How to Access Newsgroups

Newsgroups are one of the oldest means of communicating over the Internet. Like the name implies, newsgroups are groups of people who post messages to one another on a given topic. The topics can range from religion to celebrity gossip. In the early days of newsgroups, the messages were confined exclusively to text. Today, however, images and video files are shared over this network as well.

Things You'll Need

• Windows Vista
• Email address

Instructions

Prepare Your Account

1. Go into your computer's start menu and select "All Programs" and then "Windows Mail."

2. In the Windows Mail toolbar, select "Tools."

3. Select "Accounts" from the menu provided and "Newsgroup Account" from the options.

4. Type in a display name of your choice. Your display name is how other newsgroup users will identify you.

5. Type in your email address. If you are concerned about spam, you can create a new email address exclusively for the purpose of newsgroups.

6. Type "news.microsoft.com" into the empty text box underneath the words "news (NNTP) server" and click "Finish."

Download Newsgroups and Subscribe

1. Click "Show Available Newsgroups" and wait for the newsgroups to download.

2. Select the newsgroups that you are interested in by highlighting them and clicking subscribe.

3. View the list of selected newsgroups and locate the "Synchronization Settings" column.

4. Check the empty blue box that accompanies each subscribed newsgroup.

5. Right-click on each subscribed newsgroup and select "Synchronization Settings."

6. Select "headers only" from the menu that then pops up.

7. Click on "Tools" in the taskbar and select "Synchronize Account."

8. Wait for synchronization to occur and begin reading messages from selected newsgroups.