MSN Personal Song Message

[CoePSX]

Hello All.

I was trying to find out how Winamp changes the MSN Messenger music song message.

It sends WM_COPYDATA messages to a hidden MSN window with classname "MsnMsgrUIManager". The data pointed by LPARAM is a COPYDATASTRUCT with the number 0x547 in the dwData field. This is a number MSN uses to identify personal message changes.

The string pointed by the lpData field is a unicode string with the following format: "Winamp \ 0Music\ 01\ 0{0}\ 0Text_here\ 0\ 0\ 0\ 0\ 0" (no spaces between backslashes and zeroes). These \ 0s are not nulls. They are actually backslashes and zeroes.

Googling around I found some pieces of code. I had some problems making it work, but I found out what the trick was. The cbData field of the COPYDATASTRUCT must be EXACTLY the size of the string pointed by lpData. If it's 1 byte bigger than it won't work. I wrote a little C source code and ported it to AutoIt.

Arguments:

$iType: 0 for music icon, 1 for game icon and 2 for office icon.

$bEnable: True to show the message or False to make it return to the normal state.

$szText: The text you want to show, like "My song - My artist"

expandcollapse popup

Func ChangeMSNMessage ($iType, $bEnable, $szText)
    Local Const $szFormat = "Winamp\%s\%d\{0}\%s\\\\\"
    Local Const $WM_COPYDATA = 0x4A
    Local $szType
    Local $szMessage
    Local $iSize
    Local $pMem
    Local $stCopyData
    Local $hWindow

    ;; Format the message ;;
    Switch ($iType)
        Case 1
            $szType = "Games"
        Case 2
            $szType = "Office"
        Case Else
            $szType = "Music"
    EndSwitch
    $szMessage = StringFormat ($szFormat, $szType, $bEnable, $szText)
    
    ;; Create a unicode string ;;
    $iSize = StringLen ($szMessage) + 1
    $pMem = DllStructCreate ("ushort[" & $iSize & "]")
    For $i = 0 To $iSize
        DllStructSetData ($pMem, 1, Asc (StringMid ($szMessage, $i, 1)), $i)
    Next
    DllStructSetData ($pMem, 1, 0, $iSize)
    
    ;; Create the COPYDATASTRUCT ;;
    $stCopyData = DllStructCreate ("uint;uint;ptr")
    DllStructSetData ($stCopyData, 1, 0x547) ;dwData = MSN magic number
    DllStructSetData ($stCopyData, 2, ($iSize * 2)) ;cbData = Size of the message
    DllStructSetData ($stCopyData, 3, DllStructGetPtr ($pMem)) ;lpData = Pointer to the message
    
    ;; Send the WM_COPYDATA message ;;
    $hWindow = DllCall ("user32", "hwnd", "FindWindowExA", "int", 0, "int", 0, "str", "MsnMsgrUIManager", "int", 0)
    While ($hWindow[0])
        DllCall ("user32", "int", "SendMessageA", "hwnd", $hWindow[0], "int", $WM_COPYDATA, "int", 0, "ptr", DllStructGetPtr ($stCopyData))
        $hWindow = DllCall ("user32", "hwnd", "FindWindowExA", "int", 0, "hwnd", $hWindow[0], "str", "MsnMsgrUIManager", "int", 0)
    WEnd
    
    ;; Cleanup ;;
    $pMem = 0
    $stCopyData = 0
EndFuncoÝ÷ ØZ+¶,z)íz·¬µçbØ^
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MSNPSM_example.au3

Edited March 23, 2007 by CoePSX

[Cyber]

FANTASTIC!

thanks!

[nend]

YOUR A GOD!!!!

Thanks!

[arcker]

excellent implementation if the last dllstruct

these evolution are just too cool and let us play easier with api and dll

nice idea you made

well done

[moises-l]

how can you get the music name to show in msn personal message?

thanks

[therks]

Hmm.. doesn't work with Windows Live Messenger? Ah well, neat idea anyway.

[Pascal257]

Hmm.. doesn't work with Windows Live Messenger? Ah well, neat idea anyway.

