Windows SDK
When someone asks a Windows programming question, they are often told to go elsewhere. Clearly questions about Vista can be and should be asked in the Vista forums.
It is not clear what newsgroup is appropriate for general Windows programming. There are two possibilities:
- microsoft.public.platformsdk.base
- microsoft.public.win32.programmer
There are other newsgroups as well for UI and such. For the base SDK both of those seem to be appropriate. Both also get low activity. The win32.programmer newsgroup gets more activity than the platformsdk.base newsgroup. Do they both server the same purpose?
There are many newsgroups thatbegin with microsoft.public.win32.programmer that are available in the msnews.microsoft.com server but the one newsgroup with the exact name microsoft.public.win32.programmer is not in the msnews.microsoft.com server. It is available in my ISP's news server but not in the Microsoft server. The ohter newsgroups are in the Microsoft server. Where do I report that? I did ask in the newsgroup a week ago; see:
http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.win32.programmer/browse_thread/thread/9b83889f94ff6f97/5102c289c9ec2dc2#5102c289c9ec2dc2
I can also not see a win32.programmer newsgroup. If it is originating from MS is something I do not know and will suggest you use the contact us link (at the bottom of most pages) to explore the options you can use to contact Microsoft to ask about this. I have found the email option to work very well, it may take a few days to get a reply but you will get a real answer.
When someone asks a windows programming question it is usually about how to use a certain API or technology. There are usually no questions that are not on topic for the existing forums and newsgroup. If you can not determine if a question should be asked in another specific forum/newsgroup might be because the question is not specific enough.
When it is not possible to determine what forum/newsgroup the user should really ask his or hers questions in I would suggest you try to find out more about the actual problem and from the follow up discussion you should be able to suggest the most suitable forum.
I am sorry, but anyone that has seen a couple of day's worth of questions in the VC newsgroups knows that there are many off-topic questions. Perhaps one of us misunderstands the other.
Note that the Microsoft people answer off-topic questions by simply providing a link to the page of all newsgroups. I often provide specific newsgroups. When I do, my answer is usually marked as an answer, often by Microsoft people. As for what is within the scope of the VC General forum, see The scope of this forum.
Again, it is not a question of what is usual; there are always off-topic questions in the VC forums, many of which are totally off-topic.
Excluding the sticky comments and announcements, there are 14 questions in the first page of the VC General forum. The following are currently in the first page.
All of those are definitely off-topic for that forum. They probably qualify as SDK questions but none of them are specific to Vista.
