Tutorial to upgrade your ROM to WM6

[GaMedic]

Originally Posted by nostromo

Hi Ga. Medic. Thanks for this quick tutorial. This is great! I have been looking for something like this for the past couple of days.

I am completely new to the 6700 arena and wanted to double check some things before I decide to go ahead with the update.

1. I have a Sprint PPC 6700. That is known as the Apache right? I just want to make sure that I download the correct files.

2. I have not registered it with Sprint yet. I bought it used and was thinking of updating it first then transferring the phone number to it. Is this recommended or should I transfer the number first?

3. I followed your instructions to find the bootloader version and mine did not say USB at the top. It says Serial and at the bottom it says v1.00 not .02 or .04 as you mentioned in your post. I am assuming because it was not connected to the computer at the time. Which brings me to my next question.

4. Installing Active Sync....I am assuming that needs to be done at the very beginning...right?

5. You mentioned dropping the kitchen and OEM files to the C directory. Is that the recommended directory on the computer or on the device? By logic, I understand that the kitchen needs to be on the computer...obviously to run it, and am assuming same applies to the OEM file.

6. One thing I am having a hard time understanding is that when I think of a computer for instance, I don't think of the OS stored in the ROM. How is it that the PPC stores the OS in the ROM instead?

Sorry for asking so many questions. As I mentioned I am really new to this and do not want to screw up my device on the first try. I am very interested however in doing this and getting rid of the crap that sprint puts on the device.


Thanks again and hope to hear from you soon. I am really psyched about updating my device.

Happy holidays.

1. Yes that is an Apache
2.I don't know if it matters. If you taking the phone into a store to activate, you may want to activate then upgrade.
3. That is your bootloader. Being hooked to PC doesn't matter. I am not sure is you use standard or NoID. Someone else please answer here.
4. Active sync should be installed on your home PC. Yes it has to be installed before the upgrade is started.
5. You download the kitchen and unzip the file. It will have an installer. Run the installer and let it install with its default settings, another words don't change the directory it installs to. Once it is installed put the PPCGeeks_OEM.rar into the root folder. Should be C:\BuildOS
6. It does install through your ROM. I don't know a good explantion for you here.

[gguruusa]

2) it doesn't matter.
3) The rule is Standard unless you get an error or know you need something else. NoID version bypasses Country code checking (some people always use NoID instead of Standard - no harm). Being hooked to your PC will change the text from Serial to USB
4) You also need to have .Net 2.0 + all .Net service packs installed on your PC
5) Good advice for a novice, but you can install it anywhere.
6) Why does this confuse you? The only difference between a ROM based OS and a disk based OS is that since a ROM technically already has it's contents in memory, you can execute it's files in place (no need to load them into memory - they're already loaded in memory by definition). In the apache's particular case, the ROM is just a section of non-volatile memory that looks (for the most part) just like a 64MB disk.

[gguruusa]

Originally Posted by Sarge, USMC

Ok, so 2 things I noticed.

1.) Step 5, the Software Update Utility tells you, in it's "Step 1" to reset the device. Don't. Just hit "next."
2.) At the end, when it's done, it shows you a little picture and tells you to soft reset the device. Once that applet closes, there's a popup window that tells you to hard reset.

Seems to have worked without a flaw. Now to go find another post to tell me how to make this thing do what I want it to do!

Thx, Brian. You're the man for taking the time to do this. Once this thread is "fine tuned" it should be locked and stuck on top somewhere. IMHO.........

Yeah, I'd like to emulate the RUU utility to eliminate some of this confusion. You are correct, ignore the Reset in "Step 1" of the RUU, and ignore the "soft reset" at end of RUU. The correct build sequence is
1) .....push play button,
2) lot's of stuff scrolls up buildstatus window,
3) bootloader mode instruction pop-up appears - set phone to bootloader mode,
4) connect phone by USB cable (if it's not already connected),
5) RUU starts, ignore Step 1 reset instruction,
6) push Next buttons until flashing is done,
7) ignore soft reset instruction at end of RUU,
unplug PPC, hard reset instruction pop-up appears - hard reset,
9) [unplug ppc here if you didn't already],
10) visualize the glory of your new ROM.

You can reconnect your USB cable after your PPC fully boots, if you want.

