Caution: if you're a die-hard Microsoft-lover, you will not like WINN-L! Many subscribers routinely refer to NT as "bloatware" and have many comments of the "Why am I forced to work with this ***t?" variety to make about it. But work with it they must, to get their paychecks, so they happily (and often just a bit chattily) exchange hints and scripts and tips and tricks and bugfixes that'll help them keep their systems going as well as possible.

But the chat is not intrusive. It only serves to put a human face on the people at the other end of the e-mail pipeline. Many subscribers seem to have been around for a long time, and to know each others' quirks and comment on them from time to time, but not in a flamelike way.

If you're a bored NT sysadmin who'd really rather be doing something else, this is the perfect mailgroup for you. You'll fit right in. And since it's 100 percent work-related, your boss won't be able to say anything negative about the time you spend exchanging notes with this interesting bunch.