Don Dargel had a problem. Every time he tried to change the display driver on one of his company’s Windows servers, he received an error message telling him the drivers weren't installed properly. It may have been an uncommon problem, but Dargel chose an increasingly common way to solve it: He posted his problem in one of the Microsoft public newsgroups. The free peer-to-peer support newsgroups -- found at news://msnews.microsoft.com/ -- are just one of many technical support offerings from Microsoft Product Support Services (PSS). They’re an increasingly popular choice for IT professionals, computer enthusiasts and other Microsoft product users, who say they find the public newsgroups to be excellent sources for troubleshooting, tips and general advice related to Microsoft products. Indeed, posts to the roughly 1,400 newsgroups have climbed 20 percent over the past year, to a staggering 600,000 per month.
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