ok i had the problem of trying to find the icons earlier so that i could back them up for my girlfriend due to having to wipe the drive and reinstall the OS. Now that I have started fresh with the new Windows live messenger I’ve got the old icons and trying to add them so that she can use them on her current messenger however for whatever reason i would like to figure out is that when i go to the documents&settings>User>Microsoft>MSN>###blabla there is no other folders in this directory other than a few .sqm’s

she has already added a few new icons to her messenger since then and would like to keep those along with adding the old ones from before we wiped the drive. so now i’m sitting here with no able location of these current icons as well as a CustomEmoticons folder full of .dat files that i had saved from the previous drive.

all folders and files including extensions are un-hidden and i’ve tried doing a search for all files and folders for any .dat’s that may lead me to where her newer messenger icons are located, as well as searching for anything containing the words custom, icon, emoticon, etc. with no luck.

currently running a Windows XP pro. version 2002 SP2, with windows live messenger version 8.1

i’m tearing my hair out trying to figure out what the hell is wrong with this thing, weather it be the fact that it’s WindowsLiveMessenger instead of MSN messenger? my next step will be to download and install MSN messenger from the website and see if that makes any difference, but other than that i have no idea what is wrong and/or why i am unable to add the old icons or why i’m unable to find any of the new icons she’s added to it since. anybody that knows what i’m talking about or that might be able to assist please respond.

EDIT:
ok i was confused and skipped local settings, and went straight to application data, now my issue is figuring out how to add the new icons, with the version i’m using now the WindowsLiveMessenger 8.1 they’re all dt2 files which are different from the dat files i saved from the other version before wiping the system. I’ve tried adding the dat files into the folder, restart, no change. I’ve tried changing the .dat files to .dt2 files, restart, no change. still trying to figure that out