The Mystery of the ISA 2004 Beta Newsgroups

I wrote to Jerry Bryant about putting some beta newsgroups for ISA 2004 on the msnews.microsoft.com Web site. Silly me, there were already ISA 2004 beta 2 newsgroups. The problem is that they're very effectively hidden from public view! This explains why the level of activity in the “public” newsgroups for ISA 2004 is so much less than what I saw during the ISA 2000 beta.

Anyhow, if you're interested in getting invovled with the public ISA 2004 Beta 2 newsgroups, here's the secret sauce:

Viewing these Newsgroups with an NNTP Newsreader

Since these are private newsgroups, your server will require you to logon using the following information:

• Server: privatenews.microsoft.com
• Account name: privatenews\ISA2004
• Password: BetaPassword
• Note that the password is case-sensitive.

Viewing these Newsgroups through Outlook Express

1. Launch Outlook Express
2. Select Tools - Accounts
3. Select Add & click News
4. Enter Your Name
5. Enter an alias (you may want to consider avoiding posting with your real e-mail alias, as these newsgroups are exposed publicly through the web interface. More about e-mail aliases and privacy.)
6. Internet News Server Name Page - enter privatenews.microsoft.com and check "My news server requires me to log on". Click "Next".
7. Enter Account name - privatenews\ISA2004
8. Enter password (case-sensitive): BetaPassword
9. Click Next & Finish
10. Close and download the newsgroups.

Of course, you can go to http://forums.isaserver.org and we have a very active discussion going on regarding ISA 2004 firewalls.

HTH,
Tom