a couple of questions about making a custom ROM

[mlevin77]

A few questions about ROM cooking:

1) Putting a piece of software into the ROM - does it save memory over installing it later or does it not matter whether it's in ROM or installed in memory afterward?

2) If I have an activation code for a program I bought, can I put it into the ROM and have it be fully activated after flashing, or will I have to enter the code the first time I run it?

3) do I give up some of the speed and guaranteed stability of the
well-tested clean ROMs by shoving 3rd-party software in there? Am I better
off leaving things to be installed afterwards (but assuming I need those
apps anyway, and don't have the choice of deciding not to install them)?

4) If applications are in ROM, will I still be able to set their preferences? Is that done before, in the ROM cooking, or must it be done after, when the device first boots?

5) can system settings (the way I like the XV6700 set up) be specified in
the ROM?

Thanks,

Mike

[av8tr]

Originally Posted by mlevin77

A few questions about ROM cooking:

1) Putting a piece of software into the ROM - does it save memory over installing it later or does it not matter whether it's in ROM or installed in memory afterward?

Yes. It saves Storage Memory.

[av8tr]

Originally Posted by mlevin77

A few questions about ROM cooking:

4) If applications are in ROM, will I still be able to set their preferences? Is that done before, in the ROM cooking, or must it be done after, when the device first boots?

5) can system settings (the way I like the XV6700 set up) be specified in
the ROM?

Thanks,

Mike

4. Yes. After, unless you are good at 5.

5. You can (for most things) with an OEM of registry settings.

[gguruusa]

Originally Posted by mlevin77

A few questions about ROM cooking:

1) Putting a piece of software into the ROM - does it save memory over installing it later or does it not matter whether it's in ROM or installed in memory afterward?

2) If I have an activation code for a program I bought, can I put it into the ROM and have it be fully activated after flashing, or will I have to enter the code the first time I run it?

3) do I give up some of the speed and guaranteed stability of the
well-tested clean ROMs by shoving 3rd-party software in there? Am I better
off leaving things to be installed afterwards (but assuming I need those
apps anyway, and don't have the choice of deciding not to install them)?

4) If applications are in ROM, will I still be able to set their preferences? Is that done before, in the ROM cooking, or must it be done after, when the device first boots?

5) can system settings (the way I like the XV6700 set up) be specified in
the ROM?

Thanks,

Mike

1) depends on how well the OEM packaegs is made. For most packages, you will realize near 100% storage savings.

2) depends on how the activiation code works, but generally yes - assuming you (or someone else) can figure out what to put where (usually in the registry)

3) (Guaranteed stability? You must be in the wrong place) If you're going to load it on your system one way or the other, this is largely a moot question (which is in part why a minimal ROM is a waste). Unless you have a bad or incompatible OEM package, your system will not be materially different between baking the OEM in the ROM vs installing the app by .cab (about the only difference is OEM packages always load their contents into the /windows dir; there's an ever so slight speed penalty for this in some circumstances)

4) for the most part, yes. The difficulty is in finding what your supposed to set and how to set it. Some apps use the registry, some don't. Some values are pretty obvious what they mean, some aren't. Analyzing before change and change after registry dumps is the most common method of determining what registry keys need to change.

5) for the most part, yes. Some can be done in the registry, some require provxml.