General Questions

A: New and reasonably current releases of IBM-PC compatible commercial software applications. Older commercial software applications normally are posted elsewhere. One possibility is alt.binaries.warez.ibm-pc.old. Shareware that has been "re-engineered" so that it installs completely and does not require a crack qualifies as warez and is appropriate for this group, as is an application which has shareware origins, but which has been released by a release group with a crack, patch, or keygen. Games, Music (MP3s), Movies, etc. all have their own groups and hierarchies where they should be posted, and do not belong in ABWI. When any of them are mistakenly posted to ABWI it is almost always a new and inexperienced person doing the posting; well-meaning, but without proper understanding of how newsgroups work. Don't be part of the problem if you post: Target your post appropriately and it will reach the greatest possible audience which may be interested in it

Q: Can I find out if a program I want has been released as warez?

A: There are websites that are what are called "dupecheck" sites, which can help you find out if what you want has been released yet. http://www.google.com/search?q=dupecheck+0-day+nfo will help you find some. At least one dupecheck/release info site was taken-over by law enforcement and closed, so you may need to keep searching.

Q: What kind of posts are dangerous?

A: Punks and rats post viruses, trojans and other harmful files to binary groups all the time. You should never download a post with an executable extension, as no poster who knows what she's doing would normally post an executable. Extensions to beware of are *.exe, *.com, *.scr, *.cmd and others such as *.doc (which can contain what is called a "macro" virus.) If the post isn't a *.ZIP or a *.RAR (or, in the game groups an *.ACE (*.C##)) then let it go by. You don't need a virus misnamed as "Christina_Aguilara_Gets_Naked.scr" or whatever bullshit-name the punk called the virus or trojan-laden file. See Is there any way to scan a post for a virus before downloading it? for more info.

Q: Why doesn't the release/crack work, don't they test these things?

A: Of course they test them, just not on every possible computer hardware/software configuration. Also, being human, the occasional release gets through which only worked on the cracker's own computer and no other. Whenever you get a crack/release that doesn't work for you, simply demand double your money back! <G>

If it's a standard group release, then the poster usually just posts the release and hasn't tested or installed it, so asking for installation help from the poster of new releases isn't likely to be profitable. (see What is 0-day? for a more detailed answer of why that is so.)

Whining about it on UseNet will only get you flamed, so don't. If you want to report a non-working crack/release to UseNet, do so in the group you downloaded it, in a manner so that it appears you are asking the group for help in getting the crack/release to work, rather than as a complaint, or "whine." Others may have had no difficulty, or may have figured-out how to make it work. If not, then it's just a little lost time/bandwidth.

Q: What are the best applications to use for downloading binaries and reading text?

A: For writing and posting text the two main applications are Forte's Agent and XNews newsreaders. The majority use Agent. For binaries the current choice is NewsBin Pro. (That changes often, as this is an area under active development by a number of people.)

NewsBin is especially useful for people on dial-ups or who use commercial news service providers with download limits, as it stores each downloaded segment in it's own database- so that should a download break for any reason, when it resumes it doesn't have to start at the beginning of the file as Agent does if you had all segments joined.

If you do choose to use Agent to download binaries and you are on dial-up or on a byte-limited provider, you should separate the segments of large files before downloading (Message/Split sections.) Then, if a download breaks for any reason, you can simply resume at the next un-downloaded segment. Downloading a 15 megabyte file on a dial-up (a 45-60 minute process in most cases,) and seeing it "break" 40-minutes into the download, can be very discouraging. By downloading individual segments and joining them manually after download in Agent (more_info) or automatically in NewsBin; you will have only lost a few hundred kilobytes-- a minute or two of download time on a dial-up. These principles apply to most news-reader clients, although the particulars of implementation will vary.

Q: Is there any way to scan a post for a virus before downloading?

A: No, there is not. You should have a good virus scanner in your system; one set to always scan all new files as they are created/downloaded. However that may not be enough, as it is common for there to be RARs or ACEs inside of ZIPs. Not all virus scanners will scan archives within other archives, or recognize that a file with the extension .001, for example, is an archive of the type RAR. So when you download a post that is zipped, unzip it and scan the resulting RAR or ACE archives. Modern virus scanners can be set to look inside of archive files, check yours to find out what archives are supported. If RARs and/or ACEs are not supported, you will need to extract them in order to scan them for viruses and trojans. Note that as long as you don't run any of the applications or scripts, and you don't view any of the MIME content, such as jpegs/pngs/gifs, you are not in any danger of contamination. Once your virus scanner has located a problem, it will deal with it- either "cleansing" it, or deleting it securely. If you discover a virus in a post, it would be a courteous act to notify the group where you downloaded it of the particulars;including: the virus, the virus scanner and version used, and the exact post info including poster-name and date. Example:

Q: All of a sudden files I download are corrupt; what is wrong?

