Unfotunately, ROM upgrades also mean the need for reinstalling all your apps and applying all your settings, which, in many cases, means days (!) of (futile, because it's not needed if a proper hack is used) work. This is why I have been investigating a lot of ROM upgrades to greatly ease this task by just enabling restoration of previous, pre-ROM-upgrade backups and just applying a registry / Windows CE database update. Please read
http://www.firstloox.org//forums/showthread.php?t=3585 and the related threads (I've linked quite a few of other threads from my article - you may want to read them all to get a picture of how this all works) on this - I, as a programmer & hacker, have elaborated in there on why this is sufficient and why this is
safe. (BTW, hundreds or even thousands of people are using my Pocket Loox upgrade hacks. Noone has run into any problems as yet.)
1, backup the contents of your PDA with the built-in iPAQ Backup. Make sure you back up to a memory card and not to the iPAQ File Store - the latter gets erased during the ROM upgrade!
2, save the contents of your iPAQ File Store (saving right the root directory and all subdirectories) in the way described at, say,
http://pocketpcmag.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=15577
3, upgrade the ROM
4, restore the contents of the iPAQ File Store (see bullet 2)
5, restore the iPAQ Backup backup (see bullet 1). Ignore the warning.
6, download the ZIP file at
http://menneisyys.freeweb.hu/hx4700R...ImportVer2.zip . Decompress it.
7a, if you prefer Resco's apps, download and install
Resco File Explorer, followed by
Resco Registry Editor, from
http://www.resco.net/pocketpc/explorer/default.asp . Upload
resco.reg (ignore
tre.reg!) on your PDA (for example, in the root directory).
7b, if you prefer free apps (even if Resco's trial version will work OK), get
Tascal Registry Editor from
http://pocketpcfreewares.com/en/index.php?soft=92 and install it. Upload
tre.reg (ignore
resco.reg!) in the root of your PDA.
8. start Pocket File Explorer on your PDA and go to the
.reg file you've just put there. Click it.
9, if everything is OK, you'll see a message that the registry file has been successfully imported.
Please note (the usual disclaimer stuff): much as I've spent several hours of my life on this hack and I know pretty much about how the Registry and Windows CE/Windows Mobile works, there may still be errors in it (synchonizing registries, Windows CE databases etc. isn't very easy.) They, however, highly unlikely cause any serious problems. Several European hx4700 owners have been testing my hack for some hours and none of them reported any problems with it so far. I'm in no way liable to any freezes, crashes etc. you'll encounter.
Also, please report if you run into something special or strange!
The only strange thing we've run into after restoring a previous backup was that Snails 2 and WMP10 used Landscape in the opposite direction. I haven't had the time, as yet, to check out why this happened.
Note that there is no difference in the Windows CE databases. (I've checked.) This is why no database-related updates are needed.
For hackers and tech geeks, it's really worth checking out keys like HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\
DirectX (DirectX before WM5? Great!) and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Widcomm\Plugin\
HandsFree: at last, a
working handsfree solution, with the PDA being the handsfree ? Cool! See
http://discussion.brighthand.com/sho...hreadid=115458 on this problem if interested.
BTW, this has also been posted to boards I'm spending most of my time on; see for example the PPCT thread at
http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/foru...c.php?p=345221
