DAT files chat logs

[navyswife 0]

Our chat logs/history is on DAT files. I cannot open it up don't know how to because the icon is MEDIA player.I tried everything i can to convert it to word pad and one software clled editplus that i found in teh internet but can't open it up. Our chat history is saved on my hard drive and that is the problem coz on DAT files. I have some emails only and history of our chatting on skype but year 2008 i need also the old ones and it is on DAT files...

Anyone knows and can help pls???

[DouglasFiel 53]

Try to right click on it and then click on open with and then click on "wordpad" or if you want "choose program"

regards,

[ABENITEZ 0]

try this link, might be helpful...

http://www.online-tech-tips.com/computer-t...open-dat-files/

[DEDixon 39]

Unless you open the DAT files with the application that created them, it is very likely they won't be readable. Even if they are readable, the format won't be anything USEM is familiar with and so they might think they are fake.

[B and C 1]

Our chat logs/history is on DAT files. I cannot open it up don't know how to because the icon is MEDIA player.I tried everything i can to convert it to word pad and one software clled editplus that i found in teh internet but can't open it up. Our chat history is saved on my hard drive and that is the problem coz on DAT files. I have some emails only and history of our chatting on skype but year 2008 i need also the old ones and it is on DAT files...

Anyone knows and can help pls???

What application did you use for chatting? It sounds like the file association got changed. Many programs use a DAT extension for data files that they use. Not much different than a DOC being Word Perfect or MS Word, but the format is different.

You would need to launch your chat application and look at the archives from within the program. Screen shots will then work great, because you see them within the context of the program. In Windows, an Alt-PrintScreen will copy the active window to memory, and it can then be pasted into a word doc or into a graphics program, cropped and saved to be printed out later. It's tedious, since you must do one screen capture at a time, but it works well.

Bruce

Edited August 11, 2009 by Bruce and Carna

[navyswife 0]

Our chat logs/history is on DAT files. I cannot open it up don't know how to because the icon is MEDIA player.I tried everything i can to convert it to word pad and one software clled editplus that i found in teh internet but can't open it up. Our chat history is saved on my hard drive and that is the problem coz on DAT files. I have some emails only and history of our chatting on skype but year 2008 i need also the old ones and it is on DAT files...

Anyone knows and can help pls???

What application did you use for chatting? It sounds like the file association got changed. Many programs use a DAT extension for data files that they use. Not much different than a DOC being Word Perfect or MS Word, but the format is different.

You would need to launch your chat application and look at the archives from within the program. Screen shots will then work great, because you see them within the context of the program. In Windows, an Alt-PrintScreen will copy the active window to memory, and it can then be pasted into a word doc or into a graphics program, cropped and saved to be printed out later. It's tedious, since you must do one screen capture at a time, but it works well.

Bruce

Hi thanks for responding and being helpful!

What application? I use yahoo messenger and keeps on updating it to its new version everytime it has new updates but when i checked the message archieve ,my old messages was gone and open it up on C drives and saw an icon of media player but its on DAT file. I tried everything to open it up by txt, doc, xls, ect but didnt work!

try this link, might be helpful...

http://www.online-tech-tips.com/computer-t...open-dat-files/

Ok thanks for that! will keep on trying!

[ABENITEZ 0]

Hey guys, another question to add, I have chats saved from MSN Messenger, They are saved in an XML Editor. I have no idea what that is, but it shows them all in the same fonts and colors and stuff as when we originally did them. So what I did was open them up, and did some print screens of the chats I wanted to use because if I print the entire thing, it comes to like thousands of pages. Do you think these are going to be acceptable?

[B and C 1]

Our chat logs/history is on DAT files. I cannot open it up don't know how to because the icon is MEDIA player.I tried everything i can to convert it to word pad and one software clled editplus that i found in teh internet but can't open it up. Our chat history is saved on my hard drive and that is the problem coz on DAT files. I have some emails only and history of our chatting on skype but year 2008 i need also the old ones and it is on DAT files...

Anyone knows and can help pls???

What application did you use for chatting? It sounds like the file association got changed. Many programs use a DAT extension for data files that they use. Not much different than a DOC being Word Perfect or MS Word, but the format is different.

You would need to launch your chat application and look at the archives from within the program. Screen shots will then work great, because you see them within the context of the program. In Windows, an Alt-PrintScreen will copy the active window to memory, and it can then be pasted into a word doc or into a graphics program, cropped and saved to be printed out later. It's tedious, since you must do one screen capture at a time, but it works well.

Bruce

Hi thanks for responding and being helpful!

What application? I use yahoo messenger and keeps on updating it to its new version everytime it has new updates but when i checked the message archieve ,my old messages was gone and open it up on C drives and saw an icon of media player but its on DAT file. I tried everything to open it up by txt, doc, xls, ect but didnt work!

try this link, might be helpful...

http://www.online-tech-tips.com/computer-t...open-dat-files/

Ok thanks for that! will keep on trying!

The default install for YM is in c:\program files\Yahoo!

with the archives in a folder under that:

Messenger\Profiles\<your YM user name>\<your chatmate's name>

In your chatmate's folder should be all the dat files with the date as part of the file name. If they aren't there you can't open them with YM's archive link.