A: This can happen after "upgrading" to Zone Alarm V 5 which has a bug that causes corruption of yEnc-encoded files. It will happen with all newsreaders. There are several work-arounds: Turn off Zone Alarm when downloading; Use version 4.5 or earlier; Or get another Firewall product. Zone Alarm is aware of the problem and has stated their intention to fix it in some future release. As of release 5.1 the problem appears to have been solved.

Q: Why is the final segment missing in many files of a multi-file post?

A: This is usually the result of spam-filters on some servers. The final segments (if very small) of a multi-file post will sometimes be bit-for-bit identical. Some spam-filter implementations will treat that as spam or EMP, and will remove it. The work-around is to try another server for the "missing" segment. The recommended solution is simply to change servers entirely.

Q: Can I ask for a game to be posted, too?

A: You could ask, but because ABWI specializes in applications, you shouldn't. It's not nearly as likely to be posted in this newsgroup as it would be in a game-specific group, where you would be much more likely to have success. Remember, ABWI is intended only for applications and rips; the other types of files have their own groups where they are posted. Audio applications, for example, are usually posted in alt.binaries.sounds.utilities; and multimedia applications are often posted in alt.binaries.multimedia.utilities. Ask in groups like alt.binaries.games, or alt.binaries.games.ibm-pc, or alt.binaries.games.old- depending on which games groups are on your news-server. That is where you are likely to have the greatest chance of success. Requests, like posts, are most successful when they are properly targeted.

Q: Can I ask for a full CD image in ABWI?

A: You can ask, but it's not as likely that anyone will post it for you, since there are CD-image groups that are dedicated to CD images, so they needn't usually be posted to ABWI. The image groups are the best place for you to ask, since that is what they specialize in. See the following question-and-answer for the reasons for this.

Q: Can I post a full CD image to ABW*?

A: Short, single-CD images of popular software are frequently posted to the "rip" groups, and are accepted there. However multi-cd posts shouldn't be posted to them, and for some very good reasons: Newsgroups are set to expire on news servers not by date, in most cases, by the amount of disk storage allotted to them. Many news administrators allot large amounts of disk storage to CD-image groups, such as alt.binaries.cd.image, because of the size of the images, and due to the length of time over which they are posted and downloaded by people on dial-ups. News administrators know that alt.binaries.warez* is a "rip" sub-hierarchy, and have allocated disk-storage to its groups based upon the fact that rips are usually only about one-tenth (1/10) the size of a CD-image, (or less,) and so do not require as much time to upload or to download.

Every file posted to a newsgroup causes another file to expire off it, and to be deleted from news servers. That is why experienced users all "moan and groan" when a Multi-CD-image is posted to ABWI - they know that it has just forced many applications off the servers, which causes more people to ask for reposts of those applications- over and over again. It's a self-defeating proposition, and really hurts more people than it helps. It's not as if there aren't appropriate groups to which to post large CD-images; there are. For example: alt.binaries.cd.image, alt.binaries.cd.image.other, alt.binaries.cd.image.highspeed, and others.

Additionally, people in the rip groups are not all familiar with CD-images and their formats, or with the correct CD-burning applications for those formats - so that images posted to ABWI will often generate questions as to what it is, what to do with it, and so on.

So please post large CD-images to groups that are designed to accept them, and not to ABWI! If you feel some program is so desirable that many in ABWI would want it, post a "heads-up"-type of text post to ABWI, telling the subscribers there that "such-and-such application" - as a full cd-image- is being posted to "alt.binaries.cd-image.whatever-image-group-you-picked". That way you will reach the most people with your post, and you will not have forced any applications off the servers prematurely. A win-win situation for everyone!

Q. I keep seeing incomplete files and have to request fills for almost every post. Sometimes the fills are incomplete also.

A: All news servers are not created equal. Some ISPs throw in UseNet as an afterthought, while others have excellent news servers. If you want to participate without a lot of headaches you might need to either change ISPs or subscribe to a premium news service (NSP). It's a good idea to read alt.binaries.news-server-comparison for up-to-date information on which news services are best at the moment. <more_info>

Q: Why are articles missing in the newsgroup?

