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Old March 26th 05, 08:57 AM
kevin kevin is offline
Administrator
 
First recorded activity by PCbanter: Dec 2003
Posts: 13
Arrow How to post a message....

The most common question I get emailed about is how to post, so I thought I would have a go at explaining it here...

Register
Before you can post you need to register. It is quick & free to do. You will need to verify your email address as part of the process, but be assured that your email address is kept private at all times (it does not get posted with your message).

You can read all the threads on the forum without registering, but if you wish to participate and post messages then you will need to register.

Search first...
Before posting a new thread (i.e. asking a question) please use the search function. There are nearly half a million threads on this site. It's just possible your problem has happened to someone else and the answer is already here...

Log-in
From the home page, log-in (if you haven't already) near the top right corner. (If your username is already shown here then you are logged in).

Select which forum is right for your post
From the home page (here) select which forum to post in, and click it e.g. 'Hardware and Windows XP' if it is hardware related. If yours is a more general query I would recommend 'Windows XP Help & Support'.

There are Windows XP forums for New Users, XP Basics, Hardware, Security and Administration, Performance and Maintainance, Messenger, XP help and Support, General XP Issues, Customizing XP, Networking and the Internet, Video Cards and Drivers and Printing and Faxing.

Start a new thread
When you click the forum title you will see a list of recent threads for that forum. Near the top left you will see a button marked 'New Thread'. . Click this to start a new thread (ask a new question) or to respond to an existing thread. Provided you logged in correctly earlier you will be taken to the posting page.

Choose a relevant title
Fill in the title and the main text of your message. (Please use titles that are specific to your problem i.e. NOT please help!, urgent, it won't work, as these generally get less response than those with the problem in the title.)

Include as much information as you can about your problem. The more specific you are, the more chance there is of someone knowing the solution. Please remember, no one is paid to respond to your message. People give their own time to try to help others.

Get notified when you have a response
At the bottom of the page there are some additional options. You can leave them all unchanged, however you might want to consider changing the 'notification type' to 'instant email' or 'daily email' whereby you will get an email when someone submits a reply. (Instant email will send you an email as soon as you get a reply. In a popular thread this could amount to 30 or 40 emails, although most threads only get 2 or 3 replys. Daily emails will just send one email giving you a summary of the replys).

Submit your post
Click 'Submit New Thread' and you will be taken to your message. That is it, the only thing left to do is wait. Typically it takes 24-48 hours to get a response, perhaps longer over a weekend as many of the techies are not around. Normally the threads die off after about 5-7 days, so if you haven't had a response by then it could be because nobody knows the answer, or the person that does know is away for a few days so you might want to consider re-posting your question .

You can find more details on using this forum at the FAQ's

Good luck.
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