Ok, I have used many of these and have questions.

[jonny4]

First, why is it so hard to find a bare minimum rom even if it is just 6.1, second how hard is it to do this stuff, maybe I can, and third what do i need to try and build my own rom? The closest thing I have read about that sounded like the perfect rom was Juicy 8 but I am reading it has a timebomb in it and can no loger be used. I understand it is cool to have all these slick ui's and such. I have a Sprint Touch Diamond and I would be cool with a rom exactly like normal but all the crap that Sprint installs removed. Am I missing something, is it on here and I can't find it? I also need to run Microsoft MyPhone and Marketplace and some of the roms here don't seem to work with them.

[boredandtattooed]

because the device is like 3 yrs old, and weve progessed since then, thats why bare 6.1 is hard to find..

easy as hell.. download rom, extract to desktop, activesync/WMDC, run RUU.. simple..

just need a kitchen to start building a rom..

[jonny4]

I understand how to load a already custom built rom and I would also take a 6.5, I am currently trying to squeeze as much life out of my phone as I can until Sprint gets smart and adds more WP7 devices. Of course they have their lips on Google's butt right now though, 6 devices announced and 2 others rumored and it isn't even April yet. The Sprint Arrive is a complete waste of money and it isn't innovative at all. It is almost exactly like the HTC Evo Shift 4g in hardware specs and costs more. So a good slim wm 6.5 rom will work, most of the rom's I have tried eat up battery life. So if I use a kitchen what do I start with, is there a place to find a basic build of WinMo 6.5 to start at? Like I said I am pretty new but I have 12 years in the computer field and I might be able to try it. I really wanted to try Juicy 8 because it sounds perfect but of course the time bomb doesn't allow it to run.

[mwalt2]

Your best bet it to find calkulin's old kitchen for the Diamond (or use OMJ's / OaT's). They are both based off of calkulin's. Then you just leave out stuff you want and add things you do want. Calkulin's probably has a 6.1 SYS already there, so it may be the easiest. Starting a kitchen from scratch for the CDMA diamond is a pain because everything is put in OEMApps and not broken up into packages like all GSM and newer CDMA ROMs. If you need it, I can upload calkulin's diamond kitchen for you.

If you want to squeeze life out of your diamond, you'll need to learn how to make your own ROMs.

[2 Bunny]

Like MWalt said, if you want to try cooking for yourself, I would start with a simple Caulkin's 4.1 Kitchen (I saw one on MediaFire that doesn't have any Manila 2.5 confusion in it to contend with that is really easy to use). If you want my advice, stick with WM6.1. 6.5 looks kinda cool, but it is crazy slow and will kill your battery before your ROM even boots (not literally, but it sure seems that way). If you check my signature, you can try my Elite Series ROM. Right now I'm working on a new one that I plan on releasing sometime within the next week or two here (I made massive progress over the last two weeks, but I hit a roadblock) depending on how things work out.

I'd pretty much try a few of the available WM6.1 and 6.5 ROMs in the threads here and see what you like. Note the free space, relative battery life, speed, preinstalled items and how much tweaking you have to do to each before it is up to doing the daily tasks that you use it for. If you want to try cooking some stuff, let me know, and I'll find that "pristine" MediaFire link that I managed to find some weeks ago and I'll also toss in a good starter ERV file to give you an idea of what you want included as a minimal default, and then you can experiment from there.

Good Luck.

- 2 Bunny

[Tinkerbell]

Here is my shameless plug. You can also use BuildOS from PPCk to build your own Rom. We have all the latest WM builds.

[intx]

My plug:

try this: http://forum.ppcgeeks.com/cdma-diamo...-ever-use.html

You'll need to install the timestamp fix but it should be near the end of the thread.