Sorry, but I don't think your emoticons are comming back. Don't know the cause, but I'm guessing the information used to organise your custom emoticons has somehow been deleted. You are going to have to put all your emoticons back in the hard way...
I've used emoticon packs before, think I got them form
mess.be. They are awsome, except I never really used them, wasn't nessasary. Excessive custom emoticons annoy the hell out of me...
As for where the emoticons are stored...
quote:
Originally posted by CookieRevised
Your DP's, CE's, ...
Your own Display Pics, Custom Emoticons and Backgrounds and other stuff are all stored in your MSN Messenger application data directory. These 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?'
Contact's DP's, CE's, ...
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 also stored as PNG's. Their filenames are named as CA<6_characters>.BIN.
And this is the exact place where "Display Picture Stealers" will look for the pictures and emoticons of your contacts. So if you delete your temporary internet files 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'