intensityx Posted July 3, 2002 Share Posted July 3, 2002 I set up an internet kiosk for my grandparents a while back. Basically it's a Windows 2000 machine with MSN Explorer set as the shell. I did this so that there is less of a chance that they will have any problems with it. They will only use it for browsing and e-mail, so this setup works fine for them. I have been wanting to make a new skin for MSN Explorer. However, after checking it out with resource hacker it appears that it's not possible to modify any of the UI elements on it. Has anyone else tried it? Any thoughts on whether this is possible? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ethen Posted July 3, 2002 Share Posted July 3, 2002 All MSN Explores visual elements are in .mar files ui.mar, themedef.mar, themedef24.mar, etc. Kinda like how win xp stores some graphic elements in .dll files. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Osiris Posted July 3, 2002 Share Posted July 3, 2002 hrmm skin MSN:) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grand mufti Posted July 3, 2002 Share Posted July 3, 2002 your right ethen but do you know how to open these ,mar i cant seam to find anything to explorer these files i have been try to for a year now and found nohtin:ermm: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ethen Posted July 4, 2002 Share Posted July 4, 2002 Sorry, no I am unfamilliar with the .mar file type. I only know simple resoucre librarys like .dll's and the such. Basically I know enough, that I know I dont know anyhting. :p All I did was open themedef.mar in notepad by renaming it to .txt It looks like it holds these files (names from with in the themedef.mar file) 1119.gif, 11206.gif, 11260.gif, about_bkgnd.bmp, about_title.bmp, about_title_inactive.bmp, afternoon.wav, au_icon.bmp, au_watermark.bmp, begin.wav, bg_citysearch.gif, bg_weather.gif, bottem-extra.gif, bottemfade.gif, browse_back.bmp, browse_forward.bmp, btmidbar.gif, .... Anyway not to long of a list but it does go on for a bit more, including the close buttons, and minimize/maximize buttons. Then the rest is scrambled code, the content in binary form I would guess. It looks like though the entire UI is changable through those files, if you could replace the bitmaps and re compile the .mar files. Prehaps maybe others here on neowin will have some idea how to extract the files or replace em. It would be funny to msn-explorer simple, milk-explorer, msn-chosen, or any of the other many popular themes. Would give all the original apple skin makers quite a heart attack. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shockz Posted July 4, 2002 Share Posted July 4, 2002 Check out the dll files and see what you can get :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pagal Posted July 4, 2002 Share Posted July 4, 2002 I think changing the extension to .zip from command prompt should work :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fozzieb Posted July 4, 2002 Share Posted July 4, 2002 Come on everyone, there must be some way to hack this bitch, my girlfriend loves MSN Explorer because it is easy to use, i think it looks out of place with the rest of my system. I WANT THIS BITCH CRACKED (please (pretty please)) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tomwarren Veteran Posted July 4, 2002 Veteran Share Posted July 4, 2002 Dont think anyone is really bothered about it sorry to say, no1 really uses this software although I think its good its a little bloated for what it is. Nice tho Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ethen Posted July 4, 2002 Share Posted July 4, 2002 I cannot be of much help Fozzieb. I have no clue whats up with these .mar files. The only mention of them on the net has been as MS Acess Report files? Clearly something they are not. They are not zip files or any other type of archive that can be easily extracted. Re naming them to zip thru command prompt, would be pointless as they would just show as being corupted zip archives. (Lacking needed .zip compression info to extract) Osiris mentioned a few posts above he was gonna try a msn explorer skin. Would'nt that be something. He could make it look like the standard windows luna theme, and then use it with his xp msn explorer skin. Would make for a backwards screenshot. lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fozzieb Posted July 4, 2002 Share Posted July 4, 2002 Looks like i'm going to have to put up with it then, DAMN Microsoft Dman them all to hell. :-) P.S. If anyone does find out mail me fozzieb50@hotmail.