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Since all of you have made it so easy to understand the basics, I'm trying to cook!
I'm using the latest official Tilt ROM posted here, but I'd like to import the latest CE OS version from a different ROM. I don't even know if this is possible, but I figure someone would know how if it is.
If I extract the base ROM and the ROM with the target CE OS, how would I go about importing this OS into the Base ROM?
Someone at least tell me shut up Newb and read or point me in the direction I need to go. I've looked and the only thing I can find is some references to XIP being difficult to port.
Is this where the main operating system of the device is stored?
Anyone willing to help?
BulldogXTRM said:
Anyone willing to help?
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I think you just asked the single hardest question about cooking. The answer is there's no "simple" easy way to do it. Most of the files you're looking for will reside in the SYS\OS* folders. The really good news is that as long as you keep the OEM\OEMDrivers folder alone you can port pretty much anything you want from a similar device (Hermes, Polaris, Wizard, etc) and it should work on the Kaiser.
But it is *truly* a VERY slow process to port enough to make things work without porting so much you break it again. And when you have a ROM that won't even boot its a ROYAL PAIN to track down which of dozens of changes you might have made between compiles/flashes is causing the problem. In my experience it's usually something really simple like extra characters in initflashfiles.dat (from editing in Notepad), or some registry setting gone awry.
Anyway, good luck to you!
How does one extract a CAB from a ROM?
For instance if I want to cook my own ROM, but I want to use some of the applications in say Dutty's latest release, how do I get those cab packages to install on my own?
Particularly, i am interested in pulling the latest remote desktop off of the latest test Tilt ROM because it has the ability to map the mobile's local storage.
thanks!
one word: RTFW.
Read The FFing Wiki!!
If I could find it on here I wouldn't have posted asking about it.
This is the first of my posts that have been met with a response like this, but honestly go troll somewhere else. It is 0% productive to make responses like that. You are cluttering up the forum with usesless posts (as much as I would be guilty of if this is indeed described in the wiki). If it's in the wiki, why don't you point me to where?
The wiki isn't a single page as much as you'd like to believe, it' links to hundreds and thousands of posts of information.
I have CIM and SIM unlocked my device, flashed about 5 different ROMS and radios and done numerous other things with info I have gotten from the wiki. I read through the ROM cooking kitchen tutorials, but could not find anything which mentions my task at hand. I found information and links on the cooking tutorials to use OEM cabs that people had already extracted....but what if the one I want isn't there? Where is the info that tells me how to pull one OUT of a ROM (instead of putting one already extracted IN)?
So, either you are misunderstanding what i want to do, or else the way i am phrasing it is misleading, both to you and to myself, which is maybe why i can't find the info I want.
So, please your brilliance, point me to location in the Wiki that would describe a procedure where i would be able to extract a .CAB (like Windows Mobile Desktop) from the latest AT&T test ROM.
Otherwise your contributions to this thread are unwanted.
while maarten might have pointed you in the wrong direction, your thread is still a redundant one. if you tried to search, you will find lots of threads covering this subject. and yea, your search results are probably gonna end up with tons of threads that end up looking like this thread, but if you sift through the results.......and by sift i mean u really really sift, i promise you, you will find something useful.
Simple Answer...
...You can't extract a CAB from a ROM usually.
Explanation: In the ROM itself things like windows live are extracted from the CAB already and are installed, so the CAB itself is not there. If your original question was how do I extract the files needed to MAKE a CAB.. then that's more complex, a different question, and a waste of your time if you don't already know how to do it.
If you really want to learn you will have to search.. if you just want a CAB of the latest windows live messenger get the build number by installing the ROM and looking in the application for it.. then use the google search of xda-developers (e.g. "Windows Live" <build number> )and you can be sure you will find someone has already done the hard work for you.
hope that helps.
You find threads on converting CAB's to OEM packages but not the other way round.
The trouble is when you extract a ROM, you'll probably find in the SYS directory, the OEM folder you want with all the relevent files. BUT you won't know where they all go. And if the files you want are in the OEMApps folder you won't know what files need to go together. What I do is look at a similar OEM package (See Alex's excellent work) and this will show the files you need, where they go plus any registry settings. You can probably copy over the newer files from your extracted ROM to the OEM package, overwriting the older files.
If the OEM package doesn't exist it will be a long, long job!! You need to search through the files on a device with the installed ROM and make a note of the location of the application files - this is required for the install.txt file. The next problem (& the major one) is to find any relevant registry settings - again you can search through the registry of the installed ROM. Now all this take a lot of time and effort...
odyseus said:
The next problem (& the major one) is to find any relevant registry settings - again you can search through the registry of the installed ROM. Now all this take a lot of time and effort...
Click to expand...
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You can cheat a little bit here though, some apps will recreate any missing entries with sensible defaults if you leave them out.. others wont.. for those you can find ANY version of the CAB that you want to use (even an older one say) and use its registry as a guide to where to find the ones for the new version.. the registry locations dont change that much between versions usually.
you'll still get issues.. but in most cases this helps if not works
Thanks for your info sambartle and odyseus. I had feared as much based on what I had found through search already, but thought there might have been a way... I guess _Alex_ and others do quite alot of legwork to extract and make all these things themselves.
I can't quite understand it however.... If I take a windows PC for example (which is similar in it's registry) I couldn't necessarily find all the associated files and registry keys associated with an application. If you are lucky they are all under one folder and one key of the registry... but something like MS Office installs so many shared files, and classes objects into the registry it would be nigh impossible to recreate that (even given the time).
Unfortunately, if the last posts I read are accurate the developers here won't be providing new OEM dumps for a while. Maybe once 6.1 is more widely released microsoft will allow download of the new mobile desktop.
Ah well, thanks for your help.... and to the other posters...it's worthless posts like yours that contribute nothing to the forum that makes extracting useful information through the forum more difficult than it should be.
bengalih said:
Thanks for your info sambartle and odyseus. I had feared as much based on what I had found through search already, but thought there might have been a way... I guess _Alex_ and others do quite alot of legwork to extract and make all these things themselves.
I can't quite understand it however.... If I take a windows PC for example (which is similar in it's registry) I couldn't necessarily find all the associated files and registry keys associated with an application. If you are lucky they are all under one folder and one key of the registry... but something like MS Office installs so many shared files, and classes objects into the registry it would be nigh impossible to recreate that (even given the time).
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Click to collapse
It requires alot of testing and re-installing or re-flashing, sometimes on the same ROM, sometimes on different ones, just to iron out the bugs. It's one of the reasons why I released AT&T and HTC versions in the past, just so that I can have two platforms to test on.
Windows CE is alot simpler than Windows XP by at least 10 fold. Yet there are people who have created portable versions of Microsoft Office through the use of deployment applications like thinstall, so anything *IS* possible, with automation.
Automation that works at the functionality of thinstall for CE doesn't exist because of economies of scale (e.g., it's not worth any developer's time to create a deployment package as robust as Thinstall for the PPC).
bengalih said:
Unfortunately, if the last posts I read are accurate the developers here won't be providing new OEM dumps for a while. Maybe once 6.1 is more widely released microsoft will allow download of the new mobile desktop.
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Dumping and stripping is relatively easy once you've gotten the hang of it. You just need to keep at it.
Personally, I just don't find it to be challenging any more, since I've done quite a few AT&T/HTC WM6.0s and HTC WM6.1s and I'm now waiting for an official shipped version (no more leaked betas!!!).
bengalih said:
Ah well, thanks for your help.... and to the other posters...it's worthless posts like yours that contribute nothing to the forum that makes extracting useful information through the forum more difficult than it should be.
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Your initial question / thread starter didn't have many details, so I would have flamed you too, although I would have also provided a link to my OEM Package Tutorial (Creating Packages from ROM files section)
It never hurts to be overly verbose when asking a question. This would make the flamers leave you alone (because they'll just get tired of reading) and should *NOBODY* respond within a couple of days, when you bump it (with flowery encouraging yet challenging words, like 'You guys are so great, but nobody could answer my question?'), nobody will mind that you did, and you will get answers after that bump...
FWIW, I still think this should have been a question asked in the OEM Tutorial thread, which I have subscribed and respond to much more frequently than new threads which I'm not aware of until I actually have the time to READ new threads. It's also because, should anyone have similar questions, it'd be much easier to fiind in the bigger OEM Tutorial thread than in this one...
Hope this helps!
Thanks Alex... as you said you would have provided me the link to your Creating Packages from ROM section which I did gloss over briefly previously but didn't totally see how it helped me (since I was looking for Cabs). But, now that you point me there I again I took another look and got some useful information.
So this is where i am at:
Ok,
So first I extract the ROM using your kitched script, then in the SYS folder I find two folders that seem to be what i want:
RemoteDesktopMobile
RemoteDesktopMobile_Lang_0409
Inside the first folder are subfolders with names like:
MvkLib.dll
and
wpctsc.exe
and inside those are an actual DLL or EXE file, and some other files called imageinfo.bin, imageinfo.txt, and some files S001, S002, s003, etc...
I am going under the assumption that all I need is the .DLL file, and the rest are some sort of uncompiled form of the DLL? (Please let me know if i need to pay attention to those other files.)
So I take all those DLL and EXE files. I also look for and find an INITFLASHFILES.DAT and don't see any references to these files, so i assume they all go in \WINDOWS?
There is also an RGU file inside here that has a few registry keys for this application.
Inside the second folder is just a DSM, and a couple of .txt and .htm files. Since these files aren't in INITFLASHFILES.DAT either, I assume they just go in \WINDOWS?
I also find a provxml file in \OEM\OEM_Lang_0409 called mxipupdate_RemoteDesktopMobile.provxml.
The contents are:
Code:
<wap-provisioningdoc>
<characteristic type="FileOperation">
<characteristic type="%CE11%" translation="install">
<characteristic type="MakeDir" />
<characteristic type="Remote Desktop Mobile.lnk" translation="install">
<characteristic type="Copy">
<parm name="Source" value="%CE2%\wpctsc.lnk" translation="install" />
</characteristic>
</characteristic>
</characteristic>
</characteristic>
</wap-provisioningdoc>
Based on my reading of the links off your page and some further research this file seems to say the following:
Make a directory (if it doesn't exist) called \Windows\Programs (%CE11%)
Make a shortcut in the directory called Remote Desktop Mobile.lnk (the decimal ASCII text) that maps to \Windows\wpctsc.lnk (%CE2%)
So... now I have:
A handful of files...I need to put them in \Windows
I have an RGU file with a couple registry entries I need to import into the registry
I need to make
a shortcut to the exe int the \Programs directory
How then do I now package all this up into a CAB that will automatically perform the above operations?
I know about "makecab" to actually package all these up into a cab. But how to i write the command file that tells it how to do all the provisioning and registry entries?
Please let me know I am on the right track.
Thanks!
Ok...I found a program called WinCE Cab manager that made the process pretty easy. I installed it on my device and it seems to work well.
I have uploaded it here:
http://rapidshare.com/files/104977265/Windows_Mobile_Desktop_6.1.cab.html
Where is the appropriate place to post this to share with others?
yeah like people have said dumping the rom is the way to do it but most roms nowaday dont have the files for you to recook(so no oems)
so the best thing is to do is get the cab yourself and convert it to an oem with ervius's package creator
sorry kidnamedAlbert...I'm not sure where you were getting at there... the whole point of my post was how to get those cabs made from the ROM in the first place. As you can see from the previous posts it seems I have already resolved (or started my way to) getting this done.
Personally, i prefer to have the cab file as I am more interested on just being able to install it on my device then cook it into a ROM. If someone wants to cook it into a ROM that seems to be a well documented procedure if the cab file is already available.
In my case, there was no cab file available for the latest version of Windows Mobile Desktop...so i made my own from the ROM.
Maarten_0031 said:
one word: RTFW.
Read The FFing Wiki!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
One word: RELAX and STOP SWEARING, geez.
Excuse met to if this has already been asked im really not sure what to search for though. All the information i have found on the forum and in the wiki doesn't really answer my question.
So i started cooking roms a few hours ago becuase i want a lighter rom than i can find on the site and also just to educate myself. Anyways i finally got one working with all the hardware and cabs i want. But i would like to know how you do things like set up custom start menu items with icons, themes, sounds, and connection setting like i see in other peoples roms. I was under the impression you would be able to dump all of the os files from the nb and then put it all back togather. All the tools in the kitchen just seem to create images or binary files. Is there something im missing? Is this just all done with custom registry settings, if so is there a good thread somewhere about doing customizations via the registry? I was really hoping to rip IE and windows media player out of CE i guess there is no way to do that if you cant extract all the files from the os....
Also one more thing what are these packages Registry__Increase FileSystem filter cache 0x8000 in alex oem 5.1? I really wish there were some kind of descriptions with each package.
thanks you in advance.
boorishid said:
Excuse met to if this has already been asked im really not sure what to search for though. All the information i have found on the forum and in the wiki doesn't really answer my question.
So i started cooking roms a few hours ago becuase i want a lighter rom than i can find on the site and also just to educate myself. Anyways i finally got one working with all the hardware and cabs i want. But i would like to know how you do things like set up custom start menu items with icons, themes, sounds, and connection setting like i see in other peoples roms. I was under the impression you would be able to dump all of the os files from the nb and then put it all back togather. All the tools in the kitchen just seem to create images or binary files. Is there something im missing? Is this just all done with custom registry settings, if so is there a good thread somewhere about doing customizations via the registry? I was really hoping to rip IE and windows media player out of CE i guess there is no way to do that if you cant extract all the files from the os....
Also one more thing what are these packages Registry__Increase FileSystem filter cache 0x8000 in alex oem 5.1? I really wish there were some kind of descriptions with each package.
thanks you in advance.
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Check the Kaiser Wiki it should have every tutorial you need there.
Hello everyone, this is my first thread here and I really hate to ask this but I have been reading and searching for the past 4 days and have learned a lot except for this. When researching the wiki and searching xda-dev w/ google I couldn't find any info or guides involving the cleaning up of or removing apps/programs from a dumped and extracted ROM. I want to learn how to take a ROM and remove all programs I don't want and re-cook with what I need. Could anyone point me in the right direction so that I can learn this process?
Any help will be greatly appreciated, and please be easy on me if I missed anything. Once again thanks.
try this
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=372469
Thanks but I have already watched all of those vids and have them saved on my computer for future reference. I don't see anything there that will help me with what I need. For example, say I have a HTC ROM that came installed on my device when I bought it and I want to remove bubble breaker and solitare from the ROM as I don't want them. Is there something out there that teaches how to do this? I know how to dump the ROM and extract it, just do not know what parts of the app I need to remove (dll's, exe's, reg entries, etc) or where. I honestly could be missing something but I am for sure confused. Also I used to live just south of Pittsburgh in Washington county, now in AZ....saw you were in western PA.
ok bud not to sound like mean ass...
the screen casts taught you everything, I myself use IMGFS tools to dump and recook roms but there are lots of prebuilt kitchens such as kaiser Kitchen. cooking doesnt get any easier than that. if your going to need more help and just dont get whats in the wiki try and have someone do a one on one with you over IM since everything you need to know is well documented in the kaiser wiki as well as the Hermes wiki
knowing what files to remove can be made easier by using package tool from bepe. but its more trail and error. also you can use reshack to see what files are linked to what.
austinsnyc said:
ok bud not to sound like mean ass...
the screen casts taught you everything, I myself use IMGFS tools to dump and recook roms but there are lots of prebuilt kitchens such as kaiser Kitchen. cooking doesnt get any easier than that. if your going to need more help and just dont get whats in the wiki try and have someone do a one on one with you over IM since everything you need to know is well documented in the kaiser wiki as well as the Hermes wiki
knowing what files to remove can be made easier by using package tool from bepe. but its more trail and error. also you can use reshack to see what files are linked to what.
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Click to collapse
Didn't sound mean at all man. I do use kaiser kitchen and have used imgfs tools by themselves too, neither of those are the problem. Now I have not looked into bepe's tools or reshack which seems to be what I'm looking for more or less. I will try and locate those tools and give them a shot. It's just hard for me to figure out how to remove all parts of an app on a rom. I appreciate the help. Thanks.
yes that is one of the fun parts of rom cooking....
figuring out what goes to what and what you can remove with out breaking something else. its lots of trail and error :/ once you get the hang of it its pretty simple till you start porting roms and such
thanks for the help.
Maybe you can add your discovery to any guides or wikis. Even if it's only an alternate phrasing, it could save other people from a tough learning curve.
What I am interested in doing is taking multiple cab files and then merging them into a single cab file so rather than having to install multiple theme tabs i could just install a single file which would make the whole process simpler after a hard reset to get all my things reinstalled.
I'm a bit of a noob and have searched through the forum but havent really found a noob's walkthrough although i have found usefull posts they arent exactly what i'm looking for, i'm sure other members would find this really usefull too if its at all possible.
It could also be helpful for installing multiple applications at a time.
I appreciate that people dont have the time to sit and talk me through the whole process but any information you could give would really be appreciated.
I've attached the files that i would be interested in merging. I'm not looking for anyone to do the work for me i'm just interested in any knowledge of the process that you may have to offer.
Thx
Alex
Doobee24 said:
What I am interested in doing is taking multiple cab files and then merging them into a single cab file so rather than having to install multiple theme tabs i could just install a single file which would make the whole process simpler after a hard reset to get all my things reinstalled.
I'm a bit of a noob and have searched through the forum but havent really found a noob's walkthrough although i have found usefull posts they arent exactly what i'm looking for, i'm sure other members would find this really usefull too if its at all possible.
It could also be helpful for installing multiple applications at a time.
I appreciate that people dont have the time to sit and talk me through the whole process but any information you could give would really be appreciated.
I've attached the files that i would be interested in merging. I'm not looking for anyone to do the work for me i'm just interested in any knowledge of the process that you may have to offer.
Thx
Alex
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Click to collapse
Simplest and easiest thing to do is to use UC to install all these cabs automated style when the ROM boots up. I am assuming you are using a ROM which is UC compliant (all the official ones arent.....the cooked ROMs are mostly UC compliant though).
The 'hard' way is analyzing the cab's -> extracting files/reg-entries -> rebuilding the cab-files to one cab.
Theoritically it's possible with a program like WinCE Cabmanager but it is a hell of job I think.
I would go for the UC-option mentioned by MrVanx. I use it myself and it works like a threat (you have to get familiar with wap-provisioning and stuff but it's worth the journey)
Ive tried using a few of the cooked roms over the past couple of weeks but to be honest they dont work all that well for me, none of them seem to work with msn (which is something i use all the time) i always get error messages saying that it cant find a data connection even through wifi which is always setup properly as i can search the net quite easily and have verified that the wifi is working and searched through the rom threads for fix's and all ive seen so far is that this seems to be a bit of a problem for a number of users, some fixes work for certain members but it doesnt for others, unfortunatly i'm one of the others.
Currently using Vodafone UK 1.90.161.5 stock rom.
I think the WinCE Cabmanager approach mite be the best option for me as i'm still a bit of a noob with regards to things and as most of the cabs i'm interested in merging are simple theme cabs so it shouldnt be that much of a task (gulps)
Are there any good tutorials that i could use for WinCE Cabmanager?
I'll have a search myself to see what i can come up with but in the past i've found it quite hard to find things in the forum and most of the time i stumble across certain "gems" by following links in peoples signatures.
Thanks for the info its much appreciated.
Alex
Over on the Kaiser section there was a user named bengalih, who made an automated installer called Sashimi. Although Bengalih has been banned, his work is still floating around. Check out this thread, or do a search for Sashimi. In theory, it should work for the Raphael, since it is still a Win Mobile device. Hope that helps. I might add, that right before Bengalih was banned, he stripped his Sashimi guides from his posts on xda, but they are available here.
This does look like the type of thing i am looking for unfortunately all his posts are just "..........................." but i regged on the other site and got the software so i'm going to go check it out and see how it works. Thanks for that
Alex
Just a quick question but does your mobile connection (Vodafone UK) allow you to use msn (or to that matter any IM program) or is it just http stuff only?
Tmobile wnw doesnt allow IM software over the data connection unless you use wnw+ so i wonder if this is the case with vodfone aswell?
Yeah it does, it also allows me to use skype too. Unfortunalty its the only ROM that does allow me to use msn although i havent tested skype as this is my secondary IM app.
In theory to make a theme (cab) i tried to extract files from a few cabs, files including:
1AA884~1.004
1BBFDC~1.001
1E29E8~1.005
4E6705~1.002
5A7AE8~1.015
5B86C9~1.016
5C27FF~1.017
etc
Then i used "QuickCab 1.0" to add all the extracted files from a couple of cab files, i directed QuickCab 1.0 to install the files to the Windows directory and the process made the new cab file with no problems however i tried to install the cab file that it had created but my TF3D didnt change at all even after a restart.
I'm trying to merge NoTopCurtain.cab-NoCurtains.cab-GlassClock_v1.cab-Pamas Transparant Slider.CAB & NeonIcon.cab
By looking at the xml file it looked like all the 90 files should be installed to the Windows directory.
Any idea of what i am doing wrong?
Thx
Alex
try cabmanager. You will see the actual files. And there is very logical registry structure.
I do not have a tutorial for the program but it's not that hard. You can export files (right mouse click) and reg-entries (under 'file'). Put those all together (import of reg-entries is also possible!) Adding files gives you a simple window with where to put the files on your ppc.
It is not that hard and you will be in control of the proces instead of working with the encrypted files you are doing now...
made dozens of (working) cab's this way myself and I'm no einstein!
Good luck
@merten3000 thanks for that for the next 30 days i can make working cabs, i initially seen your post and checked the program but noticed it was only a 30 day trial so i never bothered then with your last post when u mentioned "encrypted" files that sort of made sense when i originally seen the file names of the files i was extracting where as they are now extracting properly and i created a working cab, thanks very much.
Dont suppose you know of a free program that will do the same job? Money is tight and cant justify buying this app.
Alex
The simplest thing to do, for me, would be to take the stock rom that you like, extract and recook it making only the changes needed to make it UC compliant.
That way you get your rom just as it was, and can run all your cabs. Shouldn't be much work either. (well, it wouldnt be on the Kaiser - not used Raphael kitchens etc, but assume it is relatively easy)