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Originally posted by CookieRevised
Your DPs, CEs, ...

For MSN and Windows Messenger:
Your own display pics, custom emoticons and backgrounds and other stuff are all stored in your MSN Messenger application object storage directory. The files have the extension .TMP or .DAT, but are actually GIFs, JPGs or PNGs (depending on type of content). The directories are different from OS to OS and depend on what you're exactly looking for:
CookieRevised's reply to 'where is custom stuff stored?'

For Windows Live Messenger:
The Windows Live Messenger object storage directory is split up into the old one (see above; it is still used for other things) and a slightly new location. Your own display pics, custom emoticons, backgrounds, and other stuff are now stored with the extension DT2. They are still GIFs, JPGs or PNGs though (depending on type of content).
The new location is:
%userprofile%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Messenger\<your_windows_live_id>\ObjectStore


Contact's DPs, CEs, ...

For MSN and Windows Messenger:
The Display Pictures and Custom Emoticons you've recieved from your contacts are stored in your cache in your "Temporary Internet Files"-folder. These are stored as PNGs. The filenames are named as CA<6_characters>.BIN.

For Windows Live Messenger:
The cache directory is now located at %temp%\MessengerCache and will contain PNGs and GIFs (gifs are used for the animated emoticons only).
Files are named with a hash and have no extension. But if you browse that directory with a graphics program which can reconize graphic formats by their contents you can easly pick the ones you need and copy them.

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And thus those are the exact places where "Display Picture Stealers" will look for the pictures and emoticons of your contacts. So if you delete your temporary internet files (or the MessengerCache folder if you use WLM) then no DP-stealer will find anything because nothing is there to find. For more details see:
CookieRevised's reply to 'How do CE/DP stealers work and do I need them?'
CookieRevised's reply to 'Non-Spyware CE/DP stealer/exporters'

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