yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] dutty:
thanks to pof and olipro for betatesting :)

this is probably the easiest way to cook your hermes rom.

-it supports several ways of adding files to the rom: drag and drop or browsing

-easy removal of files in the rom

-easy way of editing the volumelayout (initflashfiles.dat)

-easy compiling

-easy dumping

-a console that shows you whats going on

-registry editing ( not yet fully functional, leave your fingeres off that )

well everything is easy :)

i'm sorry for this crappy presentation, it's late now and i'll have to go to the hospital tomorrow and i'll be off for a few days.. feel free to ask pof/olipro if you got some questions

a quick introduction on how to add your own theme (.tsk) file to a rom:

1.) download it and extract

2.) install the java runtime (required for achefs script, i inted to port his script to c or c# but that might take a while) , the run time can be found in "install me first"

3.) start the executable

4.) you will notice that all buttons except "select source rom" are grayed out.. push "select source rom" and browse into 'ROMS\' select the 'Clean-WM6-OS.nb' rom there

5.) now "dump rom" and "compile rom" became available... we don't need to dump the rom for this purpose (do this if you want to edit the initflashfiles or if you want to remove files from the rom) at this stage don't push anything

now comes the fun part

6.) simply drag and drop the tskfile(s) of your choice into the "files to be added" listbox

7.) now give your romfile a name using the outputrom editbox

8.) you're done, click "compile rom" and lean back.

yes, rom cooking was never that easy and enjoyable :D

last warning, use this at your own risk. this is beta software. i'm not responsible if your device gets damaged during any of this nor is your provider or xda-developers.

edit: ai ai ai, i cant believe i've actually packaged the "branded sheep".. sorry guys... it's fixed now contains the real vanilla rom

besides that you can now download the thing without any rom at all...

download: http://rapidshare.com/files/18812655/_romkoch_full.rar.html (with wm6.0 vanilla rom)

download: http://rapidshare.com/files/18811961/_romkoch_light.rar.html ( without wm6.0 vanilla rom )

installation notes: v0.1 has a small bug that prevents you from having foldernames with spaces so for this first release install to c:\xda-dev\kitchen or something like that.. make sure there are no spaces
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] pof:
well done, thanks for the kitchen!
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] TaurusBullba R.I.P.:
WOW! This has been a big week for the hermes. Thanks dutty for a great and easy way to use a lot of great tools. Thanks for the help and the next step forward!
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] LegolasTheElf:
WOW! That's fantastic!
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] LegolasTheElf:
I'm sorry for asking, but, can *someone* who is good at cooking please provide a tutorial on how to add a program from a .cab file? I have the tools to open the cab file, but, what do I do with the pieces? :)
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] LegolasTheElf:
Sorry, one final question. The 'clean' WM6 rom.. Is it the vanilla rom? or K's rom? or...?
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] crosswind:
I'm pretty sure the clean one is vanilla.
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] pof:
seems to be kyphur's rom. I just used the tool to flash a slightly modified rom and it shows xda-live on today screen.
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] richy240:
Holy crap, this is gonna take all the technical know-how out of it. On one hand, that's great for people like me because we can start cooking ROMs without knowing what we're doing. On the other hand, that really sucks for people like me because we can start cooking ROMs without knowing what we're doing.

But THANK YOU! Now I can get started and fill in a lot of the gaps later (though I'm not sure whether that's a good thing or not).

And Vista compatible, I see? Very nice!
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] dutty:
thanks.. dont be afraid there is really not much you can do wrong that will brick your device.. just watch out that your rom isnt getting too big..

in the next version i'll implement checks that prevent the creation of a rom thats too big, then theres no danger at all
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] pof:
open the cab with wince cab manager, extract files and drag&drop them to the kitchen, edit initflashfiles.dat to tell the specific location of the files on imgfs, if the cab also contains registry settings add them to default.hv (or user.hv if the settings are on HLMU), that should be enough for most of the apps :)
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] cyberdrakula:
Thanks Dutty !

