[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] tony.wheeler:
My Experience of Upgrading – thanks to Modaco and XDA Developers

- See link for latest update - http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=1370896&postcount=9

Having just successfully upgraded :) everything I thought fellow (junior) Hermes owners might like to know of my experience. For those of you about to embark on such a move, and especially for those on T-Mobile UK, you will hopefully find this useful. There are plenty of links throughout this post that should help.

1. Preparation. Having read what felt like all the information here on this forum, and others, I finally decided to start the upgrade work to take my Vario II (UK T-Mobile Hermes) to the latest (phone) radio, the latest Windows Mobile Professional 6 Black Majik build and also to CID and SIM unlock the phone to boot! All without a single problem after a significant amount of reading – but most significantly by simply following the instructions and understanding what they were asking me to do before carrying out what might actually render my Hermes a ‘Brick’ with no warranty! The XDA Dev Hermes Wiki is a great place to start and so is the upgrade guide. Warning: If you are nervous about the upgrade there is a serious amount of reading required to counter those fears.

2. Backing up. I keep very little on the actual device so all I had to do was note all the settings and backup the call records and SMS messages. I used Pim Backup to backup the calls and messages and in fact found plenty of installation .cab files that could be run from the device to restore the T-Mobile settings to allow GPRS, SMS and MMS etc.

3. The Upgrade. I did the upgrade in 7 stages getting more ambitious with each, I did not encounter one single problem and did this over a 3-day period plucking up courage as I went. This is not the optimum path to upgrade but allowed me to get familiar after first protecting my investment with Hard-SPL from OliPro – I also wanted the radio most initially:

Insurance 1. Using Paul’s guide I dumped my old T-Mobile supplied WM5 OS ROM so that I had an option to get back to at least the basic WM5 build should I need to consider warranty claims. This worked OK but was undoubtedly the most complicated part of this process that use many quite advanced tools – not for the beginner I would suggest! I doubt that many will do this and I would not recommend it (I can post the dumped ROM) as others already have now) Warning: if done wrong I suspect that this is the most likely part of this process to wreck the device!​

Insurance 2. Having read the guides (see MrVanx and his Hermes Guide) I upgraded the IPL and SPL with Hard-SPL (thanks Olipro) to avoid ‘bricking’ (wrecking) my phone -took less than 10mins.​

Radio. The radio was my first upgrade goal because I’d read good things about improved reception etc. So I went straight for the latest extracted radio ROM (1.43.00.00) from the XDA Radio ROM page as this had good reports on UK T-Mobile. - took only 6 mins.​

WM6. Having read lots (and lots and lots…) I opted for the Black MAJIK ‘cooked’ ROM because it had so many good reviews (see XDA and 4WinMobile and Modaco) and liked the look of it (note: you can easily change the theme away from Black to more conventional appearance). The download site is http://wmblack.info/ and there are lots of applications and configuration files here. (thanks Jasjamming) - after some pre-reading the actual upgrade too only 5 mins!​

SIM & CID Unlocking. To get access to the extended ROM for additional storage space I had to use Pofs cooked radio ROM to make the device "Super CID" - this also removed the SIM (operator) lock and the CID (language) lock. I was then able to use HTweakC (one of many tweakers) to mount and unlock the ROM. This fix now allows me to use any operator SIM card, install any language OS ROM and also to mount and unhide the Extended ROM (Note: in WM6 it appears that this fix by Pof is required to write to the Extended ROM whereas in WM5 it can be done solely with a registry hack). Thank you Pof because the batch file did it all without problem (albeit I was really quite nervous because the Hard-SPL was removed and the radio downgraded temporarily). - this took a longer 18 mins in total (after reading). – this left me with the wrong radio and the potential to ‘brick’ my device with subsequent upgrades so…..​

Insurance. I put Hard-SPL back on (to protect the device) before…​

Radio. Re-upgrading back to the latest radio​

I now had a perfectly functioning Vario II with all the latest software ROMs installed and it was future proofed against my further upgrades and testing of ROMs that will certainly come after this….

5. Re-Building. I used a .cab file created by Lordsmiff on Modaco (here) to configure my T-Mobile settings and it all worked. I used the backup of the call logs and SMS messages from the Pim Backup software to restore those and then I started the installation of all the software I wanted. Of course I also had to configure pop3 access to my e-mail, enter my correct Device ID and all my personal details.

6. Problems. I had very few problems. The Internet connection would not work for my pop3 account access (OK for web browsing though) and I found that a setting (settings-connections-connections-Advanced (tab) and Select Networks button) needed to be changed to “T-Mobile Internet” from “My Work Network”. Not all of my call log was reinstated so I lost some calls. I also found out initially that I could not get full ‘write/delete’ access to the Extended ROM because it needed to be SIM/CID unlocked (or at leats part of that) before running one of the tweaking programs. That was all!

7. My Software. I installed all my usual software with no problem and all is working very well: Spb Mobile Suite/backup & Diary, SK Tools, TT6, Modaco CamerAware, Comm Manager Pro, and MS Livesearch.

8. Result. All is great so far and I have a nicer looking, slightly faster, better radio reception phone that holds 3G longer. Bluetooth pairing with my handsfree Jabra BT250 is fine and the BT pairing to my GPSlim 240 is OK too. Wifi at home also works without issue (still limited range as before). Yes it all took lots of effort to avoid the problems but it has been a free upgrade and I owe a few donations to those that made this possible – a GREAT BIG thank you to all you cooks and developers out there :).

I hope this helps some of you - of course reading the Wiki is excellent free guidance offered by many (some not so politely!)

I’ll report back here on any problems I have and if anyone spots an error then please let me know and I will fix it so I do not mislead others.

EDIT - latest update (all going well) here.

Good Luck!