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1074 days ago
After playing around with Windows Vista, I decided to look into Windows PE 2.0 (it's based on Windows Vista). Having worked with it for a couple of days, I can say that Windows PE 2.0 is so much better than Windows PE 1.*. As a result I was able to fully integrate the Microsoft .NET Framework v2.0.50727, with the size of the image being increased by only 24MB! (uncompressed the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 takes about 70 MB) That just totally rocks! On the included screenshot you can see that it is able to run an application with Windows Forms and Reflection without any problems at all.
1119 days ago
The Windows Live Messenger team recently gave out a new build of Windows Live Messenger 8.1, which included a couple of fixes to the new Object Store. As Windows Live Messenger 8.1 BETA testers might have noticed, if you upgrade from version 8.1.006x to 8.1.0106 you will lose some custom content (like display pictures, custom emoticons, winks, etc.) which has been installed while using version 8.1.006x. The Messenger team does not and will not support custom content migration from version 8.1.006x to 8.1.0106, so Windows Live Messenger 8.1 BETA testers are pretty screwed on that. Because I experienced that problem, I created a tool which migrates the custom content installed in version 8.1.006x to the proper format of version 8.1.0106. This tool does not delete any of the data already present, it only adds the missing items. To be able to restore the missing data, you need to provide the tool the Passport address and the Unique Passport ID of the account to process. The Unique ...
1147 days ago
Until Windows Vista, one had to change the resources of ntoskrnl.exe to modify the boot screen. Modifying the ntoskrnl.exe executable is, of course, is very sensitive to human error which could render your Windows installation useless. With Windows Vista, the Windows loading process has been overhauled. For example, boot-time graphics were relocated, new native-mode boot-time applications added (winload.exe, winresume.exe) and all critical kernel components have received a digital signature. Because of the digital signatures, tampering with the kernel is no longer possible. Has the customization of the boot graphics come to an end? NO! Multilingual User Interface files With Windows Vista, Microsoft provides new functionalities in the Multilingual User Interface (MUI) area. This new functionality allows developers to separate localized resources (e.g. text strings) from language independent resources (e.g. bitmaps, icons, cursors). Typically, the separate .mui file ...
1149 days ago
Recently, Inky presented me a list of Object Store types (Object Store is the functionality that stores your messenger content [display pictures, emoticons, etc] on your computer) and asked me if I could fill in the blanks. Because I worked the last couple months on a tool that can enumerate all the installed content (the import and export functionality is currently on the to-do list) I was able the complete most of the list. After a small research, I was able to complete the whole list. Value Name Comments 1 Avatar Unknown, but already present since the beginning (MSN Messenger 6.0). 2 Custom Emoticons 3 User Tile Static display pictures. 4 Shared File Unknown, but already present since the beginning (MSN Messenger 6.0). 5 Backgrounds Static backgrounds. 6 History 7 Deluxe Display Pictures Dynamic display pictures. 8 Winks3 Winks. 9 Map File A ...
1165 days ago
Unified User Notification (UUN) was introduced together with Unified Buddy Notification (UBN) in MSNP13, to give clients the ability to exchange data with another without setting up a Switchboard session first. Although MSNP13 isn't the latest version of the protocol, the real purpose of the commands has come to the light with the introduction of Windows Live Messenger 8.1. If you send a UUN command to a buddy via your Notification Server, his or her client will receive it as a UBN command from the Notification Server. When sending a UUN command to the server, 4 parameters are needed: a transaction identifier, the receiving buddy's e-mail address, the type of the data being send and the payload length. The type parameter can have the following values: 1 - Data for the Shared Folders sharing engine (in particular for the Synchronization Negotiation Manager). 2 - Not yet observed, so still unknown. 3 - MSNSLP data for starting a P2P session (in particular for ...
