Does anyone know if Microsoft/MSN has a page that will detect you OS in order to determine which version of MSN Messenger to install? I'm think of one that they have for Windows Media Player (WMP). Going to the URL will test your OS, if you have Window XP it will being downloading WMP 10, however if you have Windows 98SE/Me/2000 it will begin installing WMP9.

If MS does have such a page, can someone please send me the link.

Thanks

WHats your OS i could telkl you for MSN you can dwonload MSN or almost all OS mirosoft and mac it all depends on ram and pentium and w/e mac uses

The main download site detects your OS automatically.

http://messenger.msn.com automatically checks your operating system when you visit the page and shows you the version you need to download. However I do know this works with Windows XP, I am not sure if it works with older or mac operating systems to detect the version you need, but from what I have heard it does.

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Originally posted by Anubis
http://messenger.msn.com automatically checks your operating system when you visit the page and shows you the version you need to download. However I do know this works with Windows XP, I am not sure if it works with older or mac operating systems to detect the version you need, but from what I have heard it does.

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Originally posted by Lee Jeffery
what would be the point in an OS check that didnt support certain OS's?

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Originally posted by Anubis
With older or different operating systems (eg Windows 3.1 is a good example) calling the name of the operating system works differently than with newer ones.

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With most browsers, the OS is sent in the UserAgent field or some such similar field in the HTTP request. If the OS isn't recognised, or that info isn't sent, the site will usually offer a manual choice.

Anyway, if that site detects you're on a Mac, it should go to the MSN Messenger for Mac page.

Edit
My UserAgent field is as follows:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.10) Gecko/20050716 Firefox/1.0.6 Web-Sniffer/1.0.21

This says I'm using a Mozilla-based browser (Firefox 1.0.6 specifically), on Windows NT 5.1 (Windows XP), and to favour US English pages (depite being British). And I think the Web-Sniffer thing is because I used http://web-sniffer.net/. A regular HTTP GET probably won't have that bit.

Thanks for the replies. I am aware that the MSN Messenger download page detects the OS, but im looking for a page that will detect and automatically begin the appropriate download. Does anyone know on which of the MSN Messenger download pages this is done? Is it done on the main page (the first one) or on the one where the download begins?

This reason i want this info is for my website, i would like to link to a download of MSN Messenger, but would like a page that will automatically begin the download. I have used this method for the Windows Media Player download, and thus would like one for MSN Messenger as well

RileyM

AFAIK, such a page doesn't exist. However, you could always write your own (if you're on a PHP-enabled server) that redirects to the download. Thing is, for me, when I go to 'messenger.msn.com', it detects the OS then.

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Originally posted by raceprouk
AFAIK, such a page doesn't exist. However, you could always write your own (if you're on a PHP-enabled server) that redirects to the download. Thing is, for me, when I go to 'messenger.msn.com', it detects the OS then.

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May I note that automatically starting the download without the user's confirmation is a very bad thing to do...

For all you know the user is downloading the file from an OS he isn't going to install it on. Also, with such auto-downloading the user might get the impression that the file will work on every OS/Computer, again not a good thing...[*]

And, MSN Messenger comes in different languages. Again the same story, it is well possible that the user doesn't want to download the version you autpmatically provide.

Always let the user confirm and always have a manual overwrite option so the user can change his preferences.

The question is also: why do you want to provide a download of your own? Just link to http://messenger.msn.com/ or the correct http://microsoft.com/downloads/ page. This is also good in the sense that there might be more info on those pages which the user should read/know...

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*: Also know that MS provides installers of MSN Messenger which work on all Windows versions. You reconize these by their slightly larger downloadsize (because they include one installer for Win9x and one for Win NT) and by their name...

versions provided by http://messenger.msn.com/
blahblah95.exe => Installer specifically for Win95
blahblahNT.exe => Installer specifically for Win2K (and in previous major versions also for NT4)
blahblah9X.exe => Installer specifically for WinME, 98
blahblah.exe => Installer specifically for WinXP or for all OS's (depends on what build it is)

versions provided by http://microsoft.com/downloads/
blahblah.exe => Installer for all OS's

on both sites it could happen that you come across:
blahblahDL.exe => Installer without InstMsi.exe
InstMsi.exe is the Windows Installer needed to install those MSI packages. It automatically checks/updates/whatever the Windows Installer.

eg:
MSN Messenger 7.5.0299
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?F...-977a-5d49e5a4ecda
MSN Messenger 7.0.0813
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?F...-bb0b-efb7668b4ff7
MSN Messenger 7.0.0777
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?F...-b6ee-bf0ec49f393a
MSN Messenger 6.2.0208
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?F...-9f05-1ff3c799bb10
MSN Messenger 5.0.0575 (win95 only)
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?F...-b24a-86edffcdba02
MSN Messenger 5.0.0575 (win2k/NT4 only)
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?F...-866b-e206a84f0df8
etc...

To know exactly which file is for which OS, you need to open the archive (as that is what those exe actually are) with winzip or winrar or the likes, and look for InstMsiA.exe and InstMsiW.exe. A is the one for 9x and the likes, W for the higher OS's. (A = ascii version, W = supports unicode)

If you ever come across a file with extension .msi, then it sure is not an official and/or public released version as it doesn't contain any installers and MS will never release such a MSN Messenger package on its own.