Excel Newsgroups & Searching Newsgroups

Search Newsgroups using Google "Usenet Advanced Search", look at the MS Knowledge Database, other tips.
Location:  http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/xlnews.htm
Prepared by David McRitchie

Ever lose track of a newsgroup item?

Some frequent questions posted on Newsgroups that could just as easily have been answered by looking in the archived newsgroup postings using the Google "Usenet Advanced Search".  In fact to someone who uses Google these questions look rather out of place in a newsgroup. 
Newsgroup Searches
Google
"Usenet Advanced Search"		 Google Usenet Advanced Search (coverage extends back to May 12, 1981.  When Google took over Deja it took a while to get back to Mar 29, 1995 and had almost given up hope.  Google has taken over the D.e.j.a .. N.e.w.s  archives.  Google does not support Boolean searches, and does not provide wildcard asterisk except at the end of newsgroups to search, but it now supports the old D.e.j.a article identifications that you will find in many older articles. 

Still missing is an option to show all header information which is particularly important for precise identifications including the Message-Id which is the universal and unique reference for newsgroup articles. 

It is possible but a bit convoluted to find the message-id within the URL for instance when you click on View Thread (3 articles) to find the message-id hidden in the URL and found after "&seekm=" and before "#p" depending how used you will probably have to convert the "%40" back to "@" etc.

Other Google features include [portal features]
[Refine your Google Usenet search, reads as if for web pages not for newsgroups] 

Google All About Google
 Advanced Groups Search
This table is a deactivated Example for the narrative describing
Google "Usenet Advanced Search"

Find messages
with all of the words  
with the exact phrase
with any of the words
without the words
Newsgroup Return only messages from the newsgroup
microsoft.public.excel.*
(e.g. rec.games.misc, comp.os.*, *linux*)
Subject Return only messages where the subject contains
Author Return only messages where the author is
Use your own userid here to find you own postings.
Message ID Find the message with message ID
as found in the headers
(e.g. moderated-ng-faq-1-983174581@swcp.com)
Language Return messages written in
Message Dates Return messages posted
  Return messages posted between and
  Ending date will default to the current date

©2001 Google

A text summary for pasting into a Newsgroup posting

Google Advanced Groups Search -- http://groups.google.com/advanced_group_search
Find messages with all of the words:  __
with the exact phrase:  __
with any of the words:  __
without the words:  __
Newsgroup:  *excel*
Subject:  __
Author:  __ (if appropriate your own email address)
Message ID:  __

When looking at your results be sure to look also at:

  • Previous Article
  • Next Article
  • Current Results
  • Thread
  • Author

    When using a search engine you should learn all the features generally referred to as Advanced Search or Power search options permitting use of AND, OR, NEAR, and parentheses.  Unfortunately Google does not provide a Boolean search.

    There is about a twelve hour delay for postings to make it into Google so it does not provide a useful means to relocate your own postings in the same day.

    Please bear with me I am changing this page over from what formerly referred to Deja to refer t Google.
    //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
    Google has taken over Deja archives, so much of this page is being changed.   Google has promised to provide search capability at least equal to what we had in Deja, which remains to be seen.

    Google has placed the important Message-Id on the search page, and is now providing access to the original posting.  When Google first took over you could not see the message-id in the listing provided by a search.

    msg-id search has been improved with these archives and is the only real way to identify specific postings I will give a brief example here:

    Dialer code for Excel, John Walkenbach, 2000-12-22, (phone, telephone)
        news:OYXnCHEbAHA.996@tkmsftngp03
        http://msnews.microsoft.com/OYXnCHEbAHA.996@tkmsftngp03

        Changeover from Deja to Google is possible if message-id was retained/used.
        The news:message-id will obtain posting from the server, IF and ONLY IF, it is still available.
        Another way to reference an article still on the Microsoft newsservers is
          news://msnews.microsoft.com/message-id

