Vista - Organizing newsgroups in left pane and importing settings from Windows Mail

I only use Windows Mail to handle my MS newsgroups (it does an excellent job
of this). I have now subscribed to 10 newsgroups, and am finding it harder
to find the few I usually go to, compared to the ones that I only go to once
or twice, whenever I have a rare question.

What I would like to be able to do in Live Mail is one of two things--either
to manually
change the order in which the variuos newsgroups appear (in the left pane--I
see "Local
Folders" and "Microsoft Communities" as the two major sections), or to put
all the messages from all the newgroups in one big "pile" in the right pane,
with my watched messages all on top.

My next issue is importing settings. I installed Live Mail recently, as I
was told it could do one of these above things, but the only thing I was
told re: Windows Mail was to shut it down. There was no offer to import
settings. I'd rather not have to insert rules and set up accounts,
signature, etc. just for this. Is there any way I can import my Windows Mail
settings? I did try to do this--I went to my MS newsgroups and selected
export. I created an .iaf file on my desktop (of my Windows Mail settings),
but I don't think anything was actually in this file, as after exporting it
to Live Mail I couldn't see any information about subscriptions or anything
I had entered in Windows Mail.

--
Paul
Vista Home Basic
Office 2007

Hi, Paul.

I'm confused. :^{

First, it's not clear to me just which application you are asking about,
since Windows Mail and Windows Live Mail are kind of tangled up in your
post. You used WM to post in this WLM newsgroup - which IS allowed, but
adds to my confusion. I haven't used WM in a couple of years and don't
expect ever to use it again.
In my Windows Live Mail, that's NOT what I see.

In WLM, I have a row of 5 icons at the bottom of the left (Folders) pane.
The icon on the left is for Mail; the one on the right is for News. My
screen layout changes, depending on which of these icons I click - but
neither looks like what you describe. Neither view lists either "Local
Folders" or "Microsoft Communities". Oh, wait; in News, I changed Microsoft
Communities to Microsoft Public Newsgroups, so that much is explained. But
I still don't see "Local Folders" in either the Mail or News layout. I do
have Quick views, and have that set to show "Unread e-mail" in both views,
plus "All sent items" in Mail and "All news" in News. In the Mail layout, I
see my 3 Mail Accounts (with folders in each for Inbox, Drafts, etc.), plus
Outbox and Storage Folders, with many folders and subfolders that I've
created under that.

On the Microsoft public news server, I have subscribed to about a dozen
newsgroups. (I also have several other news servers, each with several
subscribed newsgroups.) These are listed alphabetically, but it's kind of
hard to recognize that since they all start with
"microsoft.public.windows..." (WLM 14 truncates long names on the left so
that the distinctive part of the names is visible; some earlier versions did
not do this.) It's no problem at all to click on any one newsgroup, so I
don't understand why you are...
Your statement sounds like you may be trying to navigate the web-based
interface by using Internet Explorer or another browser, rather than WLM or
WM or another newsreader. I cannot stand that web UI, so I haven't used it
enough to give any useful advice about it. Are you SURE you are using
Windows Live Mail when you are having trouble finding your favorite
newsgroups?

Why don't you access this newsgroup using Windows Live Mail and see if you
still have the same problems and questions? You haven't said if you are
using WinXP or Vista (or some other operating system), so I'm not sure how
to set your default newsreader. But, once you've set that to WLM, then just
click here:
news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsof...e.mail.desktop

That one click should fire up your default newsreader and bring you right
back here to this newsgroup. Then please tell us what you see.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
rc@xxxxxx
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8064.0206) in Win7 Ultimate x64

"Paul" <nospam@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:#GGY3$bGKHA.1340@xxxxxx

I put in a lot in that first post. My fault. Let's make it simple.

How do I import settings (newsgroup only, forget email) from WM to WLM?

I've already tried doing this but the iaf file I created and then imported
into WLM copied over nothing of any of the newsgroups that I have subscribed
to, in Windows Mail.

Once I get the settings transferred, I'll come back to this group in WLM and
then we can take a look at my views and how I can arrange the newsgroups....

