Hacking MSN games with MSN messenger 6.0

as you all know MS has a messenger version for almost every given culture, the latest version has some nice features like the ability to play games with your contacts.

when I clicked the "play a game" menu item on my messenger I got only one game "tic-tac-toe", now I know there are more games since MS published it, so hacking a bit with the new messenger xml files revealed the following:

1. this version relies heavily on web services. it uses them even to customize the games you play and publishes only the one that match your windows culture.

2. you can fool msn but only after installing it, picking up a different language for your MSN messenger has nothing to do with the culture inside the xml file.

now let's go and make the change

you'll need to get to the xml, go to the following directory on you HD "C:\Documents and Settings\%USERNAME%\Application Data\Microsoft\MSN Messenger". there you'll see a directory with numbers on it (previous version of msn created directories with you passport login name) . get into the directory with numbers in it and pick the file "ConfigCache.Xml", inside it there is a section like this:

<LocalizedConfig>
    <EditorialConfig>
    </EditorialConfig>
    <MsnTodayConfig>
     <MsnTodayURL>https://g.msn.com/5mehe_il/40</MsnTodayURL>
     <MsnTodaySiteID></MsnTodaySiteID>
    </MsnTodayConfig>
    <AppDirConfig>
        <AppDirPageURL>         https://appdirectory.messenger.msn.com/AppDirectory/Directory.aspx?L=he-il
        </AppDirPageURL>
        <AppDirSeviceURL>            https://appdirectory.messenger.msn.com/AppDirectory/AppDirectory.asmx
        </AppDirSeviceURL>
    </AppDirConfig>
</LocalizedConfig>

 

notice the asmx!!!! isn't that a beauty?

change the end of the <AppDirPageURL> from the specified local to "en-us", logoff from the messenger and log back in..

and you see a list like this:

MSN Games

now , you can play games with contacts that didn't hack their msn ...have fun