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Before I begin, this is just one way of doing this, there are many different providers and many different newsreaders to choose from, I'm using the ones I know how to use and the ones I feel comfortable with.
The Usenet provider I use is Usenet-News because of the block accounts they do (buy download quota that lasts until you use it up), but there's a list of other providers here. Most providers sell accounts that renew every month and have a download limit (eg. you pay £5 a month for 20GB download allowance per month)[*]Get an account. This is the bit I can't really help you with (much). You could go for a paid account (fastest and generally best) or one your ISP provides. If you try this out using your ISP's Usenet you may have a bad experience (downloads missing, or slow, or corrupted). Paid servers are nearly always better.
[*]Get a newsreader. By far the most popular for Windows is NewsLeecher and I think it's great. I've tried a few others but none of them really stand up to NewsLeecher. I will be using it in this tutorial. Download the demo and either buy a license key or... you know... But buy it if you think it's good (like I did). If you're not using NewsLeecher then the rest of the tutorial won't be much use to you, and it's my favourite, so you should get it
[*]Open NewsLeecher
[*]Click the 'Manager' tab
[*]Click 'Add' at the top of the left-hand column
[*]Fill in all the details, you have to get these from your provider. Make sure to check the 'Server requires login' box and fill in the information if it's a paid provider. Your ISP account probably won't need this unless it says so specifically.
[*]You may be wondering what value to put in the 'Connections' box. This allows NewsLeecher to have more than one connection to a server. For example, with my provider I get around 120KB/s per connection, but my broadband connection can handle a maximum of around around 750KB/s, so I make 6 connections to the server to get the best speed. Any more connections and it wouldn't do any good, it just wastes connections that other users could use, so just use the number you need and no more.
[*]Press 'OK' to save this information, the server should now appear in the left-hand column on the 'Manager' tab and be in the bottom right-hand section.
[*]Now press 'Options' on the bar at the top.
[*]Click 'Connection' on the left hand-column of this window
[*]You should adjust these values as you see fit, I have mine so it automatically disconnects from the server after 5 minutes of inactivity (nothing downloading) and I change the bottom section so I am automatically reconnected to the server after 30 seconds of nothing happening (sometimes the connections hang for no reason, this resets them automatically which fixes the problem). Even if you're not having any problems you should change this value, you don't want to leave a really big file downloading then come back and find them only half-downloaded because of this problem!
[*]Click 'Download' in the left-hand column
[*]Choose the folder in which you want your downloads to be placed
[*]Change the 'Pause if disk space gets below...' value if you like. I have a separate (small) hard drive for download before I unRAR them, so I make this value quite small as it's a small hard drive.
[*]In the left-hand column under 'Download', click 'NZB Files'
[*]Change these values to what suits you best, I have it so NewsLeecher is associated with NZB files, which means when I open an NZB file NewsLeecher starts downloading it straight away.
[*]In the left-hand column under 'Download', click 'PAR Files'
[*]Change these values to what you like. It is worth mentioning at this point that PAR(2) files let you repair corrupted downloads fairly easily, I'll explain that in more detail later.
[*]Click 'General' in the left-hand column
[*]Change these values to what you like
[*]Click 'OK' to save these settings and close this window
[*]You're ready to start downloading! Find a Usenet searching site that generates NZB files (like NewzLeech), find the file you want, get the NZB file and open it in NewsLeecher! Look under the 'NZB Files' subheading below for a list of sites.
[*]Your files will appear in the 'Queue' tab and they should be downloading. If they aren't, make sure you are connected to the servers (the big button in the top-left should be indented) and that downloads aren't paused (the 4th button from the left should not be indented)
[*]Happy downloading!I have some points to go into in detail now
NZB Files
Everything posted on Usenet is posted in messages, an NZB file contains 'links' to these messages so the newsreader knows which messages to download. The website I use for searching for files and generating NZB files is NewzLeech but there are more out there, just Google for something like 'Usenet Search NZB'
PAR(2) Files
PAR files are used for repairing files that download incorrectly, or if parts of the download are missing. For more information on PAR(2) files I recommend reading this tutorial.
