Today this site officially went "Live", and users are now being redirected here from the various sub-websites which used to serve these projects. By keeping all our projects in one place, we hope to be able to better maintain the overall quality of content. In line with this we have also launched a new help site, built on MediaWiki software it will - over time - build up into a repository of help, support and documentation for VBE Software projects.

Using The Program

With MSN running (and signed in), and iTunes running, run the iTunes2MSN.exe program. You will then need to "Start" the program, this may happen automatically if that is what you have specified in the Settings page, or you may need to press the Start button.

Start/Stop engage and disengage the connection with iTunes and MSN. When the program is started it will perform the specified options when iTunes changes song. When the process is stopped no actions will take place. It is only safe to close MSN or iTunes when the process is stopped (or the program has been exited).

Support

If things go wrong the program now has a built in troubleshooter to help advise on common problems and their solutions. When this is not enough, or if you cannot get as far as the troubleshooter, please try the steps below:

• Check the mess.be forum for other users who may have a similar problem which has already been dealt with.
• Take a screenshot of the problem, and e-mail it to me at support@vbe-software.com .

A quick Bug-Fix, many people seemed to be getting peculiar messages about not being able to establish communications with MSN Messenger. The fix for this (as now listed on the requirements page) is that Windows Messenger must be installed on the computer. (iTunes2MSN actually connects to Windows Messenger, even though you are assumed to be running MSN Messenger (don't ask me why, thats just how it works -_-).

Another Bug-Fix, for weird errors about paths not existing, try turning off the Make Song Info feature. Thanks to Ben for help sorting that out

I guess I'd been a bit ignorant lately of just how much attention this project is getting, starting as a proof-of-concept project (as I was stunned it didn't already exist) the project is really taking off (certainly compared to anything I've done before). My log analysis has been broken on this server for some time, and in fixing it today i saw just how many sites are linking to the project, and just how many hits and downloads we are getting every week.

So what's been going on? You promised Windows Media Player support?
Yes! I can confirm we now have Windows Media Player cracked, its not nice yet but it works. We also have WinAmp in the pipeline, plus a whole bunch of new features. All of this will be coming out under a new name (Since iTunes2MSN will be a bit silly, when we support more than MSN, and more than iTunes..). As yet the name is undecided, but it will probably be along the lines of Music2Display. Suggestions welcome!

iTunes 7: Not only is iTunes2MSN still compatible with this new version of iTunes, but Apple have kindly built the perfect feature - automatically getting album art! No more googling for album covers, iTunes does it for you! Thank you Apple!

Requirements

• Windows (tested on 98 and above).
• MSN Messenger (tested on versions 6.2 and above) to be installed and running.
• iTunes (tested on versions 4.9 and above) to be installed and running.
• You do not need to have the "What I'm Listening To" plugin for Windows Media Player enabled, nor do you need to have it enabled in MSN Messenger - this program operated independantly of these features of MSN.
• Windows Messenger to be installed.

Mailing List

Legal Bits

You are free to use this software without charge at your own discretion. You use this software at your own risk and as the programmer I claim no responsibility for any effects as the result of using or misuing the program, whether intended design features or unexpected bugs.You may redistribute this software, but please honour my rights as the programmer and inform me of where you are distributing and for what ends.

This program is (c) Paul Nicholls 2005. All things mentioned may be trademarks of their respective things.

Please ensure you have checked the legal terms as downloading and using this software indicates your acceptance of these conditions

Welcome to the online home of iTunes2MSN - a program that works with MSN Messenger and iTunes to set your display picture to the currently playing album art. This project is written by myself acting under the name "VBE Software", it is coded in Visual Basic 6.0 and the source code is freely available.

About
When MSN 7.0 introduced the "Now Playing" feature, it occurred to me that to synchronise the display picture with album art would be a logical progression. I was sure something like this had already been made - but after some time googling I had found nothing.... so I made it myself. The full development history of this project in its early stages can be found here.

This program has evolved with lots of user feedback from Mess.Be's forums and many pre-release versions exist (ranging from just a handful of lines of code, right up to the Beta which is only slightly different to the final version). Can I make it absolutely clear at this point that it only works with iTunes - not other media players! This is the most common feature-request for the project, and whilst I have looked into it I have no intention to widen the scope of this project to other media players.

Features

• Sets your MSN Display Picture to the album art of the currently playing song in iTunes
• When no album art is available it will randomly pick an item from a user-defined list of default images
• Has the option to make a display picture if no album art is available by generating a bitmap with the song details written on it
• Can export the currently playing song's details to a .txt file.
• All images are stored on the disk in such a way that you could use them for other things, for example as your avatar on forums.
• Fully flexible, with a pleasant and easy-to-use interface.

We've just moved to a new host in line with the rest of my sites and projects. If you're one of the many webmasters linking to me, please can you update your links. You are being redirected, but eventually the old server will be going offline.

A few big fixes for you. Both for the same error message... 403, Class Does Not Support Automation. If you are running Windows 2000 you will need to revert to MSN 7.0, since Windows 2000 is not officially compatible with MSN 7.5. If you are running Windows XP, you may need to download the latest version of Windows Messenger (don't use it, just install it...) You can get it here.