Protocols/MSNP/Wishlist

Markdown

This page contains a list of things we're seeking or would like to have that would benefit Escargot and the preservation of any content pertaining to MSN Messenger or other platforms we plan to support soon. If you have anything that we outline on our list, or anything else useful that we missed, you can email us at findings.escargot@gmail.com.


# Things we're after
## General

- Any useful documentation about service protocols or infrastructure we haven't been made aware of. All documents for each frontend we have so far can be found in the repo as `notes.txt` files in any subdirectory of `front`, or on [here](protocol-docs) for MSN-specific documents. We're especially after the variety targeting MSN Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger as those protocols, while being documented to some degree, don't exactly have certain aspects of them covered in full or are missing documentation on some services entirely. That's essentially what we want coverage on when we find new documents.

- Programmers that specialize in Python, C++, and/or networking to help out with development for the Escargot server and related services as shown on our [Escargot subgroup](https://gitlab.com/escargot-chat). If you want to help out with anything we already have available, feel free to fork any of the repos and make a merge request for them. We'll most likely use that to consider if you can officially be a part of our team.

- Reverse engineers that can help analyze clients for protocols we support to help us figure out how certain services should work or debug client behavior.

## MSN

- Captures of any sort of Microsoft ABCH (Address Book Clearing House) services. This falls into the category of protocol documentation, and we specifically focus on ABCH as WLM 8 and above heavily use those services for core functions such as contact lists, roaming services, and Groups (also known as Circles). While we have most of these services covered and working on our implementation, we're unclear on certain parts of services we already implement and it doesn't help WLM behaves weirdly when it comes to edge cases with said services (i.e., when you add a contact that doesn't exist on our network). Having clear documentation on ABCH services would help a ton in that regard.

- Any sort of extensive documentation on MSNP18, MSNP21, and beta MSNP protocols (MSNP13, MSNP16, MSNP17, etc.). We focus on these protocols specifically as MSNP18 and MSNP21 had a competent amount of documentation behind them, but sadly it isn't enough that we can have services working 100%. This is especially the case with MSNP21 as by then it heavily relies on XML payload commands to operate and the documentation on them isn't exactly reliable. MSNP13 and MSNP16 have a bare minimum of information floating around, and protocols like MSNP17 have next to no documentation, if any.

- Any internal or lost beta/final builds of MSN Messenger, regardless of if we support it or not. Builds that we believe to have been missing are documented on our [Missing Client Versions page](Missing-Client-Versions). If you have a missing version that is confirmed to be **legitimate** and we haven't outlined it on that page, then we'll accept those too. We'd also be interested in known fake builds so long as you clearly tell us they are so AND that they don't have any sort of malware bundled in. We most likely won't offer fake builds for download officially, but it'd be amusing to have regardless.

- Any lost language edition of any MSN version. A good example of a version suffering this right now is WLM 8.1, which was released in various languages but as of now select language editions are lost and hard to find (these include but aren't limited to Serbian Latin, Bulgarian, Polish, and Latvian).

- Any downloadable Messenger content. This includes but isn't limited to winks, custom emoticons, dynamic or static backgrounds, and profile pictures. While most of these are obtainable and archived already there are still many that haven't been and it'd be nice to have those available in some form again. A good place to start looking if you don't have any on hand is to find any old machine that had Messenger installed back when the service was still up, get a backup tool designed for Messenger installed on it (like [MSN BackUp](https://www.malavida.com/en/soft/msn-backup/)) and use it on any account in hopes it'll have downloadable content on it. Note that because you'll be dealing with real Microsoft accounts that you'll have to get the PUID from [their site](https://account.live.com/editprof.aspx) if the backup tool you use requires it.

- Third party MSN programs. We're mainly referring to utilities and extensions that we don't already have available for download on [our site](https://escargot.log1p.xyz/downloads).

- Offline installers for Messenger Plus! 5 and 6. Installers for these versions do exist, but they're stub installers that refer to files that we haven't been lucky to obtain yet.

- Any builds for version 1 of Messenger Plus. This version of Plus has no public downloads anywhere and while being the first version and only supporting older MSN clients, it's an important version that sets the groundwork for versions after it.

- Any assets pertaining to the original lineup of Messenger games/activities (e.g., Tic Tac Toe, Decision Wheel, any MSN Instant Games game, etc.). You'll have the most luck finding them on an old machine that had Messenger installed on it and looking through its Internet Explorer cache for anything that could be related. For MSN Instant Games, look for anything like `msngame.aspx`, and CAB or Flash files that reference anything pertaining to the games in the filename or when opening it.

