Free Agent and AT&T Worldnet Service

This document contains configuration instructions for using Free Agent to access the AT&T Worldnet news server through an AT&T Worldnet connection. We also have instructions for access through another ISP.

Welcome to the Free Agent Installation page. As you are probably finding out, you can set-up your AT&T Worldnet Service access in a myriad of ways. Here is a brief tutorial (well I thought it was when I started) on how to set up Free Agent for your AT&T Worldnet Service account. This program is one of the EASIEST, and most powerful newsgroup readers around.

Free Agent Main Window

Before We Get Started

Before attempting any modifications to your AT&T Worldnet Service account back up the directories and files associated with it. If you DON'T and accidentally disturb or modify some of the files located here you could destroy your account to a point where it will be no longer serviceable. There are some files that are created when you sign on that are not on the distribution disks and if destroyed, cannot be re-created by AT&T Worldnet Service customer service at this time.

With that said and done, on with the instructions.

Getting Free Agent

Simply download it.

Step One: Unzip and Install

Unzip the program to a directory under the AT&T Worldnet Service main directory called agent, or whatever you want to name it.
This will make it easier for the Free Agent to find winsock.dll. Note: you may want to add the location of winsock.dll to your path statement in autoexec.bat. Its normally in the /worldnet directory so add c:\Worldnet to the path. This will ensure that any app that you add will find the winsock.dll easily.
Ok, back to it, once its all unzipped you may want to read the readme files, if not lets continue on.

Step Two: Configuration

Launch Free Agent, but do not connect to AT&T Worldnet Service yet. Free Agent will give you the licensing agreement. Click the accept button and the next screen gives you the locations for the different servers the program uses. You could let Free Agent grab the info from Netscape, but for learning experience we will manually put in the info:
- News (NNTP) Server: netnews.worldnet.att.net
- Mail (SMTP) Server: mailhost.worldnet.att.net
- E-Mail Address: username@worldnet.att.net
- Full Name: I think you know this one...
- Time Zone: Select yours
Click the Accept button.

Step Three: Connect

Free agent will now ask you if you want to connect go ahead and say Yes, this should launch the dialer and connect you. If it doesn't, it will probably to give you a winsock error because Free Agent cannot find the winsock.dll. Please refer above.
The next part will download all the newsgroups that are available, this will take awhile so be patient

Step Four: Getting Started

Once the groups are retrieved, Free Agent will display them in the All Groups pane in the upper-left section of the main window.
Scan through the list of groups for ones you want to follow regularly and click the Subscribe button.
Once you have a few selected, click the All Groups pane until it changes to read Subscribed Groups
From the Online menu, choose Get New Headers to download all the message headers in all your subscribed groups. The message headers will show up in Message List pane on the upper-right. There may be several hundred new messages for each group so this operation may take a while. But, since Free Agent retrieves messages in the background, you can use your computer for other tasks while Free Agent is working.
Ok, now that the message headers are retrieved, you probably want to read some of those messages. Well there are a couple of ways to do this:
- Simply double click the message will retrieve it.
- With the mouse select a few messages, then click the Get Selected Messages button on the tool bar.
- Highlight a few headers again, press the m key on your keyboard to mark them, then from the Online menu choose Get Marked Messages.
Well you should get the idea now, since there are other ways of retrieving just about everything. The right mouse button also has a nice menu pop-up when under the different panes, so explore or read the help file.

Last Step: Add the Icon

One last thing add the Free Agent icon to your AT&T Worldnet Service Group this will allow you to go straight to Free Agent from there. It can also be used to start dialer and connect you. Your Done!

If you have problems just let me know, and be sure to Read and Heed the warning before adding any additional apps to your AT&T Worldnet Service account. I have learned my lesson the hard way

Best of luck and enjoy your adventure

You can reach me by e-mail at: Doug Miller

Need Additional Help?

If you can't find the answers you need, please try:

The help file for the application you are using.
Our FAQs.
The AT&T Worldnet Help Newsgroups.

Note: AT&T DSL Service support is available at http://dslhelp.att.net

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