Why does Vista require Forums?

[P. Jayant]

It would be easier for users of Vista to refer to discussions on specific topics if all the Forums are listed as Microdsoft Newsgroups. Taking into account the fact that there are already some Newsgroups for Vista, it becomes a duplicate effort to collate all the comments on a given Vista topic from the Forums and the newsgroups.

The Forums also make life miserable by giving the time of posting a message as "so many hours or days or weeks in history". The Newsgroup method of giving the exact date and time when the message was posted makes it easy to search for a message. I also find that the Search function works far more efficiently in Newsgroups as compared with the Forums. The forum search draws a blank most of the times, whereas Newsgroup Search is successful most of the times.
So why not add all the forums to the Newsgroups with the standard prefix of microsoft.vista?
Besides, Outlook Express is far better organized for viewing discussions as conversations than the Forum organization.

P. Jayant

[Dzomlija]

  Quote: Originally Posted by P. Jayant

It would be easier for users of Vista to refer to discussions on specific topics if all the Forums are listed as Microdsoft Newsgroups. Taking into account the fact that there are already some Newsgroups for Vista, it becomes a duplicate effort to collate all the comments on a given Vista topic from the Forums and the newsgroups.

The Forums also make life miserable by giving the time of posting a message as "so many hours or days or weeks in history". The Newsgroup method of giving the exact date and time when the message was posted makes it easy to search for a message. I also find that the Search function works far more efficiently in Newsgroups as compared with the Forums. The forum search draws a blank most of the times, whereas Newsgroup Search is successful most of the times.
So why not add all the forums to the Newsgroups with the standard prefix of microsoft.vista?
Besides, Outlook Express is far better organized for viewing discussions as conversations than the Forum organization.

P. Jayant

"Joining" the Vista Newsgroups and Forums would be a pointless endeavour, as the sheer number of re-directs required would almost certainly destroy the entire concept. And besides, many people people use the terms Newsgroup and Forum interchangeably, and the reason why its difficult to search for anything in either, is because both are peer-to-peer systems, with no real control over what gets posted. As is often the case, you need to wade through 100's of posts that are totally off topic to simply get to the one you want.

This sadly holds true for just about all Newsgroups and Forums out there.

[twoteles]

As a newcomer here, let me just say that I prefer the 'personal' touch that you often get with forums from people who, perhaps, have similar issues to discuss with their silly little 'niggles' you can often get with Vista.

Just a personal opinion - but I have had issues solved in places like this whereas I have spent hours, without success, in Newsgroups.

[Dzomlija]

  Quote: Originally Posted by twoteles

As a newcomer here, let me just say that I prefer the 'personal' touch that you often get with forums from people who, perhaps, have similar issues to discuss with their silly little 'niggles' you can often get with Vista.

Just a personal opinion - but I have had issues solved in places like this whereas I have spent hours, without success, in Newsgroups.

I must agree with you there. Signing on as a member of a Forum is better, as many of the posts by the trolls are subjected to moderation and killfiles, thus limiting the amount of rubbish one needs to wade through.

This is exactly why I originally signed on as a member at Vistax64.com - I posted a question, and I got positive feedback within minutes.

You really should also have a look at the Tutorials section, maintained by Brink. There's some really good stuff there, and in some cases, enough information is provided so you won't need to post!

[P. Jayant]

I appreciate the need of those who use social networking web-sites for solving their problems: to use Vista forums for chatting on their Vista problems. And indeed, Forums would be ideal for those who want to discuss the cosmetic features of Vista: Hey! Helen, how do you get such a glossy pink with Aero?

But there are others who have used Windows 95, then 98, then 2000 and then XP over the last 15 years and have invested lot of money in the hardware and software which they use for a whole range of pursuits from graphics, video and multimedia applications to finance and stock-market trading or accountancy and consulting for bread and butter of their lives. They think of migrating to Vista only because they are concerned that suppliers of hardware and software for computers may phase out support to their old XP compatible products and put users of XP in jeopardy.

For them, the problems of concern are how to make the hardware and software which they have with XP, work under Vista. And the technical issues which these problems raise are not solved by chatting. They need thoughtful consideration of options and exchange of information from their own experience. This has best been achieved through Newsgroups of Microsoft for the last 15 years.

And so the ideal solution would have been to keep a Chatting Forum for those who are getting introduced to computers through Vista or those who have enough funds to scrap the XP computers and buy new ones which open the New World of Vista for them with just the call of Open Sesame!

For those who want to struggle and understand how to do their bread and butter applications even after changing over to Vista, Newsgroups would be more appropriate. So why not just transfer all technical discussions to the newsgroups and leave the glossy lip-stick chatty discussions to one single Forum?

P. Jayant

[cpemma]

Newsgroups are anonymous; you don't know how reliable information is - at least with a forum the post-count will tell you if your informant has been around a while. Forum Moderation also weeds out the chaff.

The other disadvantage of the MS newsgroups - you can't post images. A picture is worth a thousand words, at times.

If you're looking for information, search both. Google and Google Groups.

[AvatarOfTheShip]

Yes it's true that people sometimes wander somewhat off topic in forums, but this is just like life isn't it? Why, I remember when I was a boy, back in London, and, well, people were different then...