Wednesday, December 14, 1994 18:33 EST Version 0.93.10 This is an NNTP newsreader for Microsoft Windows 3.1 or Windows/NT. You can use it to read and post Usenet News, and send email (via SMTP or MAPI) What is WinVN? -------------- An NNTP News Server. It *must* support one of the following NNTP extenstions: XHDR (most news servers can do this) or XOVER (InternetNetNews is an example of a news server that does XOVER) WinVN will use XOVER if your server supports it. A 'NEWSRC' file. An example is provided. You *must* have the file there; WinVN won't write one out just randomly. It can be empty. A 'WINVN.INI' file. Edit this file to point to your news server, or you can later change parameters from within WinVN. An optional 'WINVN' environment variable, telling WinVN where to find its two configuration files: 'WINVN.INI' and 'NEWSRC'. You have to set this variable BEFORE you start up windows. You can also tell WINVN where to find the two files by giving command-line options with the 'Properties' menu under the Program Manager - here are a couple of examples (specify a directory to look in) winvn.exe d:\winvn\myserver (specify each of the two files separately) winvn.exe e:\winvn\myserver\winvn.ini u:\users\rushing\newsrc [I use this to set up different icons for different news servers.] The on-line documentation no longer matches the program exactly. Lots of new undocumented features have been added, but most should be obvious. Requirements: ------------- For WINSOCK (v1.1 or higher) compliant TCP/IP stacks (called WINSOCK.DLL): (using gwinsock.dll) A WINSOCK compliant TCP/IP product such as Trumpet, PC/TCP, NetManage TCP/IP, Microsoft LanManager 2.2, DEC Pathworks 5.1, Windows for Workgroups, Windows95 etc. Make sure WINSOCK.DLL is in your path before starting Windows. *or* For NON-WINSOCK TCP/IP stacks: (using pwksock.dll) A DEC Pathworks v4.1 or Microsoft LanManager 2.1a compatible WSOCKETS.DLL Dynamic Link Library. Make sure Windows can find it. (set your PATH environment variable). If you are not running WinVN on a WinSock compatible stack, before starting WinVn, you may need specify which sockets DLL you want to use. by changeing the WinVN.INI line in the [Communications] section of your winvn.ini: GenSockDLL=gwinsock.dll NOTE: There's no need to copy or move the DLL to any other directory. Keep it with your winvn.exe NOTE: 'gwinsock.dll', 'genasync.dll', and 'pwksock.dll' are not _replacements_ for your tcp/ip stack's own socket dlls... they _use_ them: i.e, 'gwinsock.dll' talks to 'winsock.dll', and 'pwksock.dll' talks to 'wsockets.dll'. 'genasync.dll' is a special Asynchronous version that talks to 'winsock.dll' for people with Trumpet stacks that cannot run the synchronous version. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks to Mark Riordan for the original WinVN! Many people have worked on WinVN - it's been a fun, international project. Here are a few of them: Matt Bretherton MBretherton@cmutual.com.au Harvey Brydon brydon@tulsa.dowell.slb.com John S. Cooper jcooper@netcom.com Michael Downs mdowns@eos.arc.nasa.gov Mike Downs downsm@titan.ksc.nasa.gov Jim Dumoulin dumoulin@titan.ksc.nasa.gov Michael Finken finken@conware.de Don Gardner gardnerd@keystone.ksc.nasa.gov Jody Glasser jglas@tdycont.com Masaki Ishido ishidou@yhp.hp.com Jim Martin jim@noc.rutgers.edu Tom Menshik tmenshik@hpcvitlm.cv.hp.com Conor Nolan cnolan@tcd.ie Roger Pearse pearse_w_r@bt-web.bt.co.uk John Piraino jpiraino@execpc.com Mark Riordan mrr@scss3.cl.msu.edu Sam Rushing rushing@titan.ksc.nasa.gov (countless others I don't really mean leave out) You can send comments to the WinVN developers by sending mail to: winvn@titan.ksc.nasa.gov or winvn@news.ksc.nasa.gov If you don't mind alot of traffic on WinVN, you can join the developers mailing list by a mail message to: "majordomo@news.ksc.nasa.gov" with the Subject line Blank and the contents of the message: "subscribe winvn". An easy way to keep up on winvn developments is to point your newsreader at 'news.ksc.nasa.gov' (currently 128.159.4.21 for those of you with broken DNS's but soon to be changing to 163.205.1.3). There should be a single newsgroup, (mail.winvn) which is a gatewayed version of the mailing list. Announcements and discussions of common problems can be found here. It's very likely the best place to get the scoop on _your_ problem. If mail gets much worse, we may consider starting an ALT group. The official FTP site for WinVN is at ftp.ksc.nasa.gov in the directory [pub.win3.winvn] (The IP number is 128.159.4.20 but it will be changing soon to 163.205.1.4) NOTE: Even though ftp.ksc.nasa.gov currently is an alias for TITAN.KSC.NASA.GOV, Don't use the TITAN address. The Kennedy Space Center has a firewall system and our DNS returns multiple addresses for TITAN.KSC.NASA.GOV. You will probably get a few timeouts on inaccessable IP numbers before you get the right one. Always use FTP.KSC.NASA.GOV instead to get only the IP number that is outside the firewall. Always check there for the latest binaries and sources. Other sites that keep fairly current with the main site are: ripem.msu.edu (/pub/pc/win/winvn/titan.ksc.nasa.gov/) and shannon.mee.tcd.ie (/winvn) Matching hardcopy documentation by Jim Dumoulin (dumoulin@titan.ksc.nasa.gov) for this release is available on FTP.KSC.NASA.GOV. A World Wide Web node has been developed for WinVN by Mike Downs (downsm@titan.ksc.nasa.gov) and will be available shortly. -John Cooper, Sam Rushing & Jim Dumoulin