Essentially yes.

There are still UseNet NNTP newsgroups for those who don't want to deal with
forums, and there are many web based forums with varying degrees of ease of
use, both with Microsoft, and with others.

--
Arvin Meyer, MCP, MVP
http://www.datastrat.com
http://www.accessmvp.com
http://www.mvps.org/access


"Fred Boer" wrote in message
...
Does this mean what I think it means?! Death of Microsoft sponsored
newsgroups I can read with a proper news reader? Forced to use a web-based
reader?!

--
Fred Boer - Amateur Access Enthusiast
Interests: Library software / Z39.50 / Web Services
Freeware Small Library Application available he
http://www3.sympatico.ca/lornarourke/


wrote in message
...
Date 5/4/2010
Starting in early summer 2010, Microsoft will begin progressively closing
down the Microsoft public newsgroups to enrich conversations in the
rapidly-growing forum platform. This decision is in response to
worldwide market trends and evolving customer needs.

Microsoft continues to invest in forums to reduce customer effort,
consolidate community venues and make it easier for active contributors
to retain their influence. Forums provide a healthy community environment
with less spam and make answers easier to find by customers and search
engines. Additionally, forums offer a better user and off-topic
management platform that will improve customer satisfaction by
facilitating discussions in a clean space.

We understand that some newsgroups are still active, and important to the
community. In the coming days and weeks, we will be rolling out tools
and resources to minimize disruption to the community discussions.

We are working diligently on providing additional resources and
information in local languages later this week. In the meantime, please
refer to the official Microsoft Newsgroup website
http://www.microsoft.com/communities...s/default.mspx concerning
this issue. The Microsoft Newsgroup website will be made available in
additional languages in the next few days.