WIll test this right away be flashing my Extra Device.
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] walshieau:
dutty.... you are the man!!!!
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] richy240:
I keep getting an error when I try to dump the ROM. Please see attached TXT file.
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] dutty:
i got it.. i will throw a fix at you in a minute
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] richy240:
I've got .NET 1.1 and 2.0 installed. (Does that seem strange to anyone? Wouldn't one upgrade the other?) It happens on any ROM I try. The last line in the console says, "---->Done Executing: Tools\viewimgfs.exe"
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] richy240:
F'in sweet.
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] walshieau:
both 1.1 and 2.0 operate independentily to one another....
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] dutty:
could not find a part of the path?? sounds like a subfolder is missing.. hmm, maybe the path is to long, try to shorten it -

edit: yep, i will fix this properly.. for now please make sure the path name has no spaces and is short i.e. C:\xda-dev\romkitchen

removed the hotfix, it's not necessary.
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] richy240:
Bingo. I moved the directory to D:\ and it works.
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] Lancealot:
Ahh dutty, you're the man! This is gonna make things so much easier from now on, I can't wait to give this a whirl!
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] dutty:
thanks for the love guys.

great! i'll have to go to the hospital, once i'm back i am going to make this really nice :)
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] simple:
Good job,

I guess this is not a Microsxxt product, can you upload it to the toold section?

Regards.
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] kuekpeow:
What is the cooked rom size limit?

What is the maximum size that it can go (How do we know whether we added too much programs which won't fit into the device ram)?

If we flash an oversized cooked rom, will it permanently bricked?
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] mousey_:
At The Moment There Is No Warning Wether Or Not You Are Over The Size Limit.

You Will Not Permanantly Brick Your Device. All You'll Have To Do Is Reflash A Normal Size OS.nb On To Your Device To Fix It.

I Haven't A Clue What Size You Can Go To Sorry.

Cheers
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] dutty:
well... just came home from the hospital, my operation has been rescheduled to the 13.03 thats good for you because i can finish the "der hermes rom koch" now..

i think pof uploaded it..

about the maximum size, i will investigate that matter today. besides that i plan to implement some kind of project-fileformat so you can save your work and continue later on..
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] cybertron:
Ok, this is a great program!

thanx!

I little feuture request perhaps :D

is it possible to add the possibility to "install" cab files automatically ? (without copying/pasting/editing)

Just curious :D
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] pof:
LOL, that would be amazing... but I don't think this will be easy to implement.
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] cybertron:
no, that was what i thought aswell, but it would be cool :thumbsup
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] LegolasTheElf:
Thanks pof. I had acually spent some time with the roms, and think I have it nailed. Everything is put into the windows dir by default, and those files you want elsewhere are told to move by the initflashfiles.dat file. Any chance that there is a doc on all the commands available for that file? :)
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] LinoX:
It's not easy at all, we should parse cab (only those with simple instructions, not the ones containing a setup dll) and modify the system aswell.

Moreover..medium-big programs always have a setup DLL to perform custom actions (different than copy/add to reg)

but.. HEY!! we have 14megs of extended rom for cabs!!!

We should try to exploit it!
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] pof:
Probably the kitchen can use cabextract in background to extract the cab files and registry settings :)

Yes actually around 10Mb IIRC, but nobody has reversed the ExtROM format yet ;)
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] LinoX:
Yes..even winrar o winzip (the rom cooker runs on windows, cabextract on *nix as far as I know) are able to open and extract cab's contents but..what you say would only work for simple cabs :)

Programs that

- search for previous versions (and ask for example to remove them before installing)

- give warning messages about something

- perform additional tweaks to UI (like today)

- place the phone in a particular state (like flight-mode)

use a ce-setup DLL and this can't be done at rom build time.

Only small, not complex programs, use a "simple" (copy/addreg/createlink) cab install (and for this kind of CABs something could be done)..

But.. is it worth? :)
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] richy240:
I was also hoping to find some info on the structure of this file. Anyone have a good link or something? Or should we just start messing with it and see what happens? (I must admit, that would make me VERY nervous...)
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] pof:
just read a few lines on the file and you'll figure out yourself, is very easy... and any mistake there will not break anything, so no worries :)
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] richy240:
Freakin' sweet! Thanks POF! You guys are great.
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] futureshock:
a little thought-provoking impulse .... since anyone postet it before....

just regedit the rom to allow unsigned code...

after that you can just put all files you want into ext. rom also cabs without an signed code...

just test it when the reghack is activated, edit the config files and put the cabs in... just lunch the autorun...

all installes...

when you do this when the reghack isn't enabled the installer just exits without an error an all is over...

maybe we don't have to use the cab extracter when it can done this way??

and really... don't say you need the 14mb of ext. rom for installing... thats absurd... everyone have an sd card... where we can save all other files...

only small problem is that the autorun install all to the device storage...

steve
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] ratcom:
WELL DONE!

Well done Dutty what a ground breaking tool! I truly feel that the Hermes is coming of age now! I for one will be cooking up a fully loaded rom this weekend once Ive got the time to read everything in detail, but I must say this is by far going to be the easiest way Ive ever cooked anything!

