Is there a newbie guide to Apache ROM upgrading?

[lovingyou]

ok i am new so which key is call note ? thanks

[DaveNagy]

Originally Posted by lovingyou

ok i am new so which key is call note ? thanks

I'm thinking it's the one right above the volume slider. Has a picture of a cassette tape on it, which must confuse the kids. The manual calls it the "Voice Recorder" button. Used to record "voice notes". Hopefully one of the gurus will correct me if I'm wrong.

(This is exactly the sort of thing I'd like to see spelled out explicitly in a Newbie ROM Guide. No nicknames, abbreviations, or slang terms that don't mean anything to someone just starting out.)

Thanks for all the responses. I think I see a way forward. More on that in my reply to schettj's excellent post.

[DaveNagy]

Originally Posted by schettj

(a) it's an expensive bit of gear, are you sure you want to turn it into a testbed for unoffical roms? You really should have a good answer for that one.

(b) ok, you're crazy like me, so you answered "yes"! Proceed

(c) first real step!
you must have activesync working, and a full sync of cal/contacts/todo - or assume you will lose them. Read that again. Understand it? Sure? Really?

(d) sync - make sure its current

(e) do you have all the various bits you've already installed? By bits I mean, you have the installer exes, or the CABS, NOT on your phone internal store? Sure? Really Really? Ok... Oh, and you have all your serial number/reg key/whatevers for your commercial apps?

(f) last chance... You Will Be Wiping Internal Memory Very Soon...

(g) last bit of homework. You're going to be doing stuff that isn't going to play well with your carrier extended_rom stuff. We'll get to that in a moment, but unfortunately that's a huge hairy branch of choices from there... and I'm not going to be able to type it all up in one go.

Good stuff. I'm going to cut off his post there, so this reply doesn't get too unwieldy. After I understand this "prep" phase, I'll be better prepared to deal with the stuff that comes later. I hope.

Okay, in answer to "a". Yeah, I'm fairly willing to slap a user-built ROM on my shiny new phone. As long as I pick a fairly popular one, I figure the odds of it actually slagging the hardware are managably low. The part that worries me is what happens if I screw up the upgrade process itself. That sounds like a recipe for a brick. Hence, this thread...

Moving on to step "c": No, I'm not at all sure I have Activesync working. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's not working. I've only created one "contact", but I see no indication that it's been backed up. I haven't looked for or read instructions about Activesync. I just downloaded it, installed it on my PC, and slapped the phone in its cradle. Things happened automagically then, but God knows what... Here's what item "c" says to me:

"You will need to back up all personal info prior to upgrading the ROM. If you do not, you will lose all your contacts, calander entries, etc. Happily, Activesync can do this for you. Make sure it does." {Insert link to Activesync instructions}

Okay, making progress....

(d) sync - make sure its current

I have no idea what this even means. Are we talking about Activesync some more?

We're up to "e". The one about making sure you know where all the files are that you will need after the upgrade is finished. Pretty self-explanatory. Good advice.

Skipping to "g". The mysterious allusion to our carrier's extended_rom. I still don't know what that is, but here's my guesses:

* It's the add-on stuff that comes preloaded on your phone, kinda like the useless virus-checker that Dell installs on every computer they sell. On my Sprint phone, I see the "Audible Player" and "GetGood". Perhaps these were in the ext-rom?

* Or, maybe it's the super-special software bits that allow your phone to actually talk on the carrier's network, voice and data. Kinda like drivers, I suppose. Maybe some sekrit encryption doodads, too.

So, what is the "homework" we're supposed to do? I was assuming (dangerous!) that the folks that wrote/assembled/modded the ROM upgrade spent many a day getting it to play nicely with the proprietary bits from Verizon and Sprint. Is that not so? Is there more work that the end-user needs to be able to do?

[DaveNagy]

Okay, this next part sounds like a plan! The "way forward" I mentioned a couple posts above.

Originally Posted by schettj

(h) but I wanna do it now!

Ok, so you are itching to go... the SAFE way to get SOME benefit, without the hairy spiders of AKU3.x attacking, is to just go for AKU2.2 from Wideawake, right here:

http://www.ppcgeeks.com/updated1-2ho...700-t1515.html

Why do that? Couple reasons

(1) it's "carrier safe" - you don't need to understand the extended rom.
(2) it's good pratice - you'll be flashing your rom, and getting a feel for the whole hard reset dance...
(3) AKU 2.2 is very much like AKU 2.0, it has BT DUN, everything works, etc, just a little faster.

