MSN Messenger v1.0

I thought I'd document my journey into attempting to revive MSN Messenger

I've just downloaded MSN Messenger Service 1.0 - v1.0.0863 ©1997-99 Microsoft Corp. from oldversion.com

I'm running the operating system "Windows 95 © 1981-1995 Microsoft Corp." inside VirtualBox

I have a few questions before I jump in and try and get it working:

  • Will I be able to intercept requests using a HOSTS file?
  • Will I be able to intercept requests using a SOCKS proxy?
  • What on earth does it do with an AOL Screen Name and Password?

What surprises me?

  • oldversion.com works fine on Internet Explorer 4.0
  • MSN Messenger Service advertisement shows correctly (it must be embedded in the executable)

Initial notes:

-> DNS: A messenger.hotmail.com
<- DNS: No such name CNAME messenger.hotmail.geo.msnmessenger.msn.com.akadns.net
-> DNS: A messenger.hotmail.com.fritz.box
<- DNS: No such name

It looks like Microsoft still has a CNAME for messenger.hotmail.com to route through Akamai, but it's unable to find an IP address.

I tried adding the following to line C:\Windows\hosts

messenger.hotmail.com 192.168.56.1 # MSN Messenger 1.0

Unfortunately, this yielded no results.

As I manage our local DNS, I was able to override the DNS to point to an internal IP!

We're at a point where I now know I can hijack the DNS lookup and redirect the traffic...

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