Clean and simple AKU 3.5 for the Sprint Apache

[Jeff Kirvin]

First, the bona fides...

Based on Unified ROM Project 1.2 Pre-release (thanks to everyone on the ROM team, awesome work guys!)

Removed:
Cyberon Voice Dial (if you're going to use voice dial at all, get Microsoft's Voice Command 1.6)
Clear Storage (hold down both soft buttons while pressing in on the reset switch to hard reset if you need to)
MSN (all of it)
IntelliPad (the goofy T9 SIP)
IA_Zip (Unnecessary with Total Commander)
SMS Retry (might be useful if it was automatic, but it's not...)

Added:
1-Calc Lite (better calculator)
MMS with Sprint settings (self-explanatory)
Midlet Manager (Java Virtual Machine)
Sprint Customizations (stuff that would have been in your now empty Extended ROM partition)
Total Commander 2.5 (freeware file manager, FTP client and registry editor; also makes great fries!)
Windows Live Search (better than Google Maps)

.NET 2.0 Compact Frameworks are preinstalled.

Okay, here's how you use this. Follow this step by step, and nobody gets hurt.

1. Hard reset your phone. As mentioned above, you don't need Clear Storage to do this. Hold down both soft buttons with one hand and poke the reset hole with the other, ideally while holding a stylus in the second hand, unless you have really pointy fingers.

2. Put your phone in Bootloader mode. This is a special condition that prepares the phone to rewrite the ROM. While holding down both the power and record buttons, poke the reset switch, again with a stylus. The backlight should go off and the screen will say "Serial". When you put it in the crade, the screen will change to say "USB" and the backlight will stay off. This is normal. Wait for Windows to recognize the new USB device before moving on.

3. Run Kirvin AKU 3.5 Sprint NoJunk.exe. Keep clicking Next until it's done. Do NOT remove your phone from the cradle until it tells you to! Seriously. Don't make me come over there.

4. When told to remove your phone from the cradle, pull it out and hard reset it again. Congratulations! You're running AKU 3.5, probably the closest to Windows Mobile 6 we Apache owners will ever get!

5. Boot up normally, and note that you don't have wait on the customizations. They're baked right in.

6. Go ahead and create a new ActiveSync partnership if that's the sort of thing you might do.

7. Get Ext ROM Unlock.exe and PPCGeeks.com ApacheExtRomUnlocker.cab, both included in this archive, on your phone somehow. Put them on a storage card, drag them to your Pocket PC My Documents folder, it doesn't really matter. Just make sure you can find them on the device.

8. Run Ext ROM Unlock.exe. A little box should pop up that says "Success".

9. Install PPCGeeks.com ApacheExtRomUnlocker.cab. You can do this by tapping on it, if you're not used to installing cab files.

10. SOFT reset your phone. When it boots back up, you should have a new "storage card" called "Extended_ROM2". It will be 10MB and empty.

11. Go ahead and start reinstalling all the stuff you use for your standard loadout, putting everything but device drivers, stuff that sets alarms and Today screen plugins in Extended_ROM2. You should have well over 25MB of main storage memory still free when you're done, a pretty mean feat for an Apache! Oh, and don’t restore from a full system backup as you’ll end up restoring pre-3.5 system files.

And finally, the download link:

ftp://ppcgeeks:ezupload@up.ppcgeeks....int_NoJunk.zip

[eman]

Sounds very tempting.......Does it include smart dialer? That is one thing I am really missing in 3.5.

[CMeys]

Does the extended ROM need to be left unlocked after installing the programs to it?

If so, doesn't that cause a conflict with the storage card when one wants to install programs to it?

Thanks for all your work.

[sfaure03]

Wow Jeff, thats just about excactly how I build the rom i put on my phone .

Any chance you'd release it like I have been doing the kitchen pre-2? Ie, create a batch file that does all the removes, and then copy in you're OEM package?

That way we can easily see any tweaks you found, and people can extend the rom for others..

[sfaure03]

on the storage card, there are up/s downs in making it visible and useable.

#1, you can install more software to that 8 mb of storage.

However some applications then proceed to try and use it like they would see/use routing external storage.

What i've been doing for my own personal builds, is to build an external rom with the binaries for applicaitons on them, with shortcuts to those files in \\program files\appname. I put about 5 megs of applications "preloaded" to the ext_rom as part of my flash.

Then I dont make the rom "visible" but it quietly gives me extra elbow room.

Like most choices there are advantages/disadvantes to the way you slice this cat. This one has them as well!!

Shawn

[FastRX8]

If I install this on a Verizon 6700, what problems will I have?
Can I just run "Apache_VZW_MMS3.0.6.24_20060124.CAB" to enable mms?

Thanks.

- RX8 -

[sfaure03]

this rom is preloaded sprint, so I would sugguest you not run it less you know how to take out/undo the sprint mods.

[Third]

Great job with the Rom!!

I do have a question though. When I try to tether my 6700 (via USB) i'm getting a "COM OPEN ERROR" is this normal with this build?

[CedricMordrin]

So far so good. It's much faster and cleaner than the previous 3.3 ROM I was using.
Thank you for releasing this and I'll post issues that I encounter.

[Maxx134]

This is great as it avoids the hassles I have run across in attempting to combine sprint cabs to reduce unneeded older and duplicate files.

Having customizations run in Rom is the way to go!