It's still a mighty fine bit of work that's often overlooked.

My suggestion is to cut your teeth on that puppy and then if you're still itching to go into uncharted territory, continue on from there.

Okay, that sounds like a good strategy. Baby steps. I will read through that thread, and see if I can puzzle out how to upgrade to that not-too-crazy 2.2 AKU. (Aside: Has anyone besides me watched 'Samurai Jack"? That's what always leaps to mind whenever mentions "AKU".)



If I am successfully able to do this less "exciting" 2.2 upgrade, I will write up my experiance. With detailed notes and instructions. Screenshots, even. After that, maybe the gurus can critique my write-up, and discuss what parts would have to be added to properly document a "real" upgrade, like to 3.3.

[Wideawake]

Davy u could do that if u like Yes the notes key is the one with the tape on it and g/l with 2.2 its more stable than all the others.
~Mike

[schettj]

Originally Posted by DaveNagy

I have no idea what this even means. Are we talking about Activesync some more?

Yep, sorry... I mean, do another ActiveSync just before you start - if you're like me, you think your AS backup is current, but it's usually not!

Skipping to "g". The mysterious allusion to our carrier's extended_rom. I still don't know what that is, but here's my guesses:

* It's the add-on stuff that comes preloaded on your phone, kinda like the useless virus-checker that Dell installs on every computer they sell. On my Sprint phone, I see the "Audible Player" and "GetGood". Perhaps these were in the ext-rom?

Yes, the extended_rom stuff is unique to each carrier, and installs a bunch of apps and OS updates, and registry settings automagically on a hard boot. There are threads here on customizing your extended_rom, and on problems with the extended roms (which were designed to patch AKU 2.0, NOT AKU 3.x) when used with newer roms. I had hopes of tracking all that down (I've narrowed my Sprint stuff down to a handful of needed cabs, and the Verizon users also have figured out which of theirs are needed and which are bad, but I've not gathered the info all in one place.)

Your job is to hunt down that info for your carrier, and learn how to modify your extended rom so you can remove the problem CABs.

One simple way is to unlock the extended rom (again, that info is here somewhere, I need to link it) and copy all the cabs off it onto your storage card, and then delete them from the extended rom - you'll have 10MB free there now if you run with it unlocked, and on a hard reset *nothing* extra will be installed.

So, after a hard reset, you just go to your storage card and manually install the carrier CABs needed.

[edgar2049]

Hi,

I am a new user on this forum, I have read several interesting stuff here ( very good stuffs )....

First that all, I want to sorry about my english, I speak and write in spanish, so most times you could find several mistakes on my words and sentences.... ( sorry ).

I have a PPC6700 Starcom from Movistar Venezuela, which also has the SO WM 5 in spanish, it is an excelent PPC Phone but sometimes I feel that its a like slow, and has a few bugs ( the MiniSD reading is a little slow the first time that you go to Programs or Games folder, it has a delay of about 1 min!!!! ), etc ....

I have read the version of my AKU and its 2.2.0 ( SO 5.1.195 compilation 14928.2.2.0 The last 3 are the AKU right?).

I would like to know what are the improves of the version 3.3 or 3.5, also I would like to know if there is any way to do a backup of my actual AKU 2.2.0 in the case of somthing goes wrong in the updated version 3.3 or 3.5 with my PPC ( its that possible???? ).

Are the new AKU 3.3 or 3.5 in spanish lenguaje or english only???

And a last thing, What does it mean AKU???

Thank you very much for your help and support....

Regards

Edgar2049

[luv2chill]

First of all, your English is better than that of a lot of Americans!

Does your carrier have a ROM updater on their web site for the Apache? Otherwise, it may be a problem if you flash a new ROM but need to go back to the original one. Here in the US and Canada, the carriers mostly provide official ROM updates so it's no problem for us to flash other ones as we can always flash back to the official ROM.

All of the ROMs on this site are WWE (English) only... no Spanish. I don't know if it is possible to use a spanish AKU 3.5 from xda-developers.com (if one exists) and incorporate it into an Apache ROM to convert it from WWE to Spanish. Maybe someone else knows (especially over at xda-developers).

