Re: Can 4.5 give me anything that 4.1 doesn't? (Noobe)


"Todd All***" <elecconnec@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:WBJfl.216101$2w3.203228@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
At 27 Jan 2009 11:34:10 -0600 Ken Maltby wrote:


Your consern for "hacked" firmware is one that should be taken
into consideration, but it's more a matter of whether you have an
understanding of the process of such hacking, or not. You need
to be able to make some minor adjustments to the hack, on some
occasions. There are plenty of times where it is much less of a
risk, such as making a DVD Drive region free or updating the disk
media tables. Many devices have the ability to flash firmware as
a feature, for the very intent of adding features or capabilities at a
later date. Then there is the case where models of a device may
differ in firmware only ( an exceptionaly easy way to have products
at several price points come off the same hardware production run).


The problem with "hacking" Windows Mobile is the intense level of
customization that goes into each device. Since WM devices
lack the multi-GB hard drives of desktops, each device includes only
what is absolutely necessary in its firmware- i.e. the drivers for the
display and WiFi hardware on that device only, for example, unlike a
desktop OS with a variety of hardware drivers pre-included to support a
myriad of potential hardware configurations.

The hackers have to source their upgrades by stripping them from the
firmware of different, hopefully similar models, merging them with the
drivers of the original
device (assuming they'll even work with the new OS) or replacing them
with drivers of newer models by trial-and-error hoping to find workable
combinations.

When I "unofficially" upgraded my HTC Wizard from WM5 to WM6, I tried
five or six ROMs before finding one that was mostly stable- some would
make the device hemmorage memory, lockup the WiFi radio, hang the device
randomly, etc. Plus you're at the mercy of what features the "chef" felt
neccessary or desirable. I saw a hacked ROM for my Wizard that had
several different 3rd-party media players and texting programs added, but
Word and Excel Mobile left out for space reasons! (Business
functionality was obviously not a priority for this particular hacker!)
Another modified so many default registry settings with his "secret
custom tweaks" he inadvertently disabled file sync! I was the only
person to point this out among the several dozen "attaboys" and "best ROM
ever" posts on the forum he posted the ROM at- the typical hacked ROM
user apparently has a far different usage scenario than I!

Another ROM I tried impressed me at first with its speed and
responsiveness, until I realized it was accomplished by including and
autostarting a CPU overclocking program in the ROM, pushing my Wizard's
poor little 200MHz processor to 260!


There is also the fact that OS are generaly made to be easily
adapted to as large a base of hardware, as possible. Often they
cover almost all the possible implementations of a particular
processor, in a particular version of the OS, for that processor or
processor family. (Not to mention Linux.)


Such is not as true of a mobile OS! ;-)

So, my questions still stand, if I were to to attempt such "upgrades"
what benifits could I reasonably expect to see, or is there no real
benifit of 4.5 over 4.1?


With all due respect to the good folks at Microsoft, Activesync is NOT
their best product by a long shot. Many folks have big problems syncing
or even getting it to recognize their device. There is no benefit to
changing a working Activesync setup with another "untested" one. The
Devil you know, as they say...

I'm still using a pre-release beta version of AS 4.5 simply because it
works, and I'm unwilling to gamble on the actual release version!

Having said that, should you decide to upgrade, you will have to use 4.5-
lower versions do not support WM6+.


Or WM6.1 over WM5?

WM6 offers HTML email support, and a (very slight) prettying up of the
UI. (The spinning "please wait" circle that mimics the hourglass on a
desktop is now multicolored. It's a nice touch since you tend to see it
more often in WM6!) Other than the above, I don't recall any earth-
shattering changes.

However, I'd say go for it, if, (and only if!) you have access to the
current WM5 firmware should you decide to rollback. (Typically vendors
don't offer the device's original firmware to roll back to unless they
also provide an update, probably under the theory that no one needs a
50MB download of their device's included "permanent" firmware.) I don't
think WM5 has any inherent advantages over WM6, but you might miss the
current stabilty of your device if the ROM creator wasn't very skilled,
or just has a different "stability" tolerance than you do. (Many
consider "only" having to reset the device a few times a day a "success!")

Still, upgrading my Wizard was certainly a fun experience, but as a
contrast, I haven't experimented with my current device (a WM6 AT&T Tilt.)
I haven't even used the official available WM6.1 upgrade since I'm
happy with the Tilt's current stability and functionality, and see no
reason to mess with that!



--
Todd All***, Microsoft MVP, Mobile Devices

Sent from my Windows Mobile device, otherwise this post would've been
longer, much wittier, and spell-checked.

What is an MVP? http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/gp/mvpfaqs

Thank you both, I think that provides a more useful representation of
the situation. It looks like WM6 provides nothing new that I would
find useful. There also appears to be an issue with the passthrough to
the internet with the versions of ActiveSync above 4.1. It works fine
with 4.1 and since neither Google or anyone here has mention of any
additional features or benifit to be gained from using 4.2 or 4.5; I
guess I have my answers.

Thanks again;
Ken


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