Geek Question: Transfering MSN Emoticons.

[RiderInBlack]

Problem: Trish has heaps of MSN emoticons on her old PC and we want to transfer them to my PC for her MSN Log-In (have these 2 PC's linked via a 4-port Router). Have done a search with "emoticon" in it in her PC to see if we can find where they are stored, to copy them and transfer them, with no luck. Without sending them one by one via MSN, is there another quicker way of doing this?

I also lost a fair few MSN emoticons when I updated from "MSN Messenger" to "Windows Live Messenger" and would like to find these as well.

[MOTOXXX]

not sure if this applies but teh documents and settings transfer wizard is a good one when it works

[SpinFx]

Have a look in C/drive....Program files/ microsoft shared....... or C/drive Program Files/ MSN........ should be in a program files folder unless you've saved them manually somewhere else. You can also open up emoticons.com and drag directly to file as you do in KB.????

[RiderInBlack]

Have a look in C/drive....Program files/ microsoft shared....... or C/drive Program Files/ MSN........ should be in a program files folder unless you've saved them manually somewhere else.

When the search did not work with "emoticon", I manually looked in C/drive Program Files/MSN Messenger (and similar programme listings) in there and didn't find any thing that looked like a group of similar file types that could have been the emoticons.

[Wasp]

google is your best bet mate, i am 100% positive its possible and ive done it just cant tell you how off top of my head

also you might find its c:\documents and settings\username\application data\Microsoft\MSN Messenger\yourusernumber

pays to google first though to make sure you do it right

[Deviant Esq]

I've done it before as well. Typed up the instructions on how to do it so I'd remember how to do it again... but the document is on my PC back in New Zealand unfortunately. The directory Wasp posted sounds about right from memory. Problem is that if several people have logged on to the MSN messenger on that PC it could be a struggle to find the right user number...

Edit: Found the instructions saved in my Hotmail saved messages folder. I used MSN Technical Support. The message is edited to fix Engrish and to simplify:

To save a copy of emoticons, please follow the steps below:

1. Sign out of MSN Messenger.
// Steps 2 and 3 pointless... just create a folder you want to use as the emotes backup.
Now, in Windows Explorer:
4. On the "Tools" menu, click "Folder Options," and then click the "View" tab.
5. In the "Advanced Settings" box, select the "Show hidden files and folders" check box.
6. Clear the "Hide extensions for known file types" check box, and then click "OK."
7. Close Windows Explorer.

The steps above will make sure that you are able to access the folder. We need to make sure that the folder is not hidden so that you can access it. The steps below will now tell you where your custom emoticons are saved.

Note: You can follow the steps I have provided below if you are going to transfer the emoticons to the same account using a different computer. If you are going to transfer the emoticons in a new account, we need to know the e-mail address of the new account so that we can provide you the correct folder to access.

For each account that is used to sign in to MSN Messenger, it has an equivalent unique numeric ID. For your account, [erased@hotmail.com], the unique numeric ID is "[erased]". You need to access the folder "[erased]" so that we can get the custom emoticons that are saved there.

To copy the file for Microsoft Windows 2000 and Windows XP

a. Click "Start," click "Run," type:

%appdata%\Microsoft\MSN Messenger

b. Open the folder that says "[erased]" (the numeric ID number).

Note: %appdata% represents the location of the Application Data folder. // Wasp mentioned this in his post

8. Open the folder "CustomEmoticons" inside the folder "[erased]".
9. Select the emoticon you want to back up, and copy it (either ctrl + c or right click, "Copy"). Paste it in your backup folder... either ctrl + v or right click, "Paste".

Hopefully those steps will be enough.
You should be able to work out which user ID number is yours - the CustomEmoticons folder will actually have files in it. You can copy these to someone else's login (if you know their user ID number) or back them up.

[Wasp]

Problem is that if several people have logged on to the MSN messenger on that PC it could be a struggle to find the right user number...

Actually, im the only one who has logged on to my laptop and there were about 30 different userid folders =/ had to select groups of them till i found mine as all the others were completly empty....