[GaMedic]

Originally Posted by gguruusa

Yeah, I'd like to emulate the RUU utility to eliminate some of this confusion. You are correct, ignore the Reset in "Step 1" of the RUU, and ignore the "soft reset" at end of RUU. The correct build sequence is
1) .....push play button,
2) lot's of stuff scrolls up buildstatus window,
3) bootloader mode instruction pop-up appears - set phone to bootloader mode,
4) connect phone by USB cable (if it's not already connected),
5) RUU starts, ignore Step 1 reset instruction,
6) push Next buttons until flashing is done,
7) ignore soft reset instruction at end of RUU,
unplug PPC, hard reset instruction pop-up appears - hard reset,
9) [unplug ppc here if you didn't already],
10) visualize the glory of your new ROM.

You can reconnect your USB cable after your PPC fully boots, if you want.

LOL i like your simplified instructions. That is easy for those of us that have done this a few times, but I have no knowledge of programming and I am not very knowledgable about PPC's. I have learned a lot from this site. I was scared to death to flash my phone the first time, as I am sure a lot of people who visit here are. I wanted to post this just because I have seen numerous people ask about a tutorial because they fear screwing up thier phone. I just wanted people to know this is not that hard. I thought it was when I started, but soon found out even a dude from Georgia could do it. It sounds a lot more technical than it is. I really appreciate the efforts of people like you gguruusa. You took a lot of the fear away when I first did this. I have not been able to donate to the developers due to issues with identity theft involving my paypal account so I thought this would be a small way of trying to give back until I get this paypal crap straightened out.

[rbeaufor]

Great, GREAT tutorial, GA medic.

Since you've gone this far with this, I was wondering if you'd add a few words about adding other OEMs so that they can be cooked in the next kitchen. I find it confusing sometimes about whether you zip or unzip, put in User_OEM or buildOS...etc

[Sarge, USMC]

ya I was wondering that myself. I'd like to add some things I found to my kitchen if that's possible.

[GaMedic]

Originally Posted by rbeaufor

Great, GREAT tutorial, GA medic.

Since you've gone this far with this, I was wondering if you'd add a few words about adding other OEMs so that they can be cooked in the next kitchen. I find it confusing sometimes about whether you zip or unzip, put in User_OEM or buildOS...etc

If you download an OEM in a zipped format you need to unzip the file. You just take that folder(with the title of your OEM on it) and drop it into the User_OEM folder. That should be all there is to it. The option will show up in the kitchen for you to check and add to your ROM.
If you want to build your own OEM look into tiermans OEMizer.

[guitardoc64]

Good info Ga. Medic! This is what's been needed for the new kitchen since it came out!
Someone ought to excerpt this into a txt file and include it with the kitchen. My only addition would be to recommend deleting the device profile in activesync (I do that when I unplug to put mine in bootloader) to eliminate sync errors. Excellent job!

[GaMedic]

Originally Posted by guitardoc64

Good info Ga. Medic! This is what's been needed for the new kitchen since it came out!
Someone ought to excerpt this into a txt file and include it with the kitchen. My only addition would be to recommend deleting the device profile in active sync (I do that when I unplug to put mine in bootloader) to eliminate sync errors. Excellent job!

I don't have any problems with any sync errors. I simply hook up my USB and Check everything except contacts. I let it sync, then go back and check contacts. For some reason if i check contacts on the first sync it does not load them. So I just leave it off until after the first sync then add it on the second one. Other than that I have no issues at all. One thing I would recommend is using a PIM backup in case you are ever away from your home PC and need o do a hard reset, you can load your contacts and calender from the PIM backup. I noticed tough that if I load via PIM backup and then sync with Active sync it will duplicate all my calender info, so I try not to use the backup unless I have to. It is a tedious process to have to go in and delete the duplicates.

[guitardoc64]

Originally Posted by Ga. Medic

I don't have any problems with any sync errors. I simply hook up my USB and Check everything except contacts. I let it sync, then go back and check contacts. For some reason if i check contacts on the first sync it does not load them. So I just leave it off until after the first sync then add it on the second one. Other than that I have no issues at all. One thing I would recommend is using a PIM backup in case you are ever away from your home PC and need o do a hard reset, you can load your contacts and calender from the PIM backup. I noticed tough that if I load via PIM backup and then sync with Active sync it will duplicate all my calender info, so I try not to use the backup unless I have to. It is a tedious process to have to go in and delete the duplicates.

That's why I delete the devic in activesync. It resyncs everything the first time and causes zero problems. Back in the Verizonguy WM6 days I had a sync error that blanked ALL my contacts in outlook. Wasn't pretty. Restoring from backups I ended up with every contact at least duplicated some tripled and quadrupled. That is when I found out that 200 contacts is about the limit for the 6700. Opened contacts and about 10 minutes later.... I have had zero problems with sync with the new WM6 other than the slowdown during the sync cycle of the PPC.