[navyswife 0]

The default install for YM is in c:\program files\Yahoo!

with the archives in a folder under that:

Messenger\Profiles\<your YM user name>\<your chatmate's name>

In your chatmate's folder should be all the dat files with the date as part of the file name. If they aren't there you can't open them with YM's archive link.

Thanks for that. Yes there is no date indicated its is only like icon of window media player says DAT file 9 KB iconindex.dat. So that can never be opened? Hwat does it happened?

[Saska+Tim 7]

...Hi thanks for responding and being helpful!

What application? I use yahoo messenger and keeps on updating it to its new version everytime it has new updates but when i checked the message archieve ,my old messages was gone and open it up on C drives and saw an icon of media player but its on DAT file. I tried everything to open it up by txt, doc, xls, ect but didnt work! ...

Look here for solution: Yahoo Messenger, backup your arhive

[navyswife 0]

...Hi thanks for responding and being helpful!

What application? I use yahoo messenger and keeps on updating it to its new version everytime it has new updates but when i checked the message archieve ,my old messages was gone and open it up on C drives and saw an icon of media player but its on DAT file. I tried everything to open it up by txt, doc, xls, ect but didnt work! ...

Look here for solution: Yahoo Messenger, backup your arhive

Thanks so much i was able to extract it but my old messages of year 2007 was not there..all were new..how can i retrieve the olds ..even in my archieves they are not really there ,all are new chat histories ....

[B and C 1]

The default install for YM is in c:\program files\Yahoo!

with the archives in a folder under that:

Messenger\Profiles\<your YM user name>\<your chatmate's name>

In your chatmate's folder should be all the dat files with the date as part of the file name. If they aren't there you can't open them with YM's archive link.

Thanks for that. Yes there is no date indicated its is only like icon of window media player says DAT file 9 KB iconindex.dat. So that can never be opened? Hwat does it happened?

The iconindex.dat file is not one of the archived chats. If you only have one hard drive in your pc (like drive c:), you can search the entire drive for *.dat. Double click on <my computer> and then on drive c:. Do a Control-F (Ctrl + F key) to open a search window. You should be able to tell indicate what you want to search for... perhaps all files...

Put in *.dat

The asterisk is a wild card, maning the search will show ALL files with the extension of .dat. You can see the path in the search window. IF you have YM archive files, you should be able to see where they are located. I'm just now thinking... you did have archiving messages turned on?

I've upgraded my YM many times, and still have my archives from the past two and a half years.

Good luck!

Bruce

[ScottThuy 140]

The default install for YM is in c:\program files\Yahoo!

with the archives in a folder under that:

Messenger\Profiles\<your YM user name>\<your chatmate's name>

In your chatmate's folder should be all the dat files with the date as part of the file name. If they aren't there you can't open them with YM's archive link.

Thanks for that. Yes there is no date indicated its is only like icon of window media player says DAT file 9 KB iconindex.dat. So that can never be opened? Hwat does it happened?

The iconindex.dat file is not one of the archived chats. If you only have one hard drive in your pc (like drive c:), you can search the entire drive for *.dat. Double click on <my computer> and then on drive c:. Do a Control-F (Ctrl + F key) to open a search window. You should be able to tell indicate what you want to search for... perhaps all files...

Put in *.dat

The asterisk is a wild card, maning the search will show ALL files with the extension of .dat. You can see the path in the search window. IF you have YM archive files, you should be able to see where they are located. I'm just now thinking... you did have archiving messages turned on?

I've upgraded my YM many times, and still have my archives from the past two and a half years.

Good luck!

Bruce

I just did a screen shot of the archive list showing the dates of conversations.. they shouldnt need to read the content IMO... I then pasted the screenshots into a word doc and printed 9 pages of dates of communiction showing both screennames on the archive list.

[abbielovesjeremy 5]

Thanks so much i was able to extract it but my old messages of year 2007 was not there..all were new..how can i retrieve the olds ..even in my archieves they are not really there ,all are new chat histories ....

i am not sure if it's different or the same with XP and vista. i use XP (vista sucks lol) and my archives are here:

C:\Program Files\Yahoo!\Messenger\Profiles\my YM username\Archive\Messages\my hubby's username

then i know the dat files are usually named like this: year month day-your username.dat ...

example: 20090818-abbie.dat

try to look at your dat files using windows explorer (C:\Program Files\Yahoo!\Messenger\Profiles\my YM username\Archive\Messages\my hubby's username) if you still have the 2007 ones... their filenames should all start with 2007

hope that helps.

[navyswife 0]

i am not sure if it's different or the same with XP and vista. i use XP (vista sucks lol) and my archives are here:

C:\Program Files\Yahoo!\Messenger\Profiles\my YM username\Archive\Messages\my hubby's username

then i know the dat files are usually named like this: year month day-your username.dat ...

example: 20090818-abbie.dat

try to look at your dat files using windows explorer (C:\Program Files\Yahoo!\Messenger\Profiles\my YM username\Archive\Messages\my hubby's username) if you still have the 2007 ones... their filenames should all start with 2007

hope that helps.

Ok thanks for that. How to do that window explorer i almost forgot..lol