[Tilt, TyTN II, MDA Vario III General] GerardSamija:
Same problem here: recently CAB files won't install

I'm using a Kaiser. Here's my ROM etc.

ROM version: Essential WWE

ROM date: 18/04/2010

Radio version: 1.70.19.09

Protocol version: 25.83.40.02H

If I recall correctly, this is the link to the thread where I got this ROM:

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=629593

It's been running just fine, almost flawlessly, since April. But a couple of weeks ago I dropped the phone while getting up in the morning. Just a foot or so, onto thin mock-hardwood flooring, so it bounced a bit. The back cover popped off and out popped the extended battery. Of course there was the usual soft reset after putting things back together and pressing Power... but after this some things looked wrong. I found more and more errors as I tried using the device, so I went to a backup (use Resco Backup) and restored just the registry, choosing the 'stop all programs' option as usual with any whole or partial restore. After what seemed a successful registry restore and soft reset, the device was closer to how it had been, but still not quite 'right' somehow. I haven't had time for more fussing, too much work and family stuff going on, so I just left it at that. Daily PIMbackups offer the most important security for me anyway.

But I do like to use a lot of software, and would like to be able to install CAB files once in a while. Just yesterday I wanted to try Resco Pocket Radio v3.0, but found it wouldn't install. Not any error, just an eternal hourglass with no progress showing on the bar. No way to close out the install dialogue. It runs until soft resetting. I thought at first it was a Resco Radio CAB problem, but trying other known-good CAB files showed that it was the device.

So I'm left wondering what could have gone wrong. The battery has come out before, lots of times when I used to swap between two normal-capacity batteries, before getting this fat battery. Never saw a problem like this. Everything else seems to be working okay. I've had to tweak the odd setting since that glitchy restore, like alarms not sounding until I ran CalNot.exe (found in \Windows, part of the ROM) a few times and reset. Calendar and apMemo and other alarms all worked fine after that known fix. I'm back to an old glitch in the phone software where initiating any outgoing call triggers a loud partial beep. Got rid of that for a long time, but it's back. A bit of skin weirdness too, with plain blue showing up behind the Start Menu instead of my background, but that was easily fixed just running the skin again in Today options.

So there seems to be something a bit weird about CAB files and the Kaiser, for some people and some ROMs. Seems from this thread that it's not a specific ROM in question. I'll keep Googling, but frankly time is at a premium lately and I just don't have much of it for such things, and certainly not for a manual rebuild from a scratch ROM install. That can take me half a day with all the stuff I run. Tried a few times trimming down the software installs, but it's not not comfortable missing programs I've used regularly for years. So I'll live with this CAB problem until business lets up a bit. Unless of course someone comes up with a 'magic wand' to help out. ;-)