SFV Files
Most downloads come with an SFV file which can be read by QuickPAR (see above note). They check everything downloaded correctly with no problems.
The Usenet provider I use is Usenet-News because of the block accounts they do (buy download quota that lasts until you use it up), but there's a list of other providers here. Most providers sell accounts that renew every month and have a download limit (eg. you pay £5 a month for 20GB download allowance per month)[*]Get an account. This is the bit I can't really help you with (much). You could go for a paid account (fastest and generally best) or one your ISP provides. If you try this out using your ISP's Usenet you may have a bad experience (downloads missing, or slow, or corrupted). Paid servers are nearly always better.
[*]Get a newsreader. By far the most popular for Windows is NewsLeecher and I think it's great. I've tried a few others but none of them really stand up to NewsLeecher. I will be using it in this tutorial. Download the demo and either buy a license key or... you know... But buy it if you think it's good (like I did). If you're not using NewsLeecher then the rest of the tutorial won't be much use to you, and it's my favourite, so you should get it

[*]Open NewsLeecher
[*]Click the 'Manager' tab
[*]Click 'Add' at the top of the left-hand column
[*]Fill in all the details, you have to get these from your provider. Make sure to check the 'Server requires login' box and fill in the information if it's a paid provider. Your ISP account probably won't need this unless it says so specifically.
[*]You may be wondering what value to put in the 'Connections' box. This allows NewsLeecher to have more than one connection to a server. For example, with my provider I get around 120KB/s per connection, but my broadband connection can handle a maximum of around around 750KB/s, so I make 6 connections to the server to get the best speed. Any more connections and it wouldn't do any good, it just wastes connections that other users could use, so just use the number you need and no more.
[*]Press 'OK' to save this information, the server should now appear in the left-hand column on the 'Manager' tab and be in the bottom right-hand section.
[*]Now press 'Options' on the bar at the top.
[*]Click 'Connection' on the left hand-column of this window
[*]You should adjust these values as you see fit, I have mine so it automatically disconnects from the server after 5 minutes of inactivity (nothing downloading) and I change the bottom section so I am automatically reconnected to the server after 30 seconds of nothing happening (sometimes the connections hang for no reason, this resets them automatically which fixes the problem). Even if you're not having any problems you should change this value, you don't want to leave a really big file downloading then come back and find them only half-downloaded because of this problem!
[*]Click 'Download' in the left-hand column
[*]Choose the folder in which you want your downloads to be placed
[*]Change the 'Pause if disk space gets below...' value if you like. I have a separate (small) hard drive for download before I unRAR them, so I make this value quite small as it's a small hard drive.
[*]In the left-hand column under 'Download', click 'NZB Files'
[*]Change these values to what suits you best, I have it so NewsLeecher is associated with NZB files, which means when I open an NZB file NewsLeecher starts downloading it straight away.
[*]In the left-hand column under 'Download', click 'PAR Files'
[*]Change these values to what you like. It is worth mentioning at this point that PAR(2) files let you repair corrupted downloads fairly easily, I'll explain that in more detail later.
[*]Click 'General' in the left-hand column
[*]Change these values to what you like
[*]Click 'OK' to save these settings and close this window
[*]You're ready to start downloading! Find a Usenet searching site that generates NZB files (like NewzLeech), find the file you want, get the NZB file and open it in NewsLeecher! Look under the 'NZB Files' subheading below for a list of sites.
[*]Your files will appear in the 'Queue' tab and they should be downloading. If they aren't, make sure you are connected to the servers (the big button in the top-left should be indented) and that downloads aren't paused (the 4th button from the left should not be indented)
[*]Happy downloading!I have some points to go into in detail now
NZB Files
Everything posted on Usenet is posted in messages, an NZB file contains 'links' to these messages so the newsreader knows which messages to download. The website I use for searching for files and generating NZB files is NewzLeech but there are more out there, just Google for something like 'Usenet Search NZB'
PAR(2) Files
PAR files are used for repairing files that download incorrectly, or if parts of the download are missing. For more information on PAR(2) files I recommend reading this tutorial.
SFV Files
Most downloads come with an SFV file which can be read by QuickPAR (see above note). They check everything downloaded correctly with no problems.