    The first of the following has been stripped the most for a smaller link (the others also work)
        http://groups.google.com/groups?as_umsgid=OYXnCHEbAHA.996@tkmsftngp03
        http://groups.google.com/groups?as_umsgid=%3COYXnCHEbAHA.996@tkmsftngp03%3E
        http://groups.google.com/groups?oi=djq&as_umsgid=%3COYXnCHEbAHA.996%40tkmsftngp03%3E

    Which brings up an interesting question about what is legal in a URL -- just about anything.  These links were posted by Tom Ogilvy, misc, 2001-03-22.  http://www.w3.org/Addressing/Addressing.html   http://www.w3.org/Addressing/URL/Overview.html   Also interesting how to obscure URL names:  http://www.pc-help.org/obscure.htm

     
    Suppose someone posts a long URL in a newsgroup pointing to archives at Google that appears as follows:
    [ also see discussion 2001-03-15 umsgid=eza79yWrAHA.2160@tkmsftngp02 ]

    http://groups.google.com/groups?q=spline+group:microsoft.public.excel.*&hl=en&lr
    =&safe=off&as_scoring=relevance&as_drrb=quick&as_qdr=&as_mind=15&as_minm=8&as_mi
    ny=2000&as_maxd=15&as_maxm=3&as_maxy=2001&rnum=1&seld=964837763&ic=1

    You cannot use it as it is shown, you would have to paste each line onto the end of your entry line of your browser.  That is tedious.  Better to open up Notepad and paste the whole thing there then remove the hidden new line characters at the end of each line.  Paste the cleaned up URL into your web browser.  [test here]

    For the poster there is not much that you can do to cut it down, so I won't go into that.  If you do know the message-id you could post the url as
      http://groups.google.com/groups?as_umsgid=3A11AD33.B1438202%40rochester.rr.com
    But you cannot get that information from Google.  If you still have the message in your newsbrowser you will have to look at the headers fot find that information.  As you work more with this you discover you can get directly to the entire thread by substituting &as_umsgid= with &threadm= here is an example along those lines for a different thread.
      http://groups.google.com/groups?&threadm=slrn9qe83t.pvl.t-use%40ID-685.user.dfncis.de

    It would be so much nicer if you could post something like this (won't work, was my suggestion to Google)
          http://newsid.google.com/OYXnCHEbAHA.996@tkmsftngp03

    Please do not add punctuation at the end of a URL when posting.  

    If you try to find a message in Outlook Express don't forget to change the view after search, because you may have something and not know it.

    Relevant Usenet Messages for msgid:3A11AD33.B1438202@rochester.rr.com

    //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

    Posting a bookmark from Google

    Indicating a bookmark to a specific article  in Google is much better than burdening archives by creating another response with the same answer.   There is a method to create a bookmark though, you do not want to bookmark the search that could change in one hour.  Use the bookmark facilities that DejaNews introduced and then carefully hides and rearranges for confusion.   Anyway select the "more options"  then  select the "bookmark option"  the resulting bookmark is specific to a document not  to a search response.

           http://groups.google.com/groups?oi=djq&ic=1&selm=an_397959796

    oooo see reference with message-id above oooo

    //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

    What Happened to Deja Archives

    Bottom line is Google took over the archives.

    Before Deja suddenly disappeared on Feb 12, 2001 lots of strange things had happened.  A move of servers in 1999 dumped all but the last three days and they slowly recovered back to about March of 1999 by the time it was announced that Deja was no more and had been taken over by Google.  Eventually Google restored archives back to March 29, 1995 which is where they currently stand.  Deja had promised at least seven years previous to that to essentially pick up every newsgroup posting that was ever posted.

    Lack of information is not uncommon.  When stock quotes are not available Intuit will not tell you on their site, nor will those responsible for the feeds.  When MS newsgroups are down, Microsoft will not tell you about problems on their site.  When computer viruses take down sites, you may hear about it from other news sources but never from the affected sites.  What we consider a lack of integrity in keeping you informed, they consider it poor business sense to keep you informed.  Possibly because they could be tracked on uptime/downtime or reliability.

