If your posted articles (messages) have a habit of 'disappearing' from the
newsgroups when using Microsoft Outlook Express v5.50 (referred to as MSOE
in this article), please check the following settings:

View > Current View > Show All Messages
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This option can only be specified when a newsgroup or your Inbox is selected
in the Folders pane in MSOE. Keep in mind that the option to show or hide
messages already read can be specified for each group individually.

Tools > Options > Maintenance
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Uncheck "Delete read message bodies in newsgroups"

Uncheck "Delete news messages 'X' days after being downloaded"

  Also of possible interest are settings under:

Tools > Options > Read
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Uncheck "Mark message read after displaying for 'X' seconds

Uncheck "Mark all messages as read when exiting a newsgroup

Set "Get 'X' headers at a time" to a value high/low enough so that the
messages retrieved are fairly recent threads in case you might wish to
respond to some of them. Try a value such as 250 to 500. Articles posted in
many of these groups can remain on this server for months, if not years.

  Every person may not prefer these settings under MSOE but at least
newsgroup messages should remain visible until otherwise purged. If you have
further questions about MSOE that *pertains* to this news server, please
post a message with a relevant Subject line in the povray.off-topic group.
All other questions about MSOE should be directed toward the software
vendor, Microsoft Corporation.