Here's a good tip shamlessly copied from Pocket PC Magazine's electronic newsletter.

If you want to read those e-books on your Pocket PC which have Digital Rights Management protection on them, you have to activate the MS Reader application from the Microsoft Reader Web site. Every time you do a hard reset on your Pocket PC, the activation is lost and you have to go through the whole process of activation again. There is a way to save your activation and carry it back to your Pocket PC after the hard reset. To save your activation do the following steps:
1. Click on the Activesync icon, which is on the right hand side of the Taskbar on your desktop, to pop up the Activesync window.

2. Click on the "Explore" option in Activesync to navigate the folders in your mobile device.

3. Go to My Pocket PC/Windows and copy the following files:
secrepid.dat
secrep.dat
secrep.dll
secrep.xml
Microsoft Activation.unload

4. Create a folder within the My Documents folder on your desktop PC. You can give a meaningful name to this folder such as "Microsoft Reader Activation".

5. Paste all the above-mentioned files into this folder.

6. Now whenever you do a hard reset on your Pocket PC, you can copy and paste these files back into the Windows folder of your Pocket PC and your Microsoft Reader application will be activated automatically.

(To copy the above mentioned files successfully, you will need to make sure that the extensions of the files and hidden files appear in the listing along with the file names. In the ActiveSync Explorer window, go to Tools and click on "Folder Options...". Now click on the "View" tab. Make sure that the option which says, "Hide extensions for known file types" is unchecked. Also select the "Show hidden files and folders" option if it is not already selected.)

You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once.
Robert A. Heinlein

   

Good tip!!
I was beginning to worry that I would run out of activations for MS Reader as they only allow you a certain number

www.reclaimingthemind.org

Great tip! I am saving this.

Thanks!

Nice find.

I have used all of my activations. I have applied for more, but I haven't had a responce yet. That is the problem with having 5 different Axims over the past year.

hm... guess by using Activesync to do this, PPC Mag gets to steal my thunder. Oh well, no big deal. But I found this trick well over a year ago using FtpView's handy feature of automatically displaying files according to when they were added. After activating Reader, I opened \Windows with FtpView, and this little set of 'secret(p)' files where right at the top. Copied them out to SD, and next time I wanted to do a hard reset/manual rebuild I tried this trick, and it worked perfectly. It's been posted on a couple of user sites, with credit given...

I have heard on Brighthand about a month ago that it does NOT work on WM2003. As I'm running PPC2002 on my X5 I can't confirm this but the author of that post seemed pretty sure of himself. Anyone here can tell me one way or the other?

Gerard Ivan Samija
forum moderator
PocketPCFAQ.com
local user group:
VancouverPocketPC

I follow the instructions above and saved to my desktop.
Then I upgraded to wm2003 today and copied the files back into the windows directory. It does not seem to work. My MsReader is saying I need to reactivate. Have I done something wrong.
Dewey

Since you did an upgrade rather than just a hard rest you may have to activet it under 2003. When I upgraded to 2003 thats what did but I was not aware of this process at the time. Sorry I can't be more help.

You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once.
Robert A. Heinlein

   

I upgraded to 2003 a while back (once Dell finally shipped it to me). There was also an upgrade to MS Reader that I had installed and then activated. Well, I hard reset my AX the other day and followed the instructions here and.....

Everything worked great! This is running WM2003.

BB 8830 VZW (yeah, gett'n the shaft again from VZ)
Axim X51V
-- Previously --
Samsung SCH-i730 ($50/mth for broadband - give me a break Verizon!!!)
Axim X50V
Axim X30 High
Axim X5 400MHz
Handspring Visor Deluxe
Cassiopeia EM-500
Palm IIIxe

Hey, thanks for confirming this! I had wondered that it should change between PPC2002 and WM2003, and at least two Brighthand members were saying that it no longer worked. My suspicion had been that it was an issue relating to not having a current activation file set, and you've confirmed that nicely. Thanks for that. By the way, here's a cropped screenshot showing the files needed from Windows, in case that helps. I took this on September 21, 2003 and so far as I know nothing's changed in the naming:

Gerard Ivan Samija
forum moderator
PocketPCFAQ.com
local user group:
VancouverPocketPC

By the way I have applied a couple of time for more activiations, but I was turned down. Luckily the only thing that required the activiations are the books that I downloaded from Mirosoft last summer. If I had paid for content I would be a bit more miffed.

Does anyone know if this works with Audible.com activation?

Just for the record, Microsoft finally approved my request for more activations. I have now save the activation data so I don't have to rely on the generousity of MS in the future.

Dell talked me into a hard reset today, (before I seen this post) - I've reactivated MS Reader, but it won't let me open any of the books that I purchased prior to my hard reset. Any suggestions?

Thanks

where did you purchase them?
many places (like Fictionwise.com..)allow you to re-download them under the new activation if you have an account

www.reclaimingthemind.org