AKU 2.2 is somewhat recent, and already incorporates some speed improvements over AKU 2.0. But AKU 3.2 and 3.5 are even faster. They also have solved some problems like the minisd card causing the device to hang (DSOD) and have added some new features. You can read some more about AKUs in this article:

http://www.mobile-review.com/pda/art...m-aku-en.shtml

By the way, AKU stands for Adaptation Kit Update (don't ask me why they chose that name). It is just Microsoft's way of issueing updates to the Windows Mobile OS. Starting with WM6 (Crossbow) they have built in a "Windows Update" type function, so maybe in the future they will use that to provide some updates to users directly (let's hope so).

Good luck.

[Wideawake]

Originally Posted by edgar2049

Hi,

I am a new user on this forum, I have read several interesting stuff here ( very good stuffs )....

First that all, I want to sorry about my english, I speak and write in spanish, so most times you could find several mistakes on my words and sentences.... ( sorry ).

I have a PPC6700 Starcom from Movistar Venezuela, which also has the SO WM 5 in spanish, it is an excelent PPC Phone but sometimes I feel that its a like slow, and has a few bugs ( the MiniSD reading is a little slow the first time that you go to Programs or Games folder, it has a delay of about 1 min!!!! ), etc ....

I have read the version of my AKU and its 2.2.0 ( SO 5.1.195 compilation 14928.2.2.0 The last 3 are the AKU right?).

I would like to know what are the improves of the version 3.3 or 3.5, also I would like to know if there is any way to do a backup of my actual AKU 2.2.0 in the case of somthing goes wrong in the updated version 3.3 or 3.5 with my PPC ( its that possible???? ).

Are the new AKU 3.3 or 3.5 in spanish lenguaje or english only???

And a last thing, What does it mean AKU???

Thank you very much for your help and support....

Regards

Edgar2049

If you can get me a copy of an offical upgrade for your carrier I will see what I can do.
~Mike

[Sogarth]

Covering just a couple of points...

Originally Posted by edgar2049

I have a PPC6700 Starcom from Movistar Venezuela, which also has the SO WM 5 in spanish, it is an excelent PPC Phone but sometimes I feel that its a like slow, and has a few bugs ( the MiniSD reading is a little slow the first time that you go to Programs or Games folder, it has a delay of about 1 min!!!! ), etc ....

This is actually due to the way that the Start Menu and programs work. When the Start Menu is launching, it shows icons for all of the various programs you have installed (like it should). The problem is that the icon resource tends to be towards the end of executables, and so if you have large executables (like, say, Skype), the Start Menu is going to have crawl through several megabytes of data just to get to the icon. As you can imagine, this can take a while, and when you multiply it across several different programs that all do the same thing... it can get pretty painful. A different AKU probably wouldn't help you all too much with this problem.

Originally Posted by edgar2049

I would like to know what are the improves of the version 3.3 or 3.5, also I would like to know if there is any way to do a backup of my actual AKU 2.2.0 in the case of somthing goes wrong in the updated version 3.3 or 3.5 with my PPC ( its that possible???? ).

I'm not sure where I can point you to in order to get a version of the ROM you already have installed. Is there anything from your current carrier? What would be best is if your carrier has provided an upgraded ROM to, say, the AKU 2.2.0 you have or something similar. Then, you would keep a copy of that ROM in conjunction with a backup from a proper backup program (a lot of information on that is available here), and that would be the backup of your phone (although you could skip the latter part if you didn't care about the data on your phone, and only cared about the operating system).

Originally Posted by edgar2049

Are the new AKU 3.3 or 3.5 in spanish lenguaje or english only???

Heeheehee... I guess I might as well let one of the secret things I've done to my phone out of the bag. Let's just suffice it to say that if you can get a copy of your wince.nls file from your AKU 2.2.0 (which shouldn't be very difficult), then what you can do is use the ROM kitchen to replace your wince.nls with your Spanish one. This will take care of all the majority of the regional settings on the device itself (so that dates, numbers, currencies, etc. will be correct). In addition to this, you'll want to take a look at this xda-dev wiki page to change things like keyboard settings, T9 settings, and dictionary settings. The only thing I'm not sure of will be the language settings for the operating system text may still remain in English, but that might be okay for you. Suffice it to say that I have my own ROM running on a Japanese wince.nls...