Shoutbox

Hi!

I had to format my computer so I backed up  the Application Data folder because  it has a lot of configuration files to many applications. Now I want to have messenger configured like it was, with all the display pictures, backgrounds and custom emoticons I had. So I copied my MSN Messenger folder from APplication Data to the new Application Data-> Microsoft -> MSN Messenger, replacing that folder. In there, there are all my custom emoticons, backgrounds and display pics in dat files.

The problem is that my messenger doesn't recongnize any of the emoticons, pics and backgroundds I had - it's compeltely reseted as a new installation. So I want to know, if you can help me, what am I missing to reconfigure messenger. It must be possible to change computer or reinstall messenger and configure it like we originally had it. In every folder (backgrounds, customemoticons) there's a map.dat besides all the other dat files (wich are the images as png). I don't know what to do tell messenger to read those files. Their location is exactly the same as when I formatted the computer.

Anyone can help me?

Thanks in advance

It will only work if your account/login name of Windows is the same as before, as this is what is used to encrypt the data in map.dat. If you changed your account name after backup up the data, then MSN Messenger wont be able to decrypt the data in map.dat and therefor can't read the files...

You should have also saved Messenger's registry keys:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\MSNMessenger
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSNMessenger

Thanks for the answers.

In fact, the name of the account now is different. Isn't possible to change the name in the map.dat file?

I didn't back up those registry keys but I have all files that I had in the disk before formatting it.  Maybe I can retrieve those registry keys from those files. Is there a tool or a way to do this?

Thanks for your attention.

Well i dont know if this is an "appropriate" way of getting your things back but it might be the closest way of getting all ur stuff just go to ur number in the application data folder for msn and then in the emoticons backgrounds ect rename the files to .png's and that worked for me before

quote:

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Originally posted by rpOliveira
In fact, the name of the account now is different. Isn't possible to change the name in the map.dat file?

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no, not possible; the entire file is encrypted using your old account name as basis. Also, nobody have been able to encrypt the file back...

quote:

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Originally posted by rpOliveira
I didn't back up those registry keys but I have all files that I had in the disk before formatting it.  Maybe I can retrieve those registry keys from those files.

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nope... Registry keys aren't saved there. In fact, those files have nothing todo with what was in the registry.

quote:

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Originally posted by rpOliveira
Is there a tool or a way to do this?

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nope...

quote:

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Originally posted by chris
Well i dont know if this is an "appropriate" way of getting your things back but it might be the closest way of getting all ur stuff just go to ur number in the application data folder for msn and then in the emoticons backgrounds ect rename the files to .png's and that worked for me before

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yes, but of course you need to readd them again, one by one.

Ok and thanks for your answers! But when I said if it was possible to retrieve information from the files I ment from the files that constitute the registry of the Windows. I have all files of the disk that I formatted so the information of the registry is on some files that hopefully I could retrieve. Isn't there a tool to retrieve keys form files of registry (not current working registry)?

I guess I could do all the work manually again but my problem is that each custom emoticon had a code given by me that i don't know now. So, when reading the chat logs (where codes appear instead of emoticons) I can't now reconstitute the dialog with the right emoticons.

(By the way, is there a log viewer that show emoticons?)

Even if I can't recover my original configuration, is there a way to recover those codes assigned to emoticons? Where are they stored?

Thanks for your attention.

quote:

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Originally posted by rpOliveira
Ok and thanks for your answer! But when I said if it was possible to retrieve information from the files I ment from the files that constitute the registry of the Windows. I have all files of the disk that I formatted so the information of the registry is on some files that hopefully I could retrieve. Isn't there a tool to retrieve keys form files of registry (not current working registry)?

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Yes there are tools which can read the hive files. But this would be very very much work for nothing. Just reconfigure your MSN Messenger again. I'm sure you still know how you set those handfull of options.

As for the settings regarding display pictures, backgrounds, emoticons, nothing of those settings are saved in the registry. So that's why you would have much work for actually nothing when you want to do the above.

quote:

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Originally posted by rpOliveira
I guess I could do all the work manually again but my problem is that each custom emoticon had a code given by me that i don't know now.

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That info (the shortcuts) are also saved in those encrypted map.dat files, not in the registry. So you need to add them one by one again.

quote:

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Originally posted by rpOliveira
(By the way, is there a viewer of the logs that show emoticons?)

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The normal viewer of MSN Messenger itself shows emoticons (that is, the default emoticons). Or for an external logviewer you could try: http://360software.dakotabcn.net/logviewer/

There is no existing log viewer, that I know of, that also can show custom emoticons. Also this wouldn't be of much use as the shortcuts can change for those emoticons. Eg: a year ago you used ":M:" to show a small white emoticon, now you have ":M:" set so it shows a big red emoticon; When you view the old log it will show the big red emoticon at best (if it has access to the shortcut settings and associated emoticons though), not the small white emoticon like it was intended back then.

Thanks again. Welll, that info was the most important issue to recover. Now my logs are incomplete forever and I really feel sorry for that.

I waited for some log viewer that could show custom emoticons and I think this is indispensable. Even if the shortcuts can change, that application shoud let us map the shortcuts to emoticons, and display the logs with that info. This is something very important to the communication and shoud be possible to save the logs with all emoticons to have, at later time, complete understanding of the communication.

If a shortcut was changed, that application could map the origianl shortcut to the emoticons until that date, and map the changes after that date.

This, for me, would be the most important feature to introduce to messenger in the next steps because in every chat, an important part of the process of communicating is being lost.

To code an external application to do that, it is necessary the access to the logs (obviously and esily) but also to the maps of shortcuts and emoticons.

You sais that nobody coul encrypt the file back but it's possible to decrypt it and access those maps?

Thanks for your attention

such logviewers could be made. But as said, not all emoticons will get saved, eg: what about the custom emoticons that your contacts use? You can't view their list of shortcuts or anything. (Although contact's custom emoticons are saved in your cache).

Also, when you save all the pictures of the custom emoticons inside the logs you not only need to alter the way the logs are saved (you wouldn't be able to view them as plain text anymore), but the logs themselfs will be extremely huge.

The whole concept of what you want is possible, but very difficult to pull it off. It's much more difficult to create something like that then it seems on first sight.

quote:

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Originally posted by rpOliveira
You sais that nobody coul encrypt the file back but it's possible to decrypt it and access those maps?

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yep, but not easy. And certainly not easy to explain. More on this can be found here:
http://forums.msnfanatic.com/index.php?showtopic=6910
http://forums.msnfanatic.com/index.php?showtopic=8676
http://forums.msnfanatic.com/index.php?showtopic=9361
http://forums.msnfanatic.com/index.php?showtopic=10112
http://forums.msnfanatic.com/index.php?showtopic=10414