On Tue, 5 Nov 2019 20:34:00 -0600, VanguardLH wrote:

Char Jackson wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:

My recollection when I tried the free version (don't know if it was
3.3, or a 2.x version) was that it poorly handled multiple servers.
I think Agent, back then, only handled one server. The workaround
was to make a copy of some config file. You would have a config
file for each server. You copied the customized config file atop the
standard-named config file before you loaded free Agent. I used a
batch file to make the selection which did the overwrite of the
config file and then loaded Agent.

Ugh, that's an ugly way to do it. Not recommended at all. You're on
the right track, though. Early versions officially only supported a
single server, but it's trivial to add multi-server support after the
fact. Later versions added multi-server support without any
tricks/hacks. You obviously tried an earlier version.

What other trick or workaround got the free one-server-only Agent to
handle multiple servers?

This isn't a step by step because I'll probably miss something and it's
been almost exactly 20 years since I've done it, but as I recall it goes
something like this.

1. In your Agent directory, create a subfolder. Tip: Name it after the new
server in some meaningful way. That will help you remember what it's for.

2. Copy Agent's config file, Agent.ini, into the new folder. Copy, don't
move.

3. Edit the copied config file, making changes to the Servers section and
optionally to the Profile section. The remaining sections are probably fine
as is, but feel free to skim them.

4. Create a new program shortcut for Agent. Open its Properties and make
sure the Target points to the Agent.exe executable. Edit the "Start in"
field so that it points to your new folder. Save and close the shortcut.

So now you have two shortcuts for Agent. You can rename them so that each
reflects its server. You can launch both of them at the same time, if you
like. I ran that way for 12-14 years or so.

In the alt.usenet.offline-reader.forte-agent,
I asked how to get Agent back then to support multiple servers, and
editing or switching out the config file was suggested. Rather than do
it manually everytime I wanted to switch servers, I simply used a batch
file to slide in a copy of the config file that was previously edited to
specify a different server.

I think I was trialing the free 2.2 version (was 2.something), because

I'm not familiar with any 2.x versions other than 2.0.

the 3.3 that out at the time was crippleware (it self-destructed after
the shareware trial). It didn't have multiple server support, I was

Self destruct is too harsh. I think the big thing on all of the free
versions, including 3.3, is that the Filters feature disappears when the
trial ends. Many people don't use filters and wouldn't notice. There was
something else, but I don't remember what it was. I think I registered my
first copy of Agent in about 1998/99 so I wasn't impacted by any missing
features. Oh, wait, I just remembered. The other feature that would
disappear when the trial ends was the capability to auto-join multipart
archives. That would have put you on equal footing with Outlook Express,
for example, where you'd have to manually join all of the segments to
create an archive part, then once you have all of the parts, you could then
extract it. Painful, from what I remember.

using multiple servers, so I had to come up with some workaround to make
it easier to switch between NNTP servers. It did require me to exit
Agent and reload it but with a different config file, so I couldn't
bounce between newsgroups on one server to look at newsgroups (or even
the same ones) on a different server.

Yep, that would have been annoying. I used the multiple program shortcuts
and didn't have that issue.

That reminds me, though. If you were only switching the config file and not
any of the other support files, (*.idx's and *.dat's), you would have very
quickly had a corrupt installation. Even if you wanted all instances to be
subscribed to the same set of groups, which is doubtful, each server would
have had it's own set of articles. I don't even see how that would have
worked.