[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] shogunmark:
Ok, so im a chronic flasher and have to set up my phone alot. Now Im no expert but have learned a few tricks in my day and wanted to share them with everyone and also hopefully have other people contribute so we can all learn a little more.

It seems that you can do alot with xml, from registry settings to email set up, etc... With Wince Cab manager you manually put in registry settings, but some of them cant be installed, they need to be provisioned. For example:

ghisler's Total Commander has the ability to do FTP which for me comes in really handy. However the FTP info is stored in the registry, when you try to put this info in wince and try to install the cab it will fail everytime (could have been the format of the password, but regardless xml is more fun). So in order to get the registry settings in i had to use this format:

<characteristic type="Registry">
<characteristic type="HKCU\SOFTWARE\Ghisler\ftp\servers\Connection name" translation="filesystem">
<parm name="firewall" datatype="string" value="" />
<parm name="password" datatype="string" value="password" />
<parm name="remotedir" datatype="string" value="" />
<parm name="sendcmds" datatype="string" value="" />
<parm name="server" datatype="string" value=[URL="ftp://ftp.server.com/"]ftp.server.com[/URL] />
<parm name="servertype" datatype="string" value="" />
<parm name="username" datatype="string" value="username" />
</characteristic>
</characteristic>

My next pet peeve was email setup..

I use Gmail IMAP and mail2web for push mail.

Gmail imap:

<wap-provisioningdoc>
<characteristic type="EMAIL2">
<characteristic type="{7B3D74EC-35D9-45e3-B8F3-E38F4B90D174}">
<parm name="SERVICENAME" value="Gmail" />
<parm name="SERVICETYPE" value="IMAP4" />
<parm name="INSERVER" value="imap.gmail.com" />
<parm name="OUTSERVER" value="smtp.gmail.com" />
<parm name="NAME" value="my name" />
<parm name="AUTHNAME" value=[EMAIL="value=testme@gmail.com"]testme@gmail.com[/EMAIL] />
<parm name="AUTHSECRET" value="password" />
<parm name="DOMAIN" value="" />
<parm name="REPLYADDR" value="testme[EMAIL="testme@gmail.com"]@gmail.com[/EMAIL]" />
<parm name="LINGER" value="15" />
<parm name="RETRIEVE" value="2048" />
<parm name="KEEPMAX" value="25" />
<parm name="DWNDAY" value="3" />
<parm name="AUTHREQUIRED" value="1" />
<parm name="SMTPALTENABLED" value="1" />
<parm name="SMTPALTAUTHNAME" value="testme[EMAIL="testme@gmail.com"]@gmail.com[/EMAIL]" />
<parm name="SMTPALTPASSWORD" value="password" />
<parm name="SMTPALTDOMAIN" value="smtp.gmail.com" />
</characteristic>
</characteristic>
</wap-provisioningdoc>

I havent had to set up a pop3 account yet, but according to M$ here is the xml code for it:

<wap-provisioningdoc>
<characteristic type="EMAIL2">
<characteristic type="{GUID}">
<parm name="SERVICENAME" value="example.com"/>
<parm name="SERVICETYPE" value="POP3"/>
<parm name="INSERVER" value="myemail.example.com"/>
<parm name="OUTSERVER" value="myemail.example.com"/>
<parm name="AUTHREQUIRED" value="1"/>
<characteristic type="TAGPROPS">
<parm name="8128000B" value="1"/>
<parm name="812C000B" value="1"/>
</characteristic>
<parm name="AUTHNAME" value="someone@example.com"/>
<parm name="AUTHSECRET" value="password"/>
<parm name="REPLYADDR" value="someone@example.com"/>
</characteristic>
</characteristic>
</wap-provisioningdoc>

Then Mail2web push mail through activesync and also calendar and contacts:

<characteristic type="Sync">
<characteristic type="Settings">
<parm name="BodyTruncation" value="1024" />
</characteristic>
<characteristic type="Connection">
<parm name="Domain" value="DOMAIN" />
<parm name="Password" value="password" />
<parm name="SavePassword" value="1" />
<parm name="Server" value="mobile.exchange.mail2web.com" />
<parm name="User" value="myemail_mail2web_" />
<parm name="URI" value="Microsoft-Server-ActiveSync" />
</characteristic>
<characteristic type="Mail">
<parm name="Enabled" value="1" />
<parm name="MailBodyTruncation" value="1024" />
<parm name="MailFileAttachments" value="1024" />
</characteristic>
<characteristic type="Calendar">
<parm name="Enabled" value="1" />
</characteristic>
<characteristic type="Contacts">
<parm name="Enabled" value="1" />
</characteristic>
</characteristic>

So i hope some of this helps everyone... im no expert on this and its pretty new territory but will answer what i can. Would also appreciate hints, tips, etc from the pro's..