Hello all,

I'm trying to make some sense of some disassembled msimn.exe code (created
using FreeIda) and could do with some cross-referencing it with the actual
OE6 sourcecode.

Does anyone know if and where I can get my hands on such sourcecode ?

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

"R.Wieser" <address@not.available> wrote:

> I'm trying to make some sense of some disassembled msimn.exe code (created
> using FreeIda) and could do with some cross-referencing it with the actual
> OE6 sourcecode.
>
> Does anyone know if and where I can get my hands on such sourcecode ?

Still a properietary product owned by Microsoft regardless of anyone's
wish otherwise regarding a discontinued product. Abandoned or
discontinued does not mean unowned.

Couldn't find a copy of OE6's license, but I found one for OE5 at:

http://www.cs.uah.edu/~delugach/Courses/H399-01/EULA.htm
"You may not reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble the SOFTWARE
PRODUCT, except and only to the extent that such activity is expressly
permitted by applicable law notwithstanding this limitation."

The license does not expire. However, if you bought the product then
Microsoft should've provided a dump of their source code repository.
IMN aka OE was acquired by MS from another company, just like for
Outlook. You could try to buy OE from Microsoft.

If you are trying to code an add-in (they were called add-ins instead of
add-ons) for OE, Microsoft used to have a spec on the extension
interface, but yanked it away. However, they didn't remove the
extension interface, so add-ins, like OE-QuoteFix, continued to work.

Just to check that you understand, OE did not come bundled with Windows.
It first came bundled with IE version 3 (as Microsoft Internet Mail and
News hence why its executable's name remained msimn.exe) up until
version 6. For IE7, and later, OE was no longer bundled with IE, and
why there were later versions of IE, but OE halted at version 6.

There are some OE newsgroups, like:
microsoft.public.outlookexpress.general,
microsoft.public.win98.internet.outlookexpress, and
microsoft.public.inetexplorer.(ie5.|ie6_))outlookexpress
but they have little, or no, traffic. I don't inhabit the Microsoft
Answers forums to know if their is an active forum for OE over there.

Although much of the information is outdated, Tom Koch runs the Inside
Outlook Express web site (https://insideoe.com/). He hasn't been an OE
MVP since 2005. However, https://insideoe.com/contact.htm says to use
the newsgroups.

I recall someone saying they had yanked the OE extension documentation
before Microsoft yanked it away, but that would've been 13 years ago, or
more, I had no interest in writing an OE extension, so I don't remember
who said they had the documentation.

As for getting the source code for OE itself, I've never heard that has
been available. Some companies will sell you a license to rebrand their
product, and perhaps give you the source code. OE Classic tried to be
an OE replacement (but I remember it having problems). You could
contact them to see if they're willing to let you be a product partner.
However, Thunderbird is open source, so mutating it wouldn't cost you.

Vanguard,

> If you are trying to code an add-in (they were called add-ins instead of
> add-ons) for OE, Microsoft used to have a spec on the extension
> interface, but yanked it away.

That would perhaps be another way to "do things" with OE. Thanks for the
info.

> There are some OE newsgroups, like:
....
> but they have little, or no, traffic.

Indeed. Hence my crossposting here.

> Although much of the information is outdated, Tom Koch runs the Inside
> Outlook Express web site

I took a quick peek, but alas, all of it looks to be "high level" stuff -
nothing about how OE6 internally works.

> As for getting the source code for OE itself, I've never heard that has
> been available.

Neither have I. But someone else might have heard about it.

> Some companies will sell you a license to rebrand their
> product, and perhaps give you the source code.

Alas, such rebranders are normally just wrappers around the part I'm looking
for information about (msimn.exe).

> OE Classic tried to be an OE replacement (but I remember it having
> problems).

:-) The last info I got is that OE classic doesn't support writing a new /
replying to a newsgroup message. And handling newsgroups is the part I'm
after.

> You could contact them to see if they're willing to let you be a product
> partner.

I'm not looking for a replacement program. I'm really just looking for the
OE6 source-code - so I can cross-reference with it.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

P.s.
In Europe shrink-wrap EULAs have no legal standing. Also, the "You may not
reverse engineer" stipulation is limited in our laws, especially when its
done on an abandoned or discontinued product, and even nullified when its
done by a person for his own benefit.

Op 16-10-2021 om 21:59 schreef R.Wieser:
> Vanguard,
>
>> If you are trying to code an add-in (they were called add-ins instead of
>> add-ons) for OE, Microsoft used to have a spec on the extension
>> interface, but yanked it away.
>
> That would perhaps be another way to "do things" with OE. Thanks for the
> info.
>
>> There are some OE newsgroups, like:
> ...
>> but they have little, or no, traffic.
>
> Indeed. Hence my crossposting here.
>
>> Although much of the information is outdated, Tom Koch runs the Inside
>> Outlook Express web site
>
> I took a quick peek, but alas, all of it looks to be "high level" stuff -
> nothing about how OE6 internally works.
>
>> As for getting the source code for OE itself, I've never heard that has
>> been available.
>
> Neither have I. But someone else might have heard about it.
>
>> Some companies will sell you a license to rebrand their
>> product, and perhaps give you the source code.
>
> Alas, such rebranders are normally just wrappers around the part I'm looking
> for information about (msimn.exe).
>
>> OE Classic tried to be an OE replacement (but I remember it having
>> problems).
>
> :-) The last info I got is that OE classic doesn't support writing a new /
> replying to a newsgroup message. And handling newsgroups is the part I'm
> after.
>
>> You could contact them to see if they're willing to let you be a product
>> partner.
>
> I'm not looking for a replacement program. I'm really just looking for the
> OE6 source-code - so I can cross-reference with it.
>
> Regards,
> Rudy Wieser
>
> P.s.
> In Europe shrink-wrap EULAs have no legal standing. Also, the "You may not
> reverse engineer" stipulation is limited in our laws, especially when its
> done on an abandoned or discontinued product, and even nullified when its
> done by a person for his own benefit.
>
>
>

If you speak German, you can ask in:
de.comm.software.outlook-express

Maybe you get an answer there....

Rink

Rink,

> If you speak German, you can ask in:
> de.comm.software.outlook-express

Alas, although I can understand/read (most of it) well enough, I'm not in
any way confident I can write even three words without making a grammar
mistake. :-\

Thanks for the suggestion though.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser