Database Info

What are those different ROM versions for?

Hi all,
since I am new to this PDA stuff (got my first HTC Magician last week), I have a question: what are those different ROM version and editions on your FTP site for?
I noticed, there are several different directories, for example:
* BigStorage
* Extended ROM
* Shipped ROM
* Modified ROM
* ...
Could someone explain this do me please? For example, what does this "BigStorage" mean, what are "Modified ROM"s?
Greetings and thanks for your help in advance, Matthias

Hi haimat,
- The shipped roms are the roms are unmodified like they can be downloaded from the various providers.
- The extended roms are a part of the shipped roms. Normally you don't see them on your device, but they are out there somewhere hiding and sneaking upon you when you perform hard-reset (powerbutton & soft-reset at the same time). Sorry got a bit carried away here. You can make them visible with the loadvdisk.exe, a hidden rom file in the windows folder, either create a shortcut to it with your PC explorer via the Act.Sync. or get something like total commandef or resco file explorer. Last option is to do a hard-reset and after you finished the init.proc with time-zone etc. perform a soft-reset. This will prevent the autoexec. from the extrom & the loadvdisk.lnk in startup won't be deleted then.
- BIG Storage roms are patched romdumps from other people's magician's (made one myself for 1.13WWe). These roms don't have an extrom anymore. The extrom is about 20Mb & can be combined with the Storage folder you have at this moment (approx. 7Mb). Get the picture? A lot of space to install programs & store data that doesn't disappear after hard-reset or powerloss.
Course you need a copy of an extrom when you apply BS to get all your default MMS & gprs settings etc from your provider.
-Modified roms, well the name says it all. Haven't tried those yet, you'll need out what is changed before applying those.
Just a little warning about the BS patch, before you think I WANT THAT read everything in the thread's for ways to solve any probs. encoutered with them. It's not without risc & you can end up with a not working device. So take your time to get used to the terms etc. Gather all the tooling & read everything again.
There's a lot of info at the fora here, reg.hacks useful apps. how to's. I'm sure you can find everything you need.
BTW welcome to this sharing and very useful community.
Regards, M
-

Hi, thanks for your good explaination of the different types of ROMs!
I will look into them...
Greetings and thx again, Matthias

ROM Kitchen questions

Now perhaps i am being a little naive here, but surely if you wish to cook a custom rom for yourself, the best option by far is a kitchen with an ultra clean rom with absolutely no customisation at all, and then a massive repository of custom apps etc as tick boxes in the buildos screen?
I have cooked myself a few nice roms using pandoras kitchen, but realise that there are even with it a few addons within the base rom itself. I am looking for the cleanest of base roms, then use the kitchen with all the OEM packages i can find.
Also looking how to create a wap provisioning file that can integrate to the rom at build stage to set up my O2 gprs and wap settings, instead of doing it as a cab in extended rom.
Any help and suggestions are welcome, and big thanks to all the usual suspects for continually releasing little golden nuggets for the rest of us

Well, yeah, a little...
Anyway, if you want to try taking things out of the sys directory, (usually the "base os") just remove the offending subdirectories and they won't get built in.
For your wap settings, just create your own package. (Read how in double0_four's kitchen thread, or faria's kitchen thread) Just put your reg settings in the .rgu file. Or you could tack your settings into another .rgu file that's already being built. (Not the best form, but it should work.)
Have fun!

For each of the components in the SYS folder, you can add an entry in the options.xml file in the SYS folder. Use Office and Transcribe as an example of how to do it. This will allow you to choose what you want from the BuildOS screen.

I dont think you can build GPRS settings using a reg file??? I have scoured the registry and cannot find how it is done. The last time i did it i used a cab file with a <wap-provisioning> style xml file, buti dont see howthis would built in an .rgu file.
And which rom would you consider to be the leanest rom to build from, then i can just make up my own packages to add in to it.
If worst comes to worst, i will just use the cab andset it to run on first boot, same way one ofthe other roms does this instead of using extended rom,. they just put the cabs into the windows folder

Virgin Rom Wanted

Hi could someone post a wm6 link to a pure virgin rom for me to cook, I don't want any extra apps in and if possible would like it to be stripped of useless extras ie games must keep office mobile (not calc)
Many thanks
Gary Hopefully a new cooker if i get the pure rom to startwith

virginity is rare novadays....

I think matt released a "virgin" aka "Naked" version of Pandora1.10... check that thread.

Sign me up for one of those virgins .. oh .. wait.. you mean a different kind of virgin.. lol.

Since you want office (currently not available in a cab) you'll need a rom cooked pretty much specifically to your needs.
I'd suggest reading Faria's and double0fours kitchen guides, then choosing the base you want and building your own with one of the kitchens out there. The learning curve isn't too bad, and that way you can get exactly what you want.

My Problem Is stripping all the S**T out the rom (What dll's go with what EXE's and shortcuts Reg settings to free up as much avail space in rom etc) can add software no problem,

garymeg said:
My Problem Is stripping all the S**T out the rom (What dll's go with what EXE's and shortcuts Reg settings to free up as much avail space in rom etc) can add software no problem,
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The kitchen uses an application called BuildOS. You check the check boxes for the apps you want, and that's all it installes - in addition to os and sys components. No filtering required.

mattk_r said:
The kitchen uses an application called BuildOS. You check the check boxes for the apps you want, and that's all it installes - in addition to os and sys components. No filtering required.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
garymeg.....mattk_r is right !
Download, run the kitchen and check or in your case...don't check anything.
Heads up...if you're doing this to save on storage space, you got it wrong. The OS, with or without goodies will be about the same size. The advantage of cooking programs into the ROM is to actually save on storage space. The OS is a region you can not touch once it's built. To install programs afterwards will use up space.
Use the kitchen, do it your way....it's easy.

If you still want to try a pre-cooked rom, the third post in the OS thread in my signature I'm uploading a naked plus camera, office, and media player. I can't strip out media player yet, because there's a file interdependency between Office and Media player that I haven't fixed yet.

Advice on RAMdisk and/or Extended_Rom

Hi There
I have spent a few days researching and searching the net but I still haven't been able to find a solid answer to how you can create a hard reset resilient piece of software that is user installable rather than having to manually tweak extended roms etc.
I have a piece of inhouse software that is hard reset resilient on CE 4.2/5.0 devices but I need to port the application to some new WM5 & 6 devices and I am currently testing a few different models. I have looked at the excellent work in the Extended_Rom discussions on this forum and tweaking the config.txt and unlocking and adding my cab would be perfect for me apart from I need to do something that will do all of this on a simple user install. The user will install the cabs, the device will need to burn the app into the Extended Rom so that if the device is subsequently hard reset the software is still running.
I understand that I will have to write a different cab for different handsets (For slightly different reg settings), thats not a problem and using c# I am able to do most of this in a cab, but the questions I have are below:
1. Is extended_Rom a WM5 thing only or is it a device dependant thing? What do I do when there is no Extended_Rom, like with the Kaiser/TytnII? and is it a reliable method of doing this!?
2. Are the last 2 lines in the config.txt always the same (LOCKisabled
RST: Reset), so that I could reliably insert some extra CAB: lines ahead of them?
2. Is creating a RAMDisk a better option and is this something that would offer a more generic solution to me across all devices?
3. Is there a proper industry standard/MSDN way of doing this!?
There are pieces of software out there that are doing this like B2M mProdigy's device management client so it must be able to be done.
Any help or advice would be very much appreciated.
Regards
DaveK17

Any ideas....anyone?
I'm begining to think that this is not possible in the Consumer world of WM. I guess i'm too used to the rugged market where the manufacturers provide this kind of resilience themselves.
Would this be the right line of thinking?
Any help is appreciated
DaveK17

The extended rom is for some of the older phones made before the HTC Touch series and the TYTN II. It is uses across all Windows Mobile versions since the phones need it.
I think I can help you with the config.txt part as well. The last two lines are always there and yes you can put in the relevant lines above them which would be:
Code:
CAB: \Windows\path\to\your\cab
So provided you can make the cab file apart of the ROM then you should be good to go.
As for the RamDisk, I would recommend against it unless you'll be including the relevant software into you cab file. Window Mobile doesn't come with one by default.
I haven't looked into the msdn for this aside from Windows CE 6 so I can't help you there. But I hope my answer help you...
Regards,
Soul_Est

Can someone post clean SYS from 5.2.20764.1.4.3 OS suitable for cooking Wizard ROMs

I have looked all over and cannot get an intact SYS (with directory structure and dsm/rgu files in place) from OS version 5.2.20764 .1.4.3 already whipped up for 96 DPI for our Wizards.
Maybe I am looking in the wrong places?!?!?!?
And yes I have tried to "un-cook" a few roms from other devices / forum threads to no avail ... usually cooked ones have "lost" the directory structure and all individual dsm/rgu.
I have been able to reverse engineer one and "back out" all reg changes from package and compared registry entries to other OS versions, but a lot of work and still don't know if I have missed any items. (even though I have successfully cooked with it and not encountered any glitches, ... yet)
Much appreciate it, or if someone can direct me in the right direction.
Thanks