Oh I know some of you want to be able to install cabs, well the way I got around this was to flash my phone with the base rom (totally clean) then install the said program, then looking for and dragging the files installed (plus the reg keys) off the phone. Then when cooking just addfile then into your rom (lots of programs have all there files one directory so it dont matter if that directory appends to be windows ;) )

Anyway I'm looking forward to playing around with tool at the weekend :) thanks again to EVERYONE on the hermes scene ....... good times are coming I suspect!
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] richy240:
I had thought of that, but was hoping for a less time-consuming solution. But I guess this isn't the type of procedure for the lazy or faint of heart, now is it?!
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] ratcom:
Yep its not the most professional way of going about it..... but it does work :) and you will be surprised how many programs don't really need the reg keys installing as some programs re-enter upon running and not finding them ;) Here is a example attached :cool:
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] richy240:
So, along these lines, is there a way to find out which files were added to the ROM during application installation? I imagine if I could dump the ROM from my device, I could expand the original IMG file and run a compare between the original dumped ROM and my device's dumped ROM... Do you follow me?

How are you guys doing this?
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] ratcom:
thats one way you could go, however I would be tempted to simply examine the registry for the obvious and just pull the files from the directory its installed to, this may not work for complex programs but what are you realistically wanting to cook in the rom? Ive always try to keep it simple (ish) themes, ringtones, meda players, maybe the odd other programs but I must confess Ive never tried anything to complex
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] richy240:
Yeah, that seems easier. I'm not trying to cook anything in particular now - I'm just seeing how different things are done by different people and applying that to my trials.

I'll try a few things and post my results. Mostly I'm afraid of bricking my device, as it is (a) the only one I have, and (b) expensive as hell. I wish I still had my Wizard so I could become familiar with ROM cooking while still having the insurance of another device.
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] ratcom:
my understanding of this tools process is you cannot brick your phone as such because we are only playing around with the o.s. so a simple reflash will correct any problems, Its abit like making love for the first time, you've very nervous at first but once done you cannot wait for the next time ;)
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] richy240:
Oh! I didn't know THAT (even though Pof mentioned something about it earlier)... Does this include boot images and the like as well? If I create a new NBF and flash that, what's the risk involved? (Sorry, I'm still really new to this!)

And I'm still nervous when I screw. Just kidding.
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] ionide:
Can someone point out what the real advantages of cooking your own rom are? Are there things that cannot be done with cabs or registry edits? Are there other advantages to embedding applications in the rom exept for the space savings? (would it make sense to embed, say, Opera Mobile and Google mobile maps instead of just installing?)
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] pof:
You can produce bad blocks in NAND on hermes if you flash a bad OS with an invalid imgfs structure. This seems to be irrecoverable, but the kitchen tools we have are using aChef 0.2.1 which is known to be safe on this, also we've done the firsts successful tests of flashing a rom cooked in the dump folder with buildimgfs, and not using addfile and delfile.
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] richy240:
And those tests were successful?

Man, you guys have some balls to try this stuff with such expensive devices...
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] pof:
Yes, tested only once on hermes and trinity :)
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] richy240:
Yeah, umm, I jsut realized your post above specified successful. Sorry for asking a stupid question. :(
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] wpbear:
I halfed bricked mine today with this. Des SSPL would not reflash after a hang on HTS Splash screen. I had to reflash a Real Shipped ROM. I knew I was kinda okay since BL was coming up but I was surprised that SSPL wouldnot load.

I have a 13MB custom CAB for me instead of loading 20 different CABs, So I tried to integrate this into the OS by extracting the files and reg entries, but something went wrong. Next time I have a few hours I will try again, since I didnt screwup the Hermes that bad.
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] walshieau:
interesting... did it produce bad blocks in the NAND???
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] pof:
SSPL is a WinCE exe aplication, must be run while OS is running.
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] jokinawa:
This and Vista

Has anyone gotten this to work with Vista? I installed the Java app first but now I get this when dumping the ROM.

See the end of this message for details on invoking
just-in-time (JIT) debugging instead of this dialog box.