(excerpted from the FAQ at http://www.meganetnews.com/ )

A: This can happen for several reasons. The most likely reason is that some of the articles (or parts of articles) were filtered out as spam before they reached your server. Many news servers limit the maximum article size and if any articles are in excess of that size the server will cancel it automatically and it will not propagate to other servers. Also, all news servers have the right to filter out anything that passes through their server. Keep in mind that UseNet was designed to carry only plain text, not large binary files. Processing binary articles places twice as much strain on the server as plain text articles do.

Other causes are:

Q: I keep seeing abbreviations and acronyms I don't understand, how do I find out what they mean?

Q: How long should I wait to post a repost request?

A: Two days seems about right at this time, but read the poster's "0/" or "NFO" file to see if the poster has specifically mentioned fills. Some posters announce that they are going to do a repost in "X" days for instance, others ask you to wait a certain number of days before asking for fills. If the poster has no specific policy then use the following guide: UseNet propagation is such that if a file is not complete after two (2) days, waiting longer won't usually help. So if after two days the file or files remain incomplete then it is reasonable to make a fill request. But remember, no one owes you anything! The random nature of NNTP propagation means that parts of messages may still come in several days later! Read the answer to the "Missing Articles" question <here> for detailed steps which you can take to make sure that the files you need really haven't come in to your server yet.

Q: Should I worry about being embarrassed for asking a newbie question?

A: No. So long as you have read this FAQ and done your best to RTFM, most folks are willing to answer questions not covered here or in your PC and newsreader help files. Everyone here was a newbie once. Please ask in the discussion group (alt.binaries.warez.ibm-pc.d), not in the main group. If you receive a facetious answer, ignore it. Most regulars in these groups are genuinely interested in helping others. Not every answer can be put into a FAQ; only the most frequently asked questions are intended to be here. However, if you fail to read your newsreader documentation or this FAQ carefully, and you ask a question answered in those places, you may see heated responses. RTFM. If things still aren't working for you, ask questions in the discussion group.

Q: Why would someone zip an .ace or .rar archive?

A: This is done for the convenience of the FTP sites which have software that can read the file_id.diz placed inside of "zip" files. Also a lot of FTP software automatically "recognizes" zips as binary-format files, which are handled a different way from ASCII-based files. Using zips also allows the "NFO" files and any other support files like keygens and cracks, etc. to be added without having to recompress the whole archive, and keeps them together.

Occasionally you can extract a good rar/ace from a damaged zip, provided the damage was in the other files and not the rar/ace itself.

It seems that some people don't know how warez releases get to UseNet (or anywhere) to begin with, the following excerpt is from a WarezFAQ editor's post to ABWI on the subject, explaining the distribution system to someone:

"*Everything*(just about) that is posted to Usenet gets put out by a "release group"- and they do *not* post to Usenet! People who have "access" (<- very important word, remember it.) can get on either the group's hidden FTP, or on a hidden "Topsite" FTP, download what they want, and then post it to Usenet.

Pars have to be created, release groups don't bother. They don't care about you or Usenet. All that is done by the people who do have access, and who prepare and post the goods. Pars they prepare don't help them get a clean binary to begin with. Typically, unless you have direct access to the release group's FTP, the file you get has been passed through a dozen or more FTP's and couriers, and usually has several extraneous files added to it.

FTP daemons automatically recognize "zip" and ".z" and a few other extensions as binary, and initiate binary-transfer-mode without having to scan the material to see if it's ASCII or binary. Much less overhead when you're FTP/FXP-ing 2-3 gigs of stuff daily to six or eight other, hidden, FTPs, and countless couriers and others with "access.". There's a reason why a single group's FTP will be on at least a 100 Megabit line, and Topsites are usually on even faster connections.

This stuff isn't cooked-up in Mom's kitchen, it's put out by dozens of dedicated groups of crackers who have created a sophisticated world-wide network of secret, restricted-access FTP's, serviced by dozens of "courier" groups who move the goods from the group's FTP to Topsite FTP's, and who propagate them from one Topsite to dozens of other Topsite FTP's all over the world. (Those are the FTPs referenced, most of them being run by proprietary scripts on ~nix boxes.) This is a hellofalotta work! All this is done for you every day, gratis, by the people who release and courier the goods, and by the people who do have FTP access, and who are willing to get the goods and risk their asses to post to Usenet.

The zips make it easier. Plus, all the couriers who want to add an NFO showing that they carried it for a while can do so easily and automatically via scripts. All the Topsite operators who wish to add their NFO to the release showing where it resided for a while, can also do so, automatically.

This is all made possible by zips, and prohibited by rars. That vaunted superior compression of RAR occurs mainly when the archive is packed as a solid archive. That means to add to that archive you must first decompress the whole shebang, add your file, then recompress the whole thing. To simply read the file-info.diz (an automated task on most of the FTPs mentioned, assuring that there are no dupes AND that the zip can be read) you would have to decompress the entire RAR archive. Ain't never gunna happen. Zips are here for the duration.

