From: Jan van Hoek (NL) 

>> Anyone knows the "working" way in contacting MS
>> about "You should do this ..." and "WE need this .."?
>> I feel that I should say something to them.

I have mixed experiences with their newsgroups. That only works with some
chance for success after having procured a so-called "No Spam e-mail
Address" (I did not invent this name), and use e-mail address while
posting in the MS newsgroups. This type of service is available to MSDN
subscribers (details are below, under the APPENDIX heading).

You post your question, problem, requirement etc in the same MicroSoft
newsgroups that everyone else has access to. BUT there is a difference.
When you use your specially crafted e-mail address, you get a response from
MicroSoft within a fixed number of working days.

It happened to me more than once that I was in luck and that someone was
prepared to understand my question and gave an answer that was really to
the point.

But don't get me started about those times that my question was misunderstood(:-((

More often than not I was told that my problem did not exist (translate:
should not exist, as I was the first to come with that question). Or that
my problem was "by design", hence that my proposed solution was
not qualified to appear on the wishlist.
--
-- Jan van Hoek (NL)
-- Sat 10 Apr 2004 17:16 CET



----- APPENDIX -----

SOURCE: http://msdn.microsoft.com/newsgroups/managed>

About Managed Newsgroups

MSDN managed newsgroups are available in English to MSDN Universal,
Enterprise, Professional and Operating Systems subscribers to receive free
technical support on select Microsoft technologies as well as to share
ideas with other subscribers.

MSDN managed newsgroups provide:

- Unlimited on-line technical support - keep your PSS incidences
- Guaranteed response time of less than two business days
- Over 200 newsgroups to choose from
- Spam protection for your e-mail address when posting items

Using the MSDN Managed Newsgroups

- All Microsoft discussion groups are available through either the
Web-based newsreader or an NNTP newsreader, such as Outlook Express. A Web
browser is all you need to access discussion groups.
- On the left side of the page, you will find a list of discussion groups
by topic. After you select a discussion group, you can check out
interesting posts, search the discussion group to find specific topics,
answer a question, or post your own questions to the group.

Getting Started

The managed newsgroups are easy to use. Just follow these simple instructions:

- Register by entering your MSDN Subscriber ID, first and last name, e-mail
address as well as a "no-spam" e-mail address
- Either select a topic from the newsgroup list on the left or type the
words you want to search for in the Search box above
- Select the group topic you want in the in list, and click Go
- Post a question using the Web-based newsreader
- We will notify you, via e-mail, when we post a reply to your issue.

--- BBBS/NT v4.01 Flag-5