[JASJAR, XDA Exec, MDA Pro ROM Development] Keyosuke:
I agree that Microsoft isnt responsible for the bugs we get from porting roms to the Universal that weren't meant for the Universal. This is unrelated to version numbers and I agree with your point in this respect.

As for the funny tale of how build numbers relate to stability, I would like to point you to beta versions of any of the NT based PC operating systems Microsoft has made, including Vista. The "beta" releases don not have the benefit of mass testing, so they are less stable due to bugs that are hardware unrelated. RTM (release) versions of Windows NT based operating systems for the PC have far more testing behind them, and work on a broader range of hardware with fewer bugs. I'm aware that this doesn't apply to Pocket PC in a direct fashion; I am only using this as an example of how higher version numbers can lead to greater stability to a certain extent. Each new bug fix surely creates more bugs, but this is logarithmic. The initial builds of a new product or a major version change usually do not follow their specification well, leading to a series of bug fixes that bring software closer to the initial design and the stability can go up as the RTM is approached. Late in development the stabilty increase is less, as the specifications are mostly adhered to and the bugs you are fixing are less like "The car has no steering wheel" and more like "maybe the steering wheel is a little too big". Another metaphor to explain this idea is that Alpha and Beta builds usually have bugs like "We forgot to include a variable and now the entire software has a fatal defect" while Release duilds tend to have bugs that sound like "We forgot to initialize a variable, so one feature isn't working, but the program can still be used".

I hope that story was funny, but it seems kind of boring. Software engineering goes differently depending on the project, team, company politics, and software lifecycle strategy being used, so all of that story is subject to change and virtually worthless. That's why I didn't tell it to you earlier. There is no direct correlation between version numbers and stability, but in an ideal world where the software happens to fit this senario (as is demanded by safety certified code which I work on everyday), it can be "hoped" that later builds will contain less bugs regardless of the bugs introduced by the software manipulation rom cookers do. Maybe this isn't the case in our hacked UNI world of WM6.1 but I don't think it's so ridiculous and laugable to hope.

Thanks for the new rom edition to play with.

Also thanks for the idea to not use cabs to get the silly HTC OEM crap. I've recently been trying to upgrade the HTC OEM stuff and having some trouble, but as the OEM software breaks and stops running, the device usually gets better. THe Comm Manager, for example. I always wanted to get rid of it, but I was starting to like it more since RealVGA makes it all but impossible to disable wireless with my thumb tip, as I did before. Still, having it broken is refreshing since it saves me ram, space, and I seem to have one less bug.

I just realized a mistake of mine. I assumed this was a WM6.1 rom but I read elsewhere that it is WM6.0. If that is the case, there would seem to be no advantage to later builds. WM6.0 isn't in beta status so I expect no noticable increase in stability from here on in. Whoops.