RARs are used for ISO releases, which aren't as broadly propagated, as many Topsites don't even carry ISO's. RARs are also used for movies-which also aren't carried universally. Virtually ALL Topsites carry "Utils"- which is what this is. "

Q: How do I unzip more than one zip file at a time?

A: The easiest way is with WinRAR or Unziplify. If you have WinRAR properly installed, simply highlight them all, right click, and the WinRAR options should be there to allow you to unzip them all in one shot. Or start WinRAR and navigate to where the files are, highlight them, select Extract To. Versions of WinZip starting with version 8.1 will also unzip multiple files at once. With Unziplify, once installed it has a shell extension that appears when you select a directory in Windows Explorer, and right-click. Selecting that option will unzip all the zips in that directory to a subdirectory named "Unziplified".

Q: Should I say how desperate/urgently/badly I want a program?

A: If you say something like "Norton Utilities needed urgently" people will tell you to buy it! Just make a normal request, anything else marks you as a newbie/gimme-gimme/lamer.

Q: IS ALL CAPS OKAY?

A: Please don't. Its the Internet equivalent of SHOUTING, and should only be used sparingly, if at all.

Here are a couple more text-conventions: Underscores ( _ ) before and after a word, such as _this_ indicate that word would be italicized; a word surrounded by asterisks would be printed in *bold* in HTML or by a word processor. Usenet, lacking any way to either italicize or boldface letters/words, uses those methods instead.

Q: Do I have to follow any of these suggestions?

A: No! No one owns the Internet, and there are no mandatory rules other than those imposed by law and your ISP. These newsgroups are based on a voluntary association, people sharing and helping each other. Sincerity and good manners mean just as much here as in real life.

Q: What is usually posted in ABWI?

Q: Can I find out if a program I want has been released as warez?

Q: What kind of posts are dangerous?

Q: Why doesn't the release/crack work, don't they test these things?

Q: What are the best applications to use for downloading binaries and reading text?

Q: Is there any way to scan a post for a virus before downloading?

Q: All of a sudden files I download are corrupt; what is wrong?

Q: Why is the final segment missing in many files of a multi-file post?

Q: Can I ask for a game to be posted, too?

Q: Can I ask for a full CD image in ABWI?

Q: Can I post a full CD image to ABW*?

Q. I keep seeing incomplete files and have to request fills for almost every post. Sometimes the fills are incomplete also.

Q: Why are articles missing in the newsgroup?

Q: I keep seeing abbreviations and acronyms I don't understand, how do I find out what they mean?

Q: How long should I wait to post a repost request?

Q: Should I worry about being embarrassed for asking a newbie question?

Q: Why would someone zip an .ace or .rar archive?

Q: How do I unzip more than one zip file at a time?

Q: Should I say how desperate/urgently/badly I want a program?

Q: IS ALL CAPS OKAY?

Q: Do I have to follow any of these suggestions?

All software that is used* should be purchased*
Copyright© 1996-2007 www.warezfaq.com All rights reserved.

Q: What is usually posted in ABWI?

Q: Can I find out if a program I want has been released as warez?

Q: What kind of posts are dangerous?

Q: Why doesn't the release/crack work, don't they test these things?

Q: What are the best applications to use for downloading binaries and reading text?

Q: Is there any way to scan a post for a virus before downloading?

Q: All of a sudden files I download are corrupt; what is wrong?

Q: Why is the final segment missing in many files of a multi-file post?

Q: Can I ask for a game to be posted, too?

Q: Can I ask for a full CD image in ABWI?

Q: Can I post a full CD image to ABW*?

Q. I keep seeing incomplete files and have to request fills for almost every post. Sometimes the fills are incomplete also.

Q: Why are articles missing in the newsgroup?

Q: I keep seeing abbreviations and acronyms I don't understand, how do I find out what they mean?

Q: How long should I wait to post a repost request?

Q: Should I worry about being embarrassed for asking a newbie question?

Q: Why would someone zip an .ace or .rar archive?

Q: How do I unzip more than one zip file at a time?

Q: Should I say how desperate/urgently/badly I want a program?

Q: IS ALL CAPS OKAY?

Q: Do I have to follow any of these suggestions?

*All software that is used should be purchased*Copyright© 1996-2007 www.warezfaq.com All rights reserved.

All software that is used* should be purchased*
Copyright© 1996-2007 www.warezfaq.com All rights reserved.