6月19日
Installing Kirvin's Clean-and-Simple PPC-6700 firmware
Well, several weeks after
Chris pointed me toward Kirvin's 'clean-and-simple' AKU 3.5 custom firmware for the HTC Apache Pocket PC phone, I've finally gotten around to installing it and am fairly pleased with the results. It seems to be a bit faster--certainly no slower--and I'm not always running out of space like I was. I still have to occassionally soft-reset the phone to regain its attention--though not nearly as often as I did with the firmware originally shipped on my PPC6700!
I've outlined the process I followed to save Chris (and perhaps others) some time. All of the standard disclaimers apply--your mileage may vary, if you break it you get to keep both pieces, etc...
I make no claim of originality--all of the information I used was gleaned from the original
PPCgeeks forum posts and follow-ups (which I've referenced below)...
First (after spending quite a bit of time digging through the forum postings), I downloaded release version of Kirvin's "Clean-and-simple" AKU 3.5 firmware using
this link (from
PPCgeeks thread 3242 message 302). Then I followed the instructions outlined in Kirvin's initial post to
PPCgeeks thread 3242 to install the new firmware and set up the phone to make use of the Extended_ROM2.
(Note: do NOT use the file referenced at the end of the instructions in the initial forum post--it was built using a "pre-release" of the Unified ROM Kitchen--instead use the one from post 302 referenced above!)
I quickly discovered that I couldn't read the screen when dialing the phone; I found and applied the following smartdialing color/contrast "fix" by modifying the registry keys as suggested in post 326:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\HTC\SmartDialing]
"clrNormal"=dword:00000000
"clrFLNormal"=dword:ffffff
"clrFLInvert"=dword:ffffff
"clrHI"=dword:999999
"clrMatch"=dword:cccccc
"clrFLHI"=dword:ffffffff
"clrMatchText"=dword:00ffffff
"clrInvert"=dword:00ffffff
I've also decided I don't like the soft button mappings on the Today screen. While I've not gotten around to changing them yet, post 318 indicates the registry keys for the Today screen soft buttons:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\\Software\Microsoft\Today\Keys\113]
"Default"="Running"
"Open"="memory.exe"
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\\Software\Microsoft\Today\Keys\112]
"Open"="iexplore.exe"
"Default"="Web"