Shoutbox

(in french first, english below...)

Salut à tous,

Je viens de découvrir avec grand plaisir la nouvelle version de Plus! et le décodeur/encodeur de fichiers ressources qui l'accompagne...
J'ai donc extrait les ressources UIB de Live Messenger depuis la section Skins de Plus!, puis décodé celui qui m'intéresse à l'aide de l'outil en de commande, afin d'apporter les modifications dont j'ai besoin.
J'ai réencodé le fichier après modification, mais je ne sais pas où mettre mon fichier UIB pour qu'il soit chargé en lieu et place de l'original...
Faut-il un outil spécial pour l'insérer dans la lib msgsres.dll ?? (lequel ?)
Ou y'a t'il une autre manipulation possible ?
Merci,
@+


--In english now

Hi all,

I just discovered the new Plus! and its resource files decoder/encoder.
So I extracted UIB files by the extract function in the Skins section of Plus!,
and decoded the one I'm interested in using the command-line tool, in order to modify it.
After what, I reencoded it, but I don't know where to put it for Live Messenger to use it instead of the original one...
Do I need a specific tool to insert it in msgsres.dll library ?? (wich tool ?)
Or is there another possible manipulation ?
Thanks,
Bye

--

Kalvados

If you want your modified UIB file to be used as a Messenger Plus! skin, you will not need to touch any DLL file of Messenger. Refer to the Skinning resources on details how to pack a skin for distribution. On the other hand, if you want your UIB file to be inserted into Messenger while Plus! is not installed (thus on any computer with Messenger 2009), you will have to cope with replacing the original 4010 resource in msgsres.dll, which has the number of the window (e.g. 4010 > 947 for the sign-in window) as resource name.

Thank for your answer.
I'm in the second option...
So how to cope with replacing original resource by mine in msgsres.dll ?
I took a look at Reshack but it don't seems to permit this action...

It does permit the action. Follow these steps:

1. Launch an instance of Windows Explorer, UAC-elevated.
   
2. Exit any running instances of Messenger.
   
3. In that Explorer, browse to %ProgramFiles%\Windows Live\Messenger.
   
4. Create a backup of the original msgsres.dll.
   
5. Open the DLL in Resource Hacker.
   
6. Expand the 4010 section.
   
7. Click the "947" resource, and the language id resembling to your Messenger language (e.g. "1033" for English).
   
8. Click "Action", "Replace other resource...".
   
9. Press the button "Open File with New Resource...".
   
10. Search the binary UIB file for 947 on your HDD, and open it.
    
11. At "Resource Type", enter "4010".
    
12. At "Resource Name", enter "947".
    
13. At "Resource Language", enter the number you clicked in step 7.
    
14. Press "Replace".
    
15. Now save the DLL file with "File", "Save".
    
16. Start Messenger to see if the replacement succeeded.

If there are any problems, reply with the error that occurred.

Greaaat !

I didn't know this way of using Reshack.
Your answer was really quick and complete, and it worked fine.
Thank you very much !

However, it brings me another question : is there a way to do the replacement in an automatic way, that would be reliable for neophyte users ?

Replacement of the whole msgsres.dll file seems to be the easier but not the best...
Use Reshacker by command-line (if only possible, I don't know), with a script and the modified files to put into the dll could be a solution...
But I would prefer a lonely program with no need of downloading any additional software... but it's maybe to much work for a little modification...

Any idea or information ?

Thanks again...

Kalvados

Kalvados,

you can use Resource Hacker in an automated way. In fact, this is just what the very popular Transformation Packs like "Vista Transformation Pack", "Vistamizer", and "Flyakite OSX" do to replace images and icons in Windows DLLs.

Vishal Gupta has created a great, yet compact tutorial about using Resource Hacker. His tutorial includes command line options.

Oh, and you are free to redistribute the ResHacker.exe executable along with your creations. At least this is what the packs and patches mentioned above do.

Hope this helps you,
mynetx

quote:

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Originally posted by mynetx
Oh, and you are free to redistribute the ResHacker.exe executable along with your creations.

---

Good news

About the tutorial you mentioned, I found it a few time after my previous post, but the scripting part sounds quite short to me...
I'm currently studying the reshack help file, but as I run Vista I had to download WinHelp32 to be able to open it...

I think it's ok for me now, thanks for your help

++