WM2003SE: "10+ version trick", switch ROM language without rollback

[spanglish]

gwinter - you genius! Thank you, thank you!!!

Worked perfectly - I've just taken my X50v from Spanish to English.

[atomphil]

Hi,
I´ve got the same problem like Michael-Gui but in the other direction.
I´ll get a English WM5 x51v and want to make it German.
Does anyone successfully do this yet?

Thanks a lot.

.:atomphil:.

[pcfixz.com]

Hi,

I am trying to convert a x50 from japanese a01 to english but keep getting checksum errors. The file transfers to the axim just will not flash the rom.

is there an alternative method? or does anyone hae any other ideas?

Thanks

Phil

[nightrave]

so is it still hopeless to get my x51v switched from german to english?

[n3rve]

Thank you sir great job.

[totono]

Hi,

I have an Axim X50v in spanish updated to WM5 in spanish. Want to go back to WM2003se (no matter waht language) but DELL only offers the aplication with the WM2003se ROM in English.

Could I use this trick to get WM2003se in my Axim, even though it´s in english, you know, making it think it is still Spanish??

Thnks

[totono]

Hi,

I have the WM5 update installed, in spanish. I wanted to go back to WM2003se but the "update" to downgrade is only available in english.

So I tried the method here and changed the language of the image file with a HEX editor.

The update program didn´t stop to say that the language was not the right one (that´s where it usualy got stuck) and finished everything, loaded the new image, and I performed a hard reset twice during the process.

But guess what happened?? I got no change I have the same Spanish WM5 with all my programs installed

Tried it again performing a succesfull hard reset before doing it, but got the same result.

´Please help,

Totono

[totono]

It seems like this method will not work with a WinMobile5 X50v. I really need to get back to WM2003se.

[mercabs]

H! Im new here and this is my first post. Got my Axim x50 from ebay and it's Portuguese. I want to change it to English. I understand how to do the hack but I have two problems. One is I don't know which Portuguese language the device has. Another problem is I tried to download the ROM's from Dell's website for both Iberian Portuguese and Brazilian but I keep getting the English version. Can somebody help me please. I guess I just need the right HEX Characters to replace the IMG file header.

[panda82]

so far i seen that only x50v have done the change.
I have a x50 (not v) english A05 and i want to change to italian A02 how can i do in particular?

[deepbluesea]

thanks, A05 is the best version than the others. no need to switch.

[Márcio Freire]

Hi,

I've just bought an Axim X51 520Mhz in Japan and would like to change the language of Windows 2005 and all others softwares that comes with it to English. I'd like to know if this process you are discussing here works to my case.

Thanks.

Márcio

[stumpaxim]

I tried this for German to English - changed from A00German to A05English by downloading the A02 upgrade and installing the A02 ROM after changing the tags. (Language tag 76,1B,21 for German, Version 3CC417 for version A02)

Works fantastically thanks for your help.

:)

Ok, amid all the WM5 posts, this one is for the older version.

Imagine you have the lastest ROM on your device. You wanted to reload the same ROM, or an older version, but the upgrade program won't let you. Why do you want to do that? Look at Kazuni's guide to change English to Japanese ROM. You'd have to rollback to an older version with a backup RIS file. Don't have an old RIS file lying around? Tough luck. But now you can finally change the ROM anyway you like, provided you can download the ROM from Dell's site. I call this "10+ version trick".

Take a look at the picture I've attached below. The header of the ROM the short part before the zeros. It is a label that tells the upgrade program about the ROM like:
- what device? (eg. x50v)
- what software? (eg. WM2003SE)
- what version? (eg. A05)
- what language?
- the checksum of the ROM

The good thing is that the checksum of the ROM does not take into account the header. So we can change the header without having checksum error. As you'd expect, what we'd like to do is change the label to something that allows the program to upgrade, ie. same language and higher version number.

I think the picture made it pretty clear what to change (btw, it's showing a Japanese A02 ROM). Let's look at the language tag. If you have an English device, you'd change the language tag to "74 10 34", "7B 0E 3D" is Japanese, "72 16 20" is Simplified Chinese. For other languages, you'd have to download the correct ROM and look at the tag.

In the picture, the A02 version tag is "3C C4 17". If you change C4 to C5, the version becomes A12. On the current A05 English ROM, the tag is "3C C4 10". Again, change the C4 to C5 and the version becomes A15.

Then lastly, other things to take care of includes changing the folder name and ROM filename to your current language.


Let me give an example in case everthing is not clear. Let's say I have an A05 English device and I want to change to A02 Japanese ROM.

1. Open the ROM file and change language tag "7B 0E 3D" to "74 10 34".
2. Change version tag "3C C4 17" to "3C C5 17".
3. Rename the ROM file AximX50v_A02JA.IMG to AximX50v_A12EN.IMG.
4. Rename the Folder ROM/Japanese to ROM/English.

Note: If you're wondering whether you'll end up with ROM A12 version in your System Information, the answer is NO. Which brings me to this point: we are not editing the actual ROM itself, only the label. In fact, the upgrade program will enforce the checksum and if the ROM is corrupted it will stop. So this method is as safe as the original upgrade program is, no less and no more.

[LandoX]

i want to change from english a05 to a02 spanish.. is there any difference between a05 and a02.. thanks

[beer2nd]

Yes...

I switch from ENG A05 -> CHI-Sim A02 !!! I love this SIP (CHS) in DELL Rom.

But I can't set "Clear Type" in this ROM. There is no ckeckbox to set "Clear Type". Even I change everything in Regedit.

Anyone could help!!!??