visual studio .net ide: [quoted text, click to view]

Does that then mean that microsoft.public.vstudio.general is for Visual
Studio 6 and earlier, with microsoft.public.vsnet.general is for .Net
versions? I ask this because both groups seem to only contain .Net
discussions.

[quoted text, click to view]

IMHO that was likely the intent.

Visual Studio 6 and earlier was a collection of language products, each with
their own IDEs and libraries, and so there were few areas of common
interest. It was usually more expedient to post to a newsgroup dedicated to
a specific product - VB, VC, VisualJ++, ... As a result "vstudio.general"
was never that popular. Especially with VB programmers. Frequented, if at
all, by mostly VC programmers.

With Visual Studio .Net there is a common IDE and a common library and
therefore a great deal of common ground. "vstudio.general" became the
logical place to ask IDE questions separate from language issues.
"vstudio.general" is readily identifiable while "vsnet.general" is more
obscure.

There is also a .dotnet.general newsgroup that essentially covers the same
topics as vstudio.general and vsnet.general.

-ralph