How to open a windowslivecontact file.

[Jonas Wauters]

I use win XP pro SP2.
I wanted to keep a conversation but I accidentally closed it.
Now I know that all conversations on you're computer are saved at the computer.
at C:\documents and settings\username\contacts
Well I got there but I can't find a program that is able to read it.
Is there even a way to read it?

Jonas

[Deerpark]

No that is not where the conversations are saved. If you check your settings in Live messenger you'll see they're saved to C:\documents and settings\username\My Documents\My Received Files\your msn username\History. The conversations are saved as xml files.

[Jonas Wauters]

They aren't there where you say.
I checked that the conversations aren't saved at my comp. (Because if I need them I usually save them myself.  )
But I can find them in the place witch I listed.

Jonas

[Deerpark]

If you've set Windows Live to not save conversations then why do you think Live has saved them in your contacts folder? I'm sorry but that just doesn't make any sense to me. Also Windows Live is by default set to encrypt contact data, so getting anything out of those files will be almost impossible.

[Jonas Wauters]

Well I know its ALMOST impossible but that's just what I like to do: Do things that are almost impossible.
Well than I'll not be able to recover that conversation.
The folder witch I'm talking about is hidden and I do believe they are the conversations.

Jonas

[Deerpark]

And I don't think conversations are stored there. Simply because if MS was storing conversations without the user's consent they'd be heading straight for yet another lawsuit. I think the files just stores contact information so Live doesn't have to download it from the server every time you log on.

But good luck with opening the files. You'll need to reverse engineer Live to get the decryption key if they indeed are encrypted. That'll be one *censored* of a learning experience.

[Deerpark]

Btw. I just noticed you can disable the encryption in Live under Options --> Security.
The contact files are xml with a chunk of binary data. Don't think there's enough to store conversations.

[Jonas Wauters]

That'll be one h**l of a learning experience.

That is what its all about.
That is what I want to do.
And actually recovering that conversation is less important then learning how to do it.
When you change that security setting it changes into a contact file.
Witch I also can't open.
And if you say that it isn't a conversation than I believe you.
As you know much more than I do.
Well it was worth trying

Jonas

[Deerpark]

You should be able to open the decrypted contact file in notepad and have a look. There isn't much to see but there you go.
Oh I didn't mean to put you of discovering things, I just don't think you're very likely to succeed in this case. But I might be wrong, it wouldn't be the first time.
Who knows, if you do some serious searching you might find a way of making some sense of that chunk of binary data.

[Jonas Wauters]

Ok I think that is a bit to hard to read.
And as it has no other goal than to read contact info I'll not be looking for info to read it.
so this time you're wright (again) 

Jonas

[patio]

Look What i Found