Hmmm... It works for me with Windows Live Messenger also...

btw: cool UDF! Using it for my Player =)

[James]

This rocks. I love it when people ask how its done!

[therks]

Hmmm... It works for me with Windows Live Messenger also...

Weird. Maybe I'm misunderstanding how it's supposed to work. It's just supposed to change my personal message right? That string of text that appears after my user name in other people's contact lists? Do I check off "Show what I'm listening to" ? I've tried it checked and unchecked and there doesn't seem to be a difference.

Nevermind, nevermind, nevermind, nevermind... I'm a moron. Heh. I was copying the script from the code tags in the initial post and trying that, even though right after the code CoePSX says the forum erased the \ 0's and I never put them back in.

So yeah, I grabbed the attachment and it works great.

Sorry for being an idiot!

Edited April 22, 2007 by Saunders

[gsb]

Nice job.

I modified it slightly.

Put together a file of quotes... you know, dumb little sayings.

Then modified the code as follows:

Dim $list =  StringSplit( String( FileRead( "MSN_quotes.txt" ) ), @LF, 1 )
While (1)
    ChangeMSNMessage (0, True, $list[ Random(1, $List[0], 1) ])
    Sleep (30000)
WEnd

It now displays random quotes every 30 seconds.

...just to keep it "Windows Live..." you know.

Thanks for the nice function.

gsb

Edited April 25, 2007 by gsb

[Noobster24]

Wow, looks nice, but it doesn't change my personal message in WLM (Windows Live Messenger v8.1). I used the example code you provided, but it doesn't change my personal message in any way.

Anyone got it working with WLM?

[Pascal257]

Wow, looks nice, but it doesn't change my personal message in WLM (Windows Live Messenger v8.1). I used the example code you provided, but it doesn't change my personal message in any way.

Anyone got it working with WLM?

As I wrote above it's working perfectly with WLM... (its the same as MSN)

You might post your code so I can take a look on it.

[Achilles]

Good job on this! That's pretty sweet!

[MaudKip]

That is a really cool idea.

I am going to mess with people lol.

[Demonshade]

this is pretty sweet.

too bad the

Dim $list =  StringSplit( String( FileRead( "MSN_quotes.txt" ) ), @LF, 1 )
While (1)
    ChangeMSNMessage (0, True, $list[ Random(1, $List[0], 1) ])
    Sleep (30000)
WEnd

doesnt display stuff such as @hour and @min. does anyone know how to make it do that?

[BrettF]

Look at the attachment. Also, I didn't see it, but then maybe I didn't look hard enough. You had to set it to be show what song is playing?

[xJapx]

Look at the attachment. Also, I didn't see it, but then maybe I didn't look hard enough. You had to set it to be show what song is playing?

Yes, atleast it didn't work for me when I hadn't set it to show what song is playing.

Cool script between, fun to play around with! muttley

[Hest]

Nice job.

I modified it slightly.

Put together a file of quotes... you know, dumb little sayings.

Then modified the code as follows:

Dim $list =  StringSplit( String( FileRead( "MSN_quotes.txt" ) ), @LF, 1 )
While (1)
    ChangeMSNMessage (0, True, $list[ Random(1, $List[0], 1) ])
    Sleep (30000)
WEnd

It now displays random quotes every 30 seconds.

...just to keep it "Windows Live..." you know.

Thanks for the nice function.

gsb

Can anyone help me make this random file, show hour and minute also.

If you put in @HOUR & ":" & @MIN & ":" & @SEC in the .txt file, it shows up as text and not as the time. Any way to change that?

I want it to show the time, then some random lines of text and then back to the time again and so on.

Edited December 15, 2008 by Hest

[SaphuA]

Yep, pretty cool.

Any way to change the personal message aswell, instead of the icon-message as you're doing now?

Also, why do you have to give a media players name in the string? And what happens if a media player updates the text? Is it still able to?

Edited December 16, 2008 by SaphuA

[BrettF]

As far as I know you can't. The messenger API does not support it.

Cheers,

Brett