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Osiris Posted July 4, 2002 Share Posted July 4, 2002 Indeed I have tried the rename, why, the resourcehacker, PE Explorer, nothing whats the deal with .mar files? I mean they store graphics yet you cant open it up? Whats the deal with that? Actually maybe they are like Visual Basic, one of those versions you cant hack the resources of the files. Damn easily unhackable files :s Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grand mufti Posted July 4, 2002 Share Posted July 4, 2002 i found msn core files a while back and they only have 1 icon in them the rest is crap nad im stuck in the same boat i can seam to get the .mar files to open with anything i use MSN and always wanted to skin it just dont know what to do with them danm files ill be sure to let you know if i can do anything Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ethen Posted July 4, 2002 Share Posted July 4, 2002 I think microsoft doesn't want anyone playing with em, because they also contain files like adspace.css, they must know if people can start changing there .mar files people will take out the ad mechanisms. I think its that copy mar.exe that converts the binary themedef.mar for use in msn explorer, on load. unhackable is pretty much right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iconman Posted July 4, 2002 Share Posted July 4, 2002 You cant skin MSN Explorer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Osiris Posted July 5, 2002 Share Posted July 5, 2002 Always Cant it is with you, no can! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oDD Posted July 5, 2002 Share Posted July 5, 2002 You'll be happy to know ive decompiled the format and im writing a program now to extract/recompact the files. Here's a rundown on the format if you wanted to know: Header: 4D41 5243 0300 0000 Number of Files Contained (DWORD) : 7E01 0000 File Description (68 bytes) (x NOF's) { Filename (56 Bytes) : 3131 3139 392E 6769 6600 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 Size of File (DWORD) : C304 0000 CRC32 of the file (DWORD) : 63FB 6CEE Position of Start (DWORD) : 8465 0000 } Then each files data follows after. I hope to see some nice MSN skins after I release the proggy, stay tuned ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ethen Posted July 5, 2002 Share Posted July 5, 2002 Sweet. I was pulling my hair out trying to figure out how the hell those .mar files worked. I wanted to start trying to see if I could use .mar like you do for dlls, for other projects. It must be some kinda internal microsoft spec? The only other thing I could come up with for info on use of .mar was VAC stuff. Congrats, are in order, as you have succesfully flushed out the msn theme specs. :) Now its no worry if microsoft ever switches windows themes to a similiar method. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deepu Sudhakar Posted July 5, 2002 Share Posted July 5, 2002 MSN 8 will support skinning me thinks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silvorgold Posted July 5, 2002 Share Posted July 5, 2002 they better :p lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fozzieb Posted July 5, 2002 Share Posted July 5, 2002 where would we be if the UK and america said "We can't stop germany" ? never say never Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fozzieb Posted July 5, 2002 Share Posted July 5, 2002 sorry about the above post, not had my morning coffe yet :-( All hail oDD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ethen Posted July 5, 2002 Share Posted July 5, 2002 I dont think they will take an active stance towards supporting skinning in MSN 8, it will be more like it is in XP. Skinning may be possible, but for Microsft to support it, would be going against all the UI design guidelines they have set up. They work hard at making sure use abilty is playing a strong role. I think MSN8 skinning will be like it is with XP here at neowin and a number of other sites, user driven rather then something that dominated and run by microsoft. It doesn't really matter what microsoft does or doesn't do, as we got people like oDD, using talent to further the customization movement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oDD Posted July 5, 2002 Share Posted July 5, 2002 update: all working fine, the programs done and i can get every .html, .css, .gif, etc out of the files BUT when you recompile them SOME of the files are out of order (mine puts them in the correct order, microsoft have some weird sorting method). this shouldn't matter but for some reason microsoft seem to have hard coded the locations of the file descriptors for each file in every .mar file, if that makes sense. so there is no use releasing it if you can only read all the data out of the files and not put them back in properly. but i know a way to get around it and ill work on that maybe tommorow (its 4am here) ;) night all... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
intensityx Posted July 5, 2002 Author Share Posted July 5, 2002 Originally posted by oDD update: all working fine, the programs done and i can get every .html, .css, .gif, etc out of the files BUT when you recompile them SOME of the files are out of order (mine puts them in the correct order, microsoft have some weird sorting method). this shouldn't matter but for some reason microsoft seem to have hard coded the locations of the file descriptors for each file in every .mar file, if that makes sense. so there is no use releasing it if you can only read all the data out of the files and not put them back in properly. but i know a way to get around it and ill work on that maybe tommorow (its 4am here) ;) night all... Awesome...I be looking forward to seeing what you can come up with. :D :D :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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