    Some newsgroups of possible interest to Excel users

    Please read articles on posting to Excel Newsgroups.

    Lists of newsgroups on Microsoft servers can be found at http://support.microsoft.com/support/news/default.asp?FR=0
    Go through Office products to get to the Excel for Windows Newsgroups.

    To connect to the Micrososoft public servers shown below use this link, which will allow you to subscribe to these groups:
      news://msnews.microsoft.com)

    The Big Three Excel Newsgroups

    • news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.excel.misc
      Is for General topics, like when you don't know where to post. aren't familiar with specifics, used by new posters and old posters alike.  This is the group to start with.  People who only want to post a single question for charts for instance and don't want to hang out there, might post here instead.  In areas other than Excel this group might be called "General" but in Excel it is "misc" for miscellaneous.  The next group you would probably be interested in would be:
    • news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.excel.worksheet.functions
      which deals with Worksheet Functions which are the builtin functions and the MS provided addins which add more functions.  You may see a group worksheetfunctions it is long defunct and not on the MS servers but you might see people posting to it, those connected to the MS servers would never see it.  And the third major group is:
    • news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.excel.programming
      which is where one looks for programming (VBA coded) solutions.  About the only requirement is that unless you say otherwise, it will be assumed you want or think you need a programming solution and have installed and used at least one macro -- you may receive macro solutions in the other groups but in the other groups it may be assumed you have never used a macro.  A couple of pages of mine that would, hopefully, bridge that gap with installing a macro.
       

    Additional Lists and Alphabetized Archives

    • MS Excel General Q & A List (http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/excel-g.html).
      EXCEL-G is a list where the general or casual user of EXCEL can get help for more everyday questions.
    • Microsoft Excel Developers List (http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/excel-l.html)
      The Excel Developers List serves as a forum for people who are doing, or want to do, sophisticated things with Microsoft Excel.

    Related Lists (Microsoft Office)

    • Office misc    (news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.office.misc)
    • Office    (news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.office.setup)

    Test Posting

    It is rather annoying that people send posts to a newsgroup to find out if they are connected or not.  Seems to me that simply posting a question or replying to someone else's would do the trick. 

    Anyway there are some newsgroups specifically for placing test postings, and testing replies to your test postings.

    When testing to the test newsgroup, you want to make sure you are not posting in MIME (/HTML) and that your formulas appear correctly make sure you include some equal signs (=) and less than (<) and greater than (>) signs in your testing.

    Posting Directly to the Microsoft Newsgroups

    Posting directly to the Microsoft newsgroup servers results in the quickest connection and turnaround.

    If you have posted a question or a response look at the path in your headers.  Each exclamation mark (!) represents passing off to another server.  Reduction to a single exclamation point is the goal.  See if you can directly access with:
        news://msnews.microsoft.com and then subscribe to microsoft.public.excel.misc

    Connecting directly to Microsoft servers is not possible for everyone.  Many people on AOL or behind firewalls cannot connect directly. 

    For those using MS Outlook Express, or Netscape there should be no problem.  You can post and check your headers by posting to a test newsgroup.

    Setting Up to read Newsgroups in Outlook Express, How to connect to the Microsoft Newsservers, then continue Setting up Message Rules (filters) to help find your own postings, block postings, or making your own postings set on the watched indicator so you can quickly identify replies or related information to your own postings and replies.

    Microsoft Technical Support -- Knowledge Base

    Access Microsoft's Knowledge Base, Troubleshooting Wizards, and downloadable files

    You can often pick up both general information and specific information in the MS KB (Microsoft Knowledge Data Base).  It may be necessary to register first in which case try starting at http://support.microsoft.com/support/

    http://support.microsoft.com/support/search/c.asp?SPR=

    Fill in the product, type of search and question, as follows:
      1) Excel for Windows
      2) Keyword
      3) conversion and (1-2-3 or lotus)
      Full Text
      Titles with excerpts

    If you have a specific id to look up use something like:
      2) specific id
      3) Q61941

    If you have a problem with the link above in your browser (fails more than twice in a row), I have additional links to the MS KB on my INDEX page look for MS KB.

