Saving Display Pictures Made w/ Webcam

So this actually pertains to Windows Live Messenger, as it allows you to make
and take animated and still images (or, for us geeky people, .jpeg's and
..gif's). Now, I've taken some really funny pictures, and made some really
nice looping animated display pictures that I'd love to save to my hard
drive... but I don't know how to access the folder containing the saved
webcam images. Does anyone know?

Actually, they're PNGs (and GIFs) ;)

All of these (plus emoticons, winks, etc.) are stored in your ObjectStore. This folder will
be at;

on XP:
\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application
Data\Microsoft\Messenger\windowsliveid\ObjectStore
on Vista/7:
\Users\username\AppData\Local\Microsot\Messeger\wi ndowsliveid\ObjectStore

Where username is your Windows username and windowsliveid is your Windows Live ID e-mail
address. Additionally, some of these folders will be hidden by default, to see them simply
press the Alt key on the keyboard in any Windows Explorer window to bring up the toolbar,
click Tools, then Folder Options, then the View tab, and then choose 'Show hidden files and
folders'. After click OK, they should appear with the other folders.

Once you're there, what you're looking for will be in the UserTile (display pictures and
webcam shots/"videos") or WebcamDDP (the dynamic display pictures with the emoticon
assignments). Within either of these folders, the files you're looking for are the .dt2
files.

In the UserTile folder, these will either be PNGs or GIFs depending on whether they're static
(PNG) or animated/videos (GIFs). There's a few strategies to figure out which is what, but I
personally just pop open Internet Explorer and drag the files into the browser to see what
they are. Also, as a starting point, you can also go by size (the GIFs are going to be
larger).

In the WebcamDDP folder, the dt2 files are in fact CABinet files. You can copy and rename
them to .cab if you prefer, but personally I just drag these ones to WinRAR which opens them
regardless of extension. Inside the cabs, you'll again find PNGs and GIFs.

Hey,

Glad I could be helpful!

Thank you SO very much!

It took me a little while to figure it out (okay, possibly just a little
over an hour), due to the hidden folders... I thought about them, but didn't
keep them in mind while searching... until I couldn't find the folder; I
reread your post multiple times then it finally hit me: the files are hidden,
just type it in! I'm now taking the time to import the files into WinRAR and
just doing a hit-or-miss with checking the file names; if it's one or
another, they'll either open in an IE window, Picture viewer... or give me an
X. I don't mind.

Once again, thank's to the power of Pi for the help! Hopefully someone else
will stumble across this and find it just as helpful!

[moe-awada]

Thank you very much... that really helped... i wouldn't have got that in a million year! Thanks again :)

Hi,

Glad to be helpful ;)

--
Jonathan Kay
Microsoft MVP - Windows Live Messenger
MSN Messenger/Windows Messenger
MessengerGeek Blog: http://www.messengergeek.com
Messenger Resources: http://messenger.jonathankay.com
(c) 2009 Jonathan Kay - If redistributing, you must include this signature or citation
--

"moe-awada" <moe-awada.3vrpja@DoNotSpam.com> wrote in message
news:moe-awada.3vrpja@DoNotSpam.com...
>
> Thank you very much... that really helped... i wouldn't have got that in
> a million year! Thanks again :)
>
>
> --
> moe-awada
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