[Wildfire General] bobharding:
These are the steps:

1. Unlock the bootloader following the instructions at "htcdev.com" You can't muck up your phone. If you succeed, when you start your phone into the bootloader mode you will see "UNLOCKED" at the top of the screen. You will still have "S-On". This method doesn't give you "S-Off". You don't need it to install custom roms and there is far less chance of you bricking your phone. If you can't get this far you will need to get someone to help you.

2. On your PC go to "unlockroot.com" and get the free download of "UnlockRoot" (Press cancel if it asks you whether you want some browser addon, you can still download the program) Run it and connect your running Wildfire by USB (make sure USB debugging is enabled). Confirm a Wildfire is connected when asked and the click on"Root". After a bit it will say "successfully rooted". Just disconnect the phone. I then rebooted the phone (I don't know if this is necessary).

3. Install "Rom Manager" from Play Store. Run it and select "Flash ClockworkMod Recovery". Then select "Reboot into Recovery" and you should come up with the Bootloader screen with CWM 5.0.2.0. Use the vol up/down button to go to "backup and restore" and press the "Trackball" to select it. Follow the instructions to backup your current Rom. This is important as you can go back to your stock Rom is you are not happy with the new one. The "power" button lets you go back to the previous menu. Select "wipe data/factory reset" by pressing the Trackball. (I then went to "advanced" and "wipe dalvic cache". I don't know if this is needed, but it doesn't hurt). Then you just go to "install zip from sdcard" and select the Zip file for your new Rom.

4. Follow the the instructions for installing your preferred custom Rom and Gapps etc. I think jordfaz's MiniCM9 Rom together with "tiny gapps" which will get you Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS 4.0.4) might be as good as it gets with a Wildfire at the moment. What follows is how I got MiniCM9 running.

Make sure you have put the MiniCM9.zip file and the Tiny Gapps zip file on the root directory of your sd card.before you do step 3 above. Then in the CWM recovery just go to "install zip for sdcard" and select the miniCM9 zip. After it says installed just "reboot system now" and let the phone start normally. It will take over 5 minutes. After it has fully started power the phone down. Then press the vol down and power buttons together to reboot into the recovery screen. Go to recovery and press the power button to select. (I thought this would get you into CWM 5.0.2.0 but on my wildfire I got the original recovery. So go to "apply update from sdcard" press Trackball and you will have CWM 5.0.2.0) Then go to "install zip from sdcard" and select Tiny Gapps zip file. After it says installed just reboot phone and let it start normally and you have a fully working version of CM 9.1 ICS!

Finally a few tips about using MiniCM9. ICS puts more demands on the processor than Froyo so in settings go to Performance and set max cpu speed to 691 and min to 176. Also set CPU governor to "Smartass2". I didn't get any FC's with these settings. (I like to play the game "geocaching" and I was really impressed with how well the overclocked ICS Wildfire runs "cgeo"). Also one of the small bugs with MiniCM9 is that the soft keys below the screen work but don't light up (Not a major flaw in my opinion). Also the installed fm radio causes a reboot. I just installed "Spirit FM" from Play Store. Sounds good. There is also no email app in tiny gapps so just get gmail from Play Store.

One final tip if you want to be able to use the Trackball to wake the phone. Go to the app "Terminal Emulator" type "su" and press enter, then type "trackballwake" and press enter and the Trackball can be used to wake the Wildfire.

That's about all I know. Hope it helps you get the most out of your Wildfire!