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Find an instant message

Asked by: darovitz

Is there anyway to retrieve Instant messaging that was sent from an employee to another employee on our network?

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Asked On
2006-11-01 at 16:52:54ID22046009
Tags

message

,

retrieve

,

instant

Topic

Windows XP Operating System

Participating Experts
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Answers

 

by: Bartender_1Posted on 2006-11-01 at 17:09:03ID: 17854674

That would depend on which IM was used, and if they had messages stored on the computer.

Locations for common IMs:

MSN:
C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\My Documents\My Received Files\<MSN ID>\History

Yahoo:
C:\ Program Files\ Yahoo!\ Messenger\ Profiles \<username>\ Archive\ Messages

Hope this helps!

:o)

Bartender_1

 

by: darovitzPosted on 2006-11-01 at 17:13:09ID: 17854681

They are using aol instant messenger.

 

by: venom96737Posted on 2006-11-01 at 17:23:39ID: 17854708

unless they have history turn on no its lost in cyber space.

 

by: darovitzPosted on 2006-11-01 at 17:25:40ID: 17854713

How about windows live messenger

 

by: jcourtesPosted on 2006-11-01 at 18:07:17ID: 17854868

darovitz:

Due to the sheer vastness of the amount of data that can get passed around your network, you cannot retreive anything like that.
Data transmissions are instances, and they run on much lowers levels of architecture than the application data such as instant messages would run at. So unless you specifically implement a monitoring / logging system, you wont be able to "retreive" any messages.

You *could* implement a system to monitor and capture specific packets(organisational units of data for transmission) that fit a filter.
This filter would simply contain the criteria which would focus in on the messenger live packets.

You could then inspect the collected packets and figure out what was happening.
This is basically traffic monitoring.

There are many hardware and software business solutions available.

Hope this gives you the info you were looking for

Regards,

Jamie

 

by: Ryan_RPosted on 2006-11-01 at 19:26:05ID: 17855136

If you are looking for an IM Program that saves IM history - you should look at careting accounts for Google Mail (mail.google.com). It is an email program but also can be used as IM with other gmail users. All conversations can be archived. If you don't want to open your IE browser to view email, IM, youshould get GoogleTalk (sits in your sys tray like Msngr). It also tells you as soon as a new email message arrives (& gives a preview of what it is), and it can forward a copy of all messages received to another email address (if you have 2 addresses for example) and gmail can be used in Outlook/Outlook Express no probs. (just google the topic Use gmail in Outlook to see how).

Hope this helps,
Ryan R

 

by: venom96737Posted on 2006-11-02 at 02:30:20ID: 17856837

darovitz same deal with windows live unless they turned the history on (its off by default) the message is gone.

 

by: ruijietanPosted on 2006-11-02 at 04:10:52ID: 17857320

You can use Actmon Computer Monitering to log the IM Chats. You can get a trial here:
www.actmon.com

 

by: KellyCraigPosted on 2006-11-02 at 10:24:08ID: 17860255

Hello.
Windows messenger and all new MSN communications are stored in.
c:\Documents and Settings\%username%\\My Documents\My Received Files\%somemsnvariable%\History

As for AOL, there is a way to retrieve sent/received messages without having the history option on, as long as the machine has not ben rebooted since the conversation took place.
You can find that file in
c:\Documents and Settings\%username%\Application Data\AIM\comm.log

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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