Turns out the MSN itch never stops. I came across this thread on the MessengerGeek forums, which pointed toward ProxHTTPSProxy, a program that seems to fix many issues with Escargot and HTTPS sites in general on XP. I believe it’s a bit like WebOne in how you use it; except, that it runs locally, and still lets you use http:// urls as normal instead of serving as an http:// proxy.
Once that was set up, there was another change I needed to make in order for it to connect to my running server instance (which, with how I have it configured in VirtualBox, is the IP 10.0.2.2, as it’s referred to in my HOSTS file), and that was to make the proxy skip verifying certificates for those domains.
(I don’t believe this would be required outside of development when pre-patched installers come out.)
It was then when WLM could finally connect without spouting 80048862 or 80048820 errors, which for me was great to see, if only because I had never seen XP work right with Escargot in person before. To see 2009 will work on XP on release, while it probably shouldn’t be a surprise, is quite the relief. (And it also means I’ll be able to get Escargot 8.5 set up now on my own personal “XP machine”, a 2011 ThinkCentre Edge, in case I start using that full-time; part-time even.)
And honestly I’m quite excited about just how compatible 2009 looks to be with the utilities I use with WLM 8.5 now, with Messenger Plus! of course being available, and Craftplacer’s Messenger Activity Monitor (and other Messenger .NET-based projects) working just as well. Basically all of what I like so much about 8.5 is still gonna be here, like file transfers, handwriting and the mess.be games, and while I probably shouldn’t be surprised by it all still being here, as far as I can tell 2009 is mainly just more of what I like about MSN and I’m thrilled for that.
I’ll still need to contain that excitement as support isn’t out yet, but Soon™. Soon™ for sure.