MSN Explorer 9

The client thinks Microsoft is still there

A client without a counterpart is just a window

MSN Explorer was Microsoft's own way onto the internet: browser, mail, messenger and portal in one. The servers behind it were switched off. Since then the client starts, calls home - and gets no answer.

Puppenspieler gives the answers. It speaks Passport 1.4 and Directory Access, and serves configuration, sign-in, permissions, wizard pages and installation files. The client notices nothing. It dances because someone is holding the strings.

What runs

Installation and sign-in go through from end to end: create an account, fetch the packages, install, start, sign in. The status page lists every endpoint; the services page says what each one is for.

What it takes

A Windows 2000 or XP virtual machine, and about a quarter of an hour. The setup guide walks through it, and the download is one package, German and English.

You do not need an account first: MSN Explorer signs you up itself, in its own wizard, the way it did in 2004. The server answers every step of that conversation.

Where this comes from

None of these formats came from documentation - there is none left. They came out of the disassembly of msnsign.dll and out of captures against a working rebuild. What the binaries say has the findings, and they are the reason this works at all.