Shoutbox

I have already taken care of the registry keys, it's part of the portable launcher. The problem is that when i execute MsgPlus on a system that it wasn't originally installed on, the hooks don't work, and msn launches without MsgPlus. I get the dialog asking if i want to repaid it. I need to know what's causing this, near as i can tell it's nothing to do with the registry keys. A list of everything MsgPlus does to the system would be really helpful also, if it isn't a problem to provide.

Thanks again, Ehtyar.

well, for once, if I do an update and check this out, if will be for Messenger Plus! Live and Windows Live Messenger.

Messenger Plus! 3 does some global hooking and that may be your very problem. You should have much less difficulties with the latest version if you give it a try (at least, I suppose so).

this dose sound like a good idea.. then we can have it at school!

Unfortunately Patchou it is literally impossible to make msn 8 portable, simple as that, since it cannot be installed on a machine with limited priviges, it cannot be entirely moved to one either. Basically all i require is either a list of things i need to consider when moving MsgPlus from one machine to the next, or a list of operations that the installer performs, most of which i believe i am aware of as i ran the installer under process monitor. A portable version of msn 7.5 is already completed, i just thought it would be nice to add MsgPlus, for hiding the icon etc etc. As always, any help is appreciated.

Thanks, Ehtyar.

[edit]
Also, now that i think about it, it would also be helpful to know of a way to close MsgPlus using SendMessage etc as opposed to terminating the process.
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[edit2]
A friend of mine has found a copy of wlm portable. It is packed into a single executable with thinstall, and unpacking it is beyond my abilities. I'd like to keep working on the portable version 7, as the wlm version doesn't save your settings. If anyone would like a copy of the wlm version, it can be found here. Also unfortunately, it cannot have msnplus added to it, unless someone manages to unpack it. So still any help on adding msnplus to portable msn 7.5 is greatly appreciated.
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I have been looking for a portable Plus for a while, I think it would be a great idea, and very useful to many people.
Ehtyar, are you still working on it, or are you planning to distribute your work?

Hey stu.
I had pretty much given up on this thread, seeing as no one seems particularly interested in helping me figure out what I'm missing. Should i accomplish my goal, The source for the loader (NSIS) and the applications would be released, of course. However, I am not capable of figuring this out on my own.
If you know anyone interested, please direct them to this thread and I will be more than happy to get back to work on this.

Thanks, Ehtyar.

The idea of an official portable Plus! Live is very good, actually. Especially in countries such as mine, where most Internet users still connect from Internet cafes.

quote:

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Originally posted by Ehtyar
Unfortunately Patchou it is literally impossible to make msn 8 portable, simple as that, since it cannot be installed on a machine with limited priviges, it cannot be entirely moved to one either. Basically all i require is either a list of things i need to consider when moving MsgPlus from one machine to the next, or a list of operations that the installer performs, most of which i believe i am aware of as i ran the installer under process monitor. A portable version of msn 7.5 is already completed, i just thought it would be nice to add MsgPlus, for hiding the icon etc etc. As always, any help is appreciated.

Thanks, Ehtyar.

[edit]
Also, now that i think about it, it would also be helpful to know of a way to close MsgPlus using SendMessage etc as opposed to terminating the process.
[/edit]

[edit2]
A friend of mine has found a copy of wlm portable. It is packed into a single executable with thinstall, and unpacking it is beyond my abilities. I'd like to keep working on the portable version 7, as the wlm version doesn't save your settings. If anyone would like a copy of the wlm version, it can be found here. Also unfortunately, it cannot have MsgPlus added to it, unless someone manages to unpack it. So still any help on adding MsgPlus to portable msn 7.5 is greatly appreciated.
[/edit2]

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If you mean the wlm portable from the site you linked to, btw that link is wrong, there wouldn't be much point in unpacking it, there's nothing in there that you can't find already, and if you have thinstall, then you can recreate it yourself, and yes, wlm lite does save your settings, the newest version makes your settings portable, and an unreleased version completely sandboxes everything in a much more orderly manner.

If you're making a portable msn or wlm, it's advised you use thinstall yourself, otherwise you can't have a portable flash and ink, which require installation. If you're having trouble making wlm portable, the reason is wlm requires the vc++ 2005 runtimes, and because they're sxs dlls, they have to be installed on the system, the only way around this is to find or compile your own which don't require loading through a manifest, and can be loaded just be placing them in the program folder, and then you have to open up all the messenger dll/exes, and tear out all the references in the manifests, and that should do it, but again you won't have flash and ink support without thinstall, there is no workaround for those.

As for adding plus support, it's relatively easy with plus 3, simply inject msgplusloader.dll into the messenger process, no need for the exe loader and the system wide hooks, and as for registry entries it just needs the basics on where the plus files are located. However getting plus live to work in thinstall is still a work in progress.

Indeed the link is wrong, thanks for that. However...
WLM  Lite does *NOT* save settings: "does not modify the registry, with the exception of storing your msn settings in hkey_current_user".
An unreleased copy does not do me much good, considering it is *unreleased* and unless it *does* save your settings it still does not accomplish what i would like it to.
I am aware of the manifest based dependencies, which is why msn live cannot be made portable without thinstall, which again does not save settings.
Though thank you for suggesting the dll injection, that will help me out quite a bit if i can find a way to manage it on a limited account with dep activated.

Thanks, Ehtyar.

P.S. This is contingent on the latest version of WLMLite being from msgshit.com dated 06-10-07.

quote:

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Originally posted by Ehtyar
Indeed the link is wrong, thanks for that. However...
WLM  Lite does *NOT* save settings: "does not modify the registry, with the exception of storing your msn settings in hkey_current_user".
An unreleased copy does not do me much good, considering it is *unreleased* and unless it *does* save your settings it still does not accomplish what i would like it to.
I am aware of the manifest based dependencies, which is why msn live cannot be made portable without thinstall, which again does not save settings.
Though thank you for suggesting the dll injection, that will help me out quite a bit if i can find a way to manage it on a limited account with dep activated.

Thanks, Ehtyar.

P.S. This is contingent on the latest version of WLMLite being from msgshit.com dated 06-10-07.

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yes, I know, and it says just as I wrote it, and you quoted "with the exception of storing your msn settings ", hence it saves your msn settings, in the last release, it imports and exports HKCU to a file in the current directory that WLM is located, the key it works with is Software\WLMLite, so it doesn't conflict with the system installed version, therefore making it portable, and any temp files that are exchanged when you login and created custom emoticons, and background are placed in a temp directory where wlmlite is running, hrm, I see, it was never formally updated, if you check the msgshit forums you'll find a post by me with the link, it's version 5, that's the version I'm talking about, I'm guessing they never updated it as they were waiting for version 6, which was to have the more organized sandboxing and of course plus support. I acheived the former, but plus support is still a big problem, I'm hoping patchou can help solve that mystery. If you want the unreleased version let me know, it just doesn't have plus support, it sandboxes everything including registry changes and file changes, and it doesn't ever touch the physical registry, a much better design, but I was holding out for plus support, that's frustrated me to no end.

>>I am aware of the manifest based dependencies, which is why msn live cannot be made portable without thinstall, which again does not save settings.

that's incorrect, it can, you just need a copy of visual studio 2005, and compile your own vc++ runtimes without the check for manifest loading, which is by default, and then remove the entries in the manifest for the runtimes, and place the ones you compiled in the directory, if you need any help just ask, I have them if you need them, you can use them for any program which has this requirement to make it portable, providing you remove the manifest entries, no thinstall required for this

I'm not sure why you think thinstall prohibits saving settings, it doesn't, in thinstall embedded all settings are saved normally to the host system, but you can redirect them using environment variables, and a new feature called symbolic linking, where you can map calls for a directory to another directory (that's used in version 5, link in msgshit board), and thinstall VS (the unreleased version I mentioned uses just this) sandboxes all changes to a subdirectory where the exe is located, making it portable even easier.

>>Though thank you for suggesting the dll injection, that will help me out quite a bit if i can find a way to manage it on a limited account with dep activated.

a limited account shouldn't affect your ability to inject the dll, it's pretty much all msgplus.exe did, it looks for the creation of the messenger process, finds the window, and then injects the loader dll, you're just taking the monitoring process out of the picture, there are several dll injectors out there, take your pick.