Carry on using MSN 7.5 after a forced upgrade
Sep 16, 2007 Tech
So the other day I went to login to msn (using version 7.5) and it asked me to upgrade before i could login. So either I upgrade or dont login, nice.
Ive never really liked the WLM Versions really. mostly because MsgPlus! has removed a much used feature from the newer version of the app which is compatible with the newer versions of WLM. I would use WLM if Plus! added this feature back in. although I believe it was removed because WLM aoffered the function in itself anyway. (which isnt exactly true but still)
Anyways, on to the good stuff…
To carry on using MSN 7.5 or any other version that requires you to upgrade before logging in.
Close MSN down from the tray so its not running at all.
Open Reshacker and open msnmsgr.exe from the MSN Folder in program files.
Click the + next to “Version info”, then click the + next to “1″ and finally click “1033″.
On the left hand side you will see version information for the file.
replace the line that says
VALUE “FileVersion”, “[your file version]“
with
VALUE “FileVersion”, “8.5.0324″
[your file version] will be the version of msn your currently have and want to carry on using.
also replace this line
VALUE “ProductVersion”, “[your file version]“
with
VALUE “ProductVersion”, “8.5.0324″
again, [your file version] will be whatever your msn version is.
Once you’ve done that click “compile script” and then click “file” > “Save as” and save it over the original msn executable.
This will fool the msn servers into thinking that your version of msn is the “latest and greatest” WLM version.
Start MSN again and login as normal, and you should have no problems.
Mess.be suggests you could use a HEX editor to do this too, but I think this way is easier myself.
Just make sure you dont accept any webcam requests from people you dont know, as this is why the upgrade was forced, there was an explit while allowed remote code execution and injection. Since your still using the same version the exploit is not patched, but if your smart enough to reshack your own msn executable I think it would be safe to say you would do this by default anyway.
An alternative method would be to download the newly released MSN version 7.0 (which includes the webcam exploit patched) and run it in win2000 compatibility mode, while this is a lot easier than hacking your current version with reshacker, it is a step down from MSN 7.5.
Enjoy! 
Tags: forced upgrade, msn, upgrade, wlm