

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 Infoseek with the keyword "win95" will lead you to lots of
other places that bash Microsoft.  A search on Yahoo! however, will provide
more intelligent sites.

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 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 are you so pro-Microsoft?

Actually I wasn't asked this question, but it's bound to come up
eventually.

I don't like Microsoft as a company.  William H. Gates is a baby-eater, and
his executive staff are trained in Guerilla Marketing.  So, if any of you
think I work for MS, please dial 1-800-DIE-BILL and talk to someone who
cares.

On the other hand, I have great respect for their engineers.  They do not
deserve the treatment The Internet has given them.  They tried their
damnedest to bring modern software on to Intel based PCs without
sacrificing compatibility with ancient Lotus 1-2-3 1.0 designed for 8088s.
When you look at what they accomplished with technical scrutiny, you will
probably say, "Cool".  

I tend to bash third parties that try to hack their way around a framework
that these engineers designed to make development EASIER, not harder.  
I don't think that makes me pro-Microsoft just because I pick on everyone
else.  I also tend to trust MS's stuff for Win95 more so than some third
parties.  Examples of those I don't trust?  Visit my Logo Lamers page.

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

9.  Why do you have an Amiga (tm) logo in your .signature?

I use one.

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

--
============================================================// //========
= "I am Gordon of Winterpeg. Windows WAS futile."          // //        =
=  Find out why: http://www.orca.bc.ca/win95/             // //         =
=  Personal E-MAIL: gordonf@intouch.bc.ca           \\ \\// //          =
=  Home Phone:      +1-604-526-8724                  \\ XX //           =
======================================================\X/\X/=============