************** Exception Text **************
System.IO.DirectoryNotFoundException: Could not find a part of the path 'P:\PocketPC\PhoneTools\XDADEV\dump'.
at System.IO.__Error.WinIOError(Int32 errorCode, String maybeFullPath)
at System.IO.Directory.InternalGetFileDirectoryNames(String path, String userPathOriginal, String searchPattern, Boolean includeFiles, Boolean includeDirs, SearchOption searchOption)
at System.IO.Directory.GetDirectories(String path, String searchPattern, SearchOption searchOption)
at System.IO.Directory.GetDirectories(String path)
at CookGUI.Form1.AttribDirectory(String dir)
at CookGUI.Form1.dumprom_Click(Object sender, EventArgs e)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.OnClick(EventArgs e)
at System.Windows.Forms.Button.OnClick(EventArgs e)
at System.Windows.Forms.Button.OnMouseUp(MouseEventArgs mevent)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmMouseUp(Message& m, MouseButtons button, Int32 clicks)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.ButtonBase.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Button.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.OnMessage(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] richy240:
You're right. Thanks.
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] simple:
Where on xda-developers site do you find 'der hermes rom koch'.
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] pof:
LOL... on the first page of this thread, there's a link to rapidshare.
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] simple:
I meant on xda-developers repository "FTP"!! like other tools?
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] wpbear:
That is a good reason why it didnt work.:D

It wasnt a problem, just took 45 min to reflash since it took a complete shipped RUU, pain in the a$$. I like the quick 10min OS only.
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] richy240:
So here's something I've noticed about der hermes rom koch...

Sometimes when dumping the source ROM, it doesn't rename the 'dump' directory to Dump-[SourceRomTitle].nb (or so it seems; I don't know what's *actually* failing here). When that happens, any button that references files contained within the missing directory causes a file not found error.

I haven't had it happen enough to notice any patterns, nor can I duplicate the error when I try. But it has happened a few times. To recover, I've always closed the app, deleted the 'dump' directory, restarted the app, and re-dumped the source ROM.
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] jokinawa:
I finally got it to rename the dump directory but I had to create the "dump" directory after I clicked dump ROM otherwise it would not make the renamed directory. If the directory was created before pushing the dump button it would delete the dump dir and error out. It does not dump any files from the rom.
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] arghness:
It's packaged with a WM6 ROM, so can't be put on the FTP under the new rules.
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] apokryphus:
missing dll

Hi guys, i have a problem with the viewimage.exe.

I have downloaded the lite version but while i am trying to dump the rom i got an error with viewimage.exe, because the MSVCR71.dll was not found - at least that is what the system error message shows up.

At all i can not see the content os the dumped rom..

Is the "rom koch" a stand-alone app?

Of course i insalled the java runtime enviroment, but maybe others software pieces are needed.

any suggestions?
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] simple:
I do not think yhis is the case arghness.

Please check the second link:

download: http://rapidshare.com/files/18812655..._full.rar.html (with wm6.0 vanilla rom)

download: http://rapidshare.com/files/18811961...light.rar.html ( without wm6.0 vanilla rom )

Also check Dutty's contribution #26 in this thread.

I am now wondering why Dutty's contribution is not added??. Plus; where I am currently, Rapidshare is not available to me.
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] kuekpeow:
It'll be good to add ext rom editing function...
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] dutty:
guys, very important. if you are running vista you need to run the kitchen WITH FULL ADMIN RIGHTS!

i will release a new version soon, alot of things are fixed. some new features etc.
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] simple:
Thanks kuekpeow, but the link is very slow.

Hi Dutty,

Can you upload it to the upload directory on this site.

Regards.
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] richy240:
OH MY GOD! I just cooked and flashed my first ROM!!! And I was nervous as HELL when it was flashing...

But, it didn't work. It almost worked, but after the device boots the top taskbar appears (Start button only - no additional icons), and anything below that is covered by the bottom 220px (or so) of the OS Splash screen. I never see the Today screen, and the device is unusable from it's own interface. It does, however, respond to ActiveSync when I plug it in to reflash to a known good ROM.

So, was it something I did incorrectly in the initflashfiles.dat? I did make a few modifications in there, but they were minor.

Any ideas?
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] shogunmark:
i have the same problem.. i am currently searching for a thread and maybe pof can chime in before i find it.. but there is a file you have remove the first 2 bytes off of it, i dont remember which one it is, gotta find that thread...
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] richy240:
Well, at least it's not just me... ;)
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] shogunmark:
nope, not just you.. i was fighting this yesterday but had limited internet access... i know this thread is here somewhere
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] richy240:
Does this look familiar?

http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=1141725&postcount=16
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] shogunmark:
Thats the one!
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] richy240:
Ok, so please forgive me for asking, but how do I do that? (Keep in mind I'm not a programmer like many of you...)
[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] shogunmark:
First of all dont forget to remove initflashfiles.dat from the imgfs_raw_data ... Then make your changes to your initflashfiles.dat then save.. take your favorite hex editor (such as winhex) and drag and drop your file into it. It will populate the hex map. delete the first 4 characters (2 bytes). here is the screenshots!