--
Paul
Vista Home Basic
Office 2007
"R. C. White" <rc@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:uZMxDEdGKHA.4168@xxxxxx

You can't import your subscriptions. All that the .iaf file contains
is the settings for the server, and for msnews that isn't much since
you don't have to log on to use it. Once the account is there,
download the list of NGs and subscribe to the ones you want. It
sounds like you need different synchronization settings for your
'daily' groups and your 'weekly' ones; there are others here far
more knowledgeable than I about all that, and I'm sure they'll be
along soon with all sorts of good advice.
--
Noel

"Paul" <nospam@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:#lpMoLdGKHA.1492@xxxxxx

On Mon, 10 Aug 2009 08:54:34 -0700, Paul wrote:
If the .iaf file didn't work, then all you can do is manually configure the
news servers. Not really hard to do. But, if you are trying to keep your
list of read, and watched articles, I don't think that would have worked,
even with the .iaf file.

Rules are kept in the registry. I don't know where to look for them in
Windows Vista; i.e., which keys, or where to find them, for the WLMail
rules.
Views are not able to organize newsgroups at the granular level you require.
Newsgroups are organized alphabetically, within the server group. I.e.,
first listed by server group (I have):

Gibson Research
Microsoft Communities
Eternal September

This list can be re-ordered, and the re-order will stick. I just changed my
list to:

Gibson Research
Eternal September
Microsoft Communities

The initial order is based on when the server was added.

Within the server group, the groups are listed by name, alphabetically, and
can't be re-ordered. Like many such features, lacking in the free MSFT
clients (MS Outlook Express, Windows Mail, and Windows Live Mail), you can
find those missing features in third party clients (many of which are free).

--
Norman
~Oh Lord, why have you come
~To Konnyu, with the Lion and the Drum

Hi, Norman.

I can help on this point:
In Win7, the entire WLM key is at:
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows Live Mail

Within that key is:
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows Live Mail\Rules

With sub-keys Mail and News.

I THINK the location is the same in Vista, but I haven't booted into Vista
for a few days (since Win7 RTM is here). I'll have a look next time to
confirm that the location is the same in Vista. Note that, since Windows
Mail is "built in" to Vista, not added on as a part of Windows Live, its
Registry Key is in HKLM, rather than HKCU, as I recall. There is an entry
in the Win7 Registry at HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Mail, but I think it
is a "vestigial appendix".

After clean installing Win7 RTM last week, I used RegEdit to Export the
entire WLM tree from Win7 RC (NOTE: Not from Vista - but that MIGHT work,
too) and then Import it into Win7 RTM. That worked fine for MOST of the
transition. For example, since my WLMail Message Store is on a "neutral"
volume (Drive H that was not the boot volume for any OS, and the Store
Root key (holding that address) was included in my export/import, I could
continue using that Store - with all my email database intact. But while
MOST things worked, including Mail Rules, I still had to re-input all my
passwords before I could access each Account (and I had trouble remembering
some of them). And I'm having to recreate my Sigs...but that's for another
thread.

Export/Import of the .iaf files was, as noted here, only partially useful.
I had to re-enter my passwords, as noted above. From previous experience, I
know that I would have had to re-subscribe to newsgroups, re-download their
messages, and re-read all those previously marked Read - IF I had not been
able to simply Import the Store Folder setting in the Registry. That
information is not kept in the .iaf file.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
rc@xxxxxx
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8064.0206) in Win7 Ultimate x64

"N. Miller" <anonymous@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:15zc23vd7xv0n.dlg@xxxxxx

OK thanks to all who replied here. If this is the case I see no need to use
Live Mail.

--
Paul
Vista Home Basic
Office 2007
"N. Miller" <anonymous@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:15zc23vd7xv0n.dlg@xxxxxx

What I have realized (which helps me out with organizing which groups I'm
using/getting replies to) is that when I have an update to a thread I'm
watching, the group itself in the left pane turns red as well (I have my
watched messages tagged as important, which turns them read). This makes it
very convenient for me to see which groups I need to reply to. This is
perfect--I don't even have to think about which group is which--I just look
for the red groups.

--
Paul
Dell Inspiron 1501
Vista Home Basic
Office 2007

"Paul" <nospam@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:#GGY3$bGKHA.1340@xxxxxx

Being watched and unread causes the red newsgroup.
Being tagged as important makes no difference.
--
Ron Sommer
MVP-Mail

"Paul" <nospam@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:6AF3CABD-E496-4461-A867-91D283AA2314@xxxxxx