[Doggie]

well i changed my resource editing tool and finally got what most people are noticing :P. see what happens

[LipoToid]

You cannot indiscriminately make any (IPC) Inter Process Communicating calls from
( your PROC ) to an out-of-process ( that's Microsoft's WLM ) to it's resource
memory or the image memory . The indirection of the RLE compression and the
changing of the image attributes while in transition will not be available to ( your PROC ).
There would have to be an ( Mutually Inclusive Privileged ) integrated within an ( IPC )
between the 2 ( PROC's ) for this to be established. It's true that you can acquire a handle
to a specified out-of-proc window control but that doesn't gain the access to the 4g allocated
to the other PROC's process.

Can skinning be done based off of what has been discussed, YES.
But when I set out to try a look at this original request I found that my solution BREAKS
Microsoft's EULA for MSN or WLM messenger's. Whether or not it was Microsoft's code or
someone elses, this just ain't ethically Professional much less against the standard laws to
anyone's EULA. Just because a developer can do the requested doesn't give one the ability
to take advantage of another person's software property or rights.

Right before my posting this I seen this comment in another forum just posted today:

Quote

Pm me on my W2M (Signiture) Ill tell you how to rip off Blue Mountain COntents

IMO, something is terrible wrong with the actions of others and should not be supported on
msnfanatic.com for all to assume - Go Ahead - Nobody Cares.

I hope that no one get upset with my conculsion about this subject.
I personally should have thought this out in the early beginnings of my
comments and well before making them, in regards to this subject of skinning.

TheBlasphemer, I owe you an appology for my enticing words to set you off
in regards to the beginning. Oh man, sometimes I just should keep my comments
to myself. I enjoy my development projects and sometimes helpful notations
but not like that of my current expressions.

Everyone should take a serious look at Microsoft's EULA for MSN or WLM messenger's.
If you can't honor Microsoft's rights, then who will you pay honor to?

Respectfully,
LipoToid

[Doggie]

well lipotoid, many things technically break their EULA, patches and skins for example are one as its modifying the original exe and sometimes associated files. Mean by all means share if you wish but if you dont wish to, thats fine then.

[LipoToid]

Doggie, I appreciate the way that you said that, thanks.

Microsoft has shown quiet abit of grace for all.
Every person has to make his/her balance in life.
I will withhold from any further comments.

Respectfully,
LipoToid

[theunknown]

Hey all... its my hope that the lack of posts dosnt reflect the progress (if any) that has been made on this little issue.

So, has anyone made any progress on the topic of decoding the RLE format?

I'll remain positive :) , until im given reason otherwise.

-The Unknown

This post has been edited by theunknown: 16 November 2005 - 02:10 PM

[absorbation]

http://www.ivanview....-converter.html how about that?

Also would changing the ufiles to idres=blah again would that help include pngs?

[theunknown]

ive worked everything out except being able to READ the rle graphics. If someone devised a means to convert them from this RLE format to PNG format skinning WLM8 would be no different than skinning MSN Messenger 7.

as for the link... we've established its not standard Run-Length-Encoding, we need to find out what has been changed in the algorithm.

-The Unknown

This post has been edited by theunknown: 19 December 2005 - 03:23 AM

[ipab]

perhaps we are looking at this the wrong way.

TheSteve as I see that you are reading this thread, perhaps you can help us. I think our answer might also lie in decrypting the highcont.thm file.

@dogge: want to please give me a copy of your resource editing tool :)

This post has been edited by ipab: 19 December 2005 - 04:40 AM

[TheSteve]

Since you asked so nicely :)
*breaks out ollydbg*

EDIT: highcont.thm is a resource dll

This post has been edited by TheSteve: 19 December 2005 - 04:44 AM

[ipab]

so it has a chance to be used as a way to apply the 'themes'. Considering that the rle extension seems to be applied in memory. (The colorization of it anyway)....right?

This post has been edited by ipab: 19 December 2005 - 04:56 AM

[TheSteve]

ipab, on Dec 19 2005, 01:49 PM, said:

so it has a chance to be used as a way to apply the 'themes'. Considering that the rle extension seems to be applied in memory. (The colorization of it anyway)....right?

As far as I can tell, currently it doesn't load that module, but yes, I imagine in the future I can be used for skinning.

Here's some of what I've found out so far:

MSN loads ?CreateRLE@Value@DirectUI@@SGPAV12@PBX@Z from MSNCORE.dll
This function can be interpreted like this:
DirectUI::Value * DirectUI::Value::CreateRLE(void const *)

Inside the CreateRLE call, it calls a function at MSNCore.59116AFB which seems to call TlsGetValue with the value from "?g_dwElSlot@DirectUI@@3KA" (unsigned long DirectUI::g_dwElSlot).
This value seems to always be 0x20.
The return of this function looks like (TlsGetValue(g_dwElSlot)+8).
After it returns (we are still in CreateRLE) it calls "?Alloc@SBAlloc@DirectUI@@QAEPAXXZ" (void * DirectUI::SBAlloc::Alloc(void)).
This function, I assume allocates memory for the Value object.
After that function it appears to do some binary operations.

MOV ECX,DWORD PTR SS:[EBP+0x8]	  ;EBP+8 is the first parameter (in this case it's the "RLE" data)
AND BYTE PTR DS:[EAX+0x10],0xFE	 ;EAX is the return value from the Alloc function
									;0FE and 10 are both HEX
MOV WORD PTR DS:[EAX+0x4],0x10	 
MOV DWORD PTR DS:[EAX+0xC],ECX
MOV DWORD PTR DS:[EAX+0x8],0x1

After that it returns from the CreateRLE function. So now we have a pointer to the Value object, but since we don't have any real information on this object, what do we do from here? Ideas?

[absorbation]

Q: [230] to Nicole: anything other then this "bloated" GUI.. no one seems to like it, and you don't get much of a change of skin or theme if you will. I wish it could take on your current Windows theme.
A: We have gotten a postive and negative feedback on the UI. We are looking at making it better. Keep the feedback coming.

that is what one of the msn team said, so can we expect a full skinable program to be made instead of patching?

[ipab]

Wow, another roadblock. Ill try to think of something. All I can think of right now is just randomly edit **** to see what happens (well not entirely random, more of an analytical random).

<offtopic> That chat was a worthless P.O.S. None of our realy questions seemed to be answered, all they kept saying was "Good idea, thanks for your suggestion".
</offtopic>

btw Steve, do you have a wlm invite.

This post has been edited by ipab: 20 December 2005 - 05:16 PM

[Fizical]

i had asked them about the rle files and why things were changed from the old system however nicole from the messenger team said she didnt know what i was talking about. i asked about 5 or 6 questions relating to skinning from do any of you use skins to if the skin factory could be employed for skins in the future like WMP and of course about the rle. i got 3 responses and all totally useless.

so its off to the newsgroups for me to try and get somewhere there and give some suggestions :)

[Doggie]

they did also comment that support for theming wont be expected. plus patching it will disable folder sharing etc due to the digital signature.

[ipab]

yeh, noticed the sharing folders the other day. Didn't notice that before since i hate the feature and always had it disabled. In my opinion its a small price to pay for a different UI.

[Doggie]

well its pointless doing that to lose a good function. there are other ways to make your client beautiful

[TheSteve]

doggie, on Dec 22 2005, 12:58 PM, said:

there are other ways to make your client beautiful

You bet there are. :evil:
I hope to have it done soon.

[ipab]

*waits eagerly*

Hope this is good :)

[Doggie]

I can personally say already from what I've tried steve, its very good and beautiful, you guys will drool :)