    OLDER INFORMATION relating to the MS KB follows:

    Access Microsoft's Knowledge Base, Troubleshooting Wizards, and downloadable files

    Microsoft Technical Support--Support Options (http://support.microsoft.com/support/a.asp?M=S)

    Example:
    1. Search for is about:  Excel for Windows
    2. I want to search for:  excel and XL95 and toolbars

    For non MS browsers

    I am using 16-bit browsers both AOL 4.0 and Netscape 3.0 (sometimes Netscape® Communicator 4.06 ) because I am also using Win NT 4.0, AOL dial-up requires access at Windows 3.1 (16-bit), and for the past 3-6 months the above link no longer works for me, though it works for others typically on Win98.  Note the .asp extension indicates Java.  MS Java is not particularly compatible, but the following link will allow one to search the MS KB and some other areas, even if the links on the page do not function.

    http://support.microsoft.com/support/

    Now suddenly links are working (if typical 5 minutes or reload, reload, reload is considered working) Jul 1, 1999, after not functioning for several months.  I installed Office 2000 and IE5 -- the regular 32-bit stuff.  Remember my browsers are 16-bit, anyway it appears to work much better.  I guess intallation of Office 2000 "fixed" the problem because I can now also access to a site which told me yesterday that I did not have Java, not true, but more informative than just having everything as dead and missing pages at microsoft.com.  Anyway the MS pages with time-consuming Java probably make the right-side brain people, and marketing types happy.

    The Netscape® Communicator 4.06 now also appears to stay up at MS and similar sites.

    Update - it was MS site changes that relieved problems not IE5
    Unable to open http://support.microsoft.com/support/a.asp?M=S. The site reports that the item you requested could not be found.

    Try one of these, it may be slower but it does get through, for now.
       http://search.microsoft.com/us/default.asp
       http://search.support.microsoft.com/kb/c.asp?FR=0&SD=GN&LN=EN-US

    The following may hold a key to problems experienced or helpful hints at getting to support pages.  Somewhere along the line the date July 1 came up for recent changes, before which I had a lot more problems for the last several months trying to do a search.
       http://support.microsoft.com/support/default.asp?FR=0&DU=A
       http://support.microsoft.com/support/ (use SEARCH item)

    Quoted material from site:

    Personal Support Center Is Now Personal Online Support
    On July 1, the Personal Support Center became Personal Online Support.  The site has its same look and feel, same Quick Links, and same Related Services & Resources. We are continuing to tailor the site for our home customers, customers who use Microsoft consumer and home productivity products at home, at work, or in school.

    Additional Resources

    A brief summary of Additional Resources can be found as a narrative on Chip Pearson's pages.  Many of the items mentioned there have already been mentioned on this page or on my main page in greater detail.

    Related Information

    I have a Search page that sets out several search sites and places to obtain information.  My favorite web search engine is still AltaVista, but Google web search is also very good, you will find them both there and references to the MS KB, phone directories, airplane arrivals/departures etc.  You might want to bookmark this page.  Also have a page on Web Search perhaps a little date now that Google web search is so popular.

    Some information on using Outlook Express 5.0.  Setting up Message Rules (filters) to help find your own postings, block postings, or making your own postings set on the watched indicator so you can quickly identify replies or related information to your own postings and replies.  Also check this page if you are having problems not seeing any new postings in the Microsoft newsgroups, you will probably need to RESET that newsgroup.

    Hints for New Posters, on Chip Pearson's site, is a general introduction to what is considered proper net ettiquette in the Excel groups.  If interested in more detail as an introduction see my page on Posting to Newsgroups.

    You are one of many distinguished visitors who have visited my site here or in a previous location  since opening on January 1, 1998. 
    (Extensive revison June 4, 2001 for transition from Deja to Google).
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    Visit my Excel home page, or my Excel Site Index.    [Site Search -- Excel] 

     Please send your comments concerning this web page to: David McRitchie mailto:DMcRitchie@msn.com.