## Yahoo

- We aren't after much in terms of Yahoo! Messenger outside of protocol information, but it would be an honor if we could get our hands on most, if not all, original SWF files for Yahoo's audibles. An effort was made to get as many of these as possible a couple years ago on a Yahoo server (l.yimg.com), but at some point the server those were on took them down and only a handful were successfully extracted. Due to the fact that the way Yahoo listed audibles to the client makes modifying the listings to our specifications difficult (digitally signed), having a (mostly) complete collection would help find a way to possibly get the Audibles feature working later down the line. Looking in any old machine's browser cache or Yahoo Messenger files should be a good start.

- ANY region/language edition of ANY Yahoo! Messenger version would be great for us to get our hands on. Like MSN Messenger, Yahoo was released for several languages and regions, but most of those editions have been lost to time, with only a couple of these editions being archived in any capacity. Editions that were officially available included, but are not limited to: UK, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Singaporean, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, and French.

- It'd also be a pleasure to obtain any `Ycontent` response data of any kind. `Ycontent` is a web service Yahoo! Messenger contacted, originally through the domain `insider.msg.yahoo.com`, to get configuration data it needs to function correctly, and also for address book functionality. While we have a good idea of how the service works and most of the responses for its sub-services, there are some sub-services that have yet to be figured out, and some like the `system` configuration while we do have responses for, aren't anything we're exactly looking for (in our case our copy of the `system` configuration for `Ycontent` makes it so that Yahoo! Chat is disabled on most clients, and because it's digitally signed we can't go in and simply fix that). Luckily Yahoo Messenger caches these responses in its program files in its `cache` folder, so finding a machine that was used for Yahoo Messenger at one point or another should be sufficient in finding the response data.

Clients

Efforts have been made to collect and preserve as many known versions of the MSN/WLM clients as possible, however there are many versions which are known to have escaped collection so far (and versions not catalogued that may exist). This list contains a number of versions which are known or suspected to exist but have not been collected. It primarily focuses on English versions, but if you have or can find other languages then those are welcome too.

Currently the following MSN/WLM versions for Windows are not known to have been collected:

*Note: Some versions have been referenced online but may have been only briefly available and/or withdrawn, possible hoaxes, or simply typographical errors of version numbers.*

**MSN Messenger 1.x:**
* 1.0.0867
* 1.0.0870
* 1.0.0874
* 1.0.0881
* 1.0.0885
* 1.0.0886
* 1.0.0892

Note: Many more versions of MSN Messenger 1.x may exist. During this period of development, Microsoft and AOL could not agree that MSN Messenger should be able to access the AIM network. As a result it appears many updates to MSN Messenger were provided to ensure continued compatibility, despite AOL's attempts to block it.

**MSN Messenger 2.x:**
* No specific versions currently known to be missing. 

**MSN Messenger 3.x:**
* 3.0.0080
* 3.0.0285
* 3.6.0028

**MSN Messenger/Windows Messenger 4.x:**
* 4.5.0118
* 4.5.0120
* 4.5.0125
* 4.5.0128 (Only French known to be collected, all others missing)

**MSN Messenger/Windows Messenger 5.x:**
* 5.0.0017 ([Fake](https://www.hardwareheaven.com/community/threads/msn-messenger-v5-0-0017.2131/page-2#post-15497); installer was not signed by Microsoft and contains files copied from version 4.7.0034 among other things)
* 5.0.0132 (Possible fake)
* 5.0.0332
* 5.0.0360
* 5.0.0381
* 5.0.0468
* 5.0.0543
* 5.1.0639
* 5.1.0680
* 5.1.0700
* 5.1.0706 (Only Spanish known to be collected, all others missing)

**MSN Messenger 6.x:**
* 6.0.0263
* 6.0.0503
* 6.1.0155
* 6.1.0202
* 6.1.0203
* 6.1.0207

**MSN Messenger 7.x:**
* No specific versions currently known to be missing. 

**Windows Live Messenger 8.x/2008:**
* No specific versions currently known to be missing. 

**Windows Live Messenger 9.x/14.x (2009):**
* 14.0.8050 (RTW; Only German and French known to be collected, all others missing)
* 14.0.8064 (Only English, Spanish, and French known to be collected, all others missing)
* 14.0.8089 (Only English, Spanish, and Arabic known to be collected)
     * Some languages are currently collected only with the 14.0.8089 Contacts Platform bug fix, or vice versa:
          * Known collected **only** w/ bug fix: Arabic
          * Known collected **only** w/o bug fix: Spanish
     * All other languages are missing both vanilla and bugfix releases.

**Windows Live Messenger 15.x (2011):**
* 15.4.3508 

**Windows Live Messenger 16.x (2012):**
* No specific versions currently known to be missing.