Mobile Status Notification Protocol

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Mobile Status Notification Protocol (MSNP, which is not an acronym for "Microsoft Network Protocol" as is often believed) is the protocol employed by .NET Messenger Service which is used by MSN Messenger and other clients such as Trillian and Windows Messenger.

Whenever a major change is made to the protocol, such as a new command or syntax changes, the version number is incremented by one in the format of MSNP#. During October 2003, Microsoft started blocking access to .NET Messenger Service using versions below MSNP8 [1].

1 Version History
2 See also
3 External links

[edit] Version History

[edit] MSNP1

MSNP1 has never been public, it is believed it was used during the early stages of design and development with MSN Messenger 1

[edit] MSNP2

Made available to developers in 1999 in an Internet Draft.

[edit] MSNP3 through MSNP7

These versions have never been used in a public program.

[edit] MSNP8

MSNP8 introduced a different authentication method, now sending authorization to Microsoft Passport's secure servers and returning a challenge string. It is the minimum version of the protocol accepted by .NET Messenger Service, after Microsoft blocked earlier versions for security reasons. As such, old and obsolete clients are unable to sign, forcing users to upgrade clients.

The only official MSN Messenger client that uses this version is MSN Messenger 5.0. Windows Messenger uses MSNP8 as its standard version, including 4.7 up to the latest 5.1.

This protocol supports Windows Messenger-to-Windows Messenger webcam and voice capabilities.

[edit] MSNP9

MSNP9 was introduced with MSN Messenger 6, adding support for "D type" (data) messages, which are used for transferring display pictures and custom emoticons between clients, frame-by-frame webcam (rather than a traditional stream like Windows Media Player's WMV format) and an improved voice system, as well as improved NAT traversal for file transfers.

[edit] MSNP10

Employed in MSN Messenger 6.1, after Microsoft started blocking earlier versions in October 2003. However, it was not a big overhaul, the only obvious change was integration with Hotmail address books.

[edit] MSNP11

Employed by MSN Messenger 7.0

[edit] MSNP12

Employed by MSN Messenger 7.5.

[edit] MSNP13

Employed by Windows Live Messenger 8.0, MSNP13 features a lot of changes. Most notably, contact list synchronization has been removed and clients must instead send a SOAP request to a contacts server, also known as "Client goes to ABCH" (where ABCH stands for Address Book Clearing House, the address book service behind all MSN and Windows Live services). The client must then send the contacts data to the server for it to send presence information.

[edit] MSNP14

MSNP14 adds Yahoo! Messenger interoperability.

[edit] MSNP15

MSNP15 is the protocol version introduced with Windows Live Messenger 8.1 on 8 September 2006. It is based on MSNP14 but uses a different authentication mechanism called RPS (Relaying Party Suite). Where TWN "Tweener" authentication will be used on protocol versions 14 and lower, RPS authentication will be used on protocol versions 15 and higher.

In addition to a new authentication mechanism, Microsoft is also planning on making more of the properties of the user roaming. That is, the users display picture, and in the future personal status messages, will be the same whereever the user signs in.

Furthermore, support for user locations has been added to the Personal Status Message, although this feature was later removed from the Windows Live Messenger 8.1 client.