[Wing, P4350 ROM development] quicksite:
Here is a little LAYMAN's GUIDE to Flashing a ROM onto a WING or HERALD.

This post is written in total layman's terms. I'm going to take it really slowly. I hope it helps you, and hopefully many more people as well. THIS WILL BE IN TWO POSTS, for character length reasons. :)

Let me help you with the basic concept -- because it IS a lot of reading just to get the "big picture". Some of this may be obvious; probably most of it is not. But I am specifically NOT GOING INTO FULL DETAILS HERE. Just the big picture.

So, the usual warnings are given.

If you are not sure about anything said below, you MUST search for more info and read it, or else you run a risk of ruining your phone. (also known as "bricking" your phone... which, for those who don't know, means this: You have this nice expensive phone with touchscreen etc, but by being careless you fry its insides, rendering it completely dead and not reviveable or fixable -- in which case it is a rectangular-shaped little brick, no longer an electronic device... capiche?) ...

But the good news is, the great folks at XDA have figured all this stuff out, and have created a lot of little scripts and "wizards" that help automate the baseline preparation you need to do before you can play in the candy-shop and just try out 101 different styles and versions of software on your phone.

1) For those who are not versed in the lingo, a ROM (as used on this site) is essentially a software file that has a version of Windows Mobile as its base, then various open source applications that the XDA-developer here decided he/she would like to have part of this one single package. And there might be some utility files and settings files too. That's what a ROM is.

2) To "Flash a ROM" means: To upgrade your phone device's existing Windows Mobile software package that also includes the apps originally distributed by your phone provider. For example, T-Mobile distributes a customized version of Windows Mobile which is installed onto T-Mobile phones sold directly by them. This is sometimes called the "Factory ROM" or "OEM ROM", and no need to define that -- just means "the stuff that comes with the phone". So, when one "flashes a ROM", what they're doing is replacing the original software package with a new & improved one -- the stuff built and assembled by XDA-developers... Since the ROMs they release have various applications "baked into" the ROM (the single file that has the OS and all these other goodies), these developers here are known as "cooks" or "chefs"... because they are in the software kitchen "cooking a ROM"

3) But HOW do you get that new ROM software onto your phone? How do you flash a ROM? .... This is the point where everyone on this site who helps one another will stop to say: It depends on how your phone is currently set up, and its make and model. Quite simply, some phones are older ( a few years old) and they have internal chip sets etc that do not support being over-written with some ROMS. They just don't because they weren't designed in a compatible way. That's why people ask these cryptic sounding questions about your phone's specifications, and, the scariest question of all:

Many a thread have been written about these issues, in great detail, so, for THIS little mini-guide I am writing here, I am not getting into it. Search for your exact phone brand and model and find out.

4. What's the difference and why the big deal? In this mini-guide I will simplify by saying that MOST (but not all) of the "chefs" (cooks) here at XDA who assemble these ROMs cater their installation guides to those users whose phones have been "HARD-SPL'd". It's this simple: Due to the way Cell Phone carriers lockout certain capabilities of phones to make sure you're paying THEM for cell service and not someone else, there are some tricky little pieces of software they include in their phones that are generally designed to keep you from doing this very thing: ripping out THEIR software and putting in all new software. In all fairness, in many cases they don't want you to go messing up your phone then crying to them "my phone is busted!"... So, for the sake of simplicity, let's say the phones are "safety locked". And that in order for you to install these great ROMs, you either have to bypass this safety lock each and every time you want to install a new ROM onot your phone, or, you unlock this safety ONCE, and thereafter you can skip that bypass forever more. THIS BYPASS you install onot your phone is called "HARD-SPL". When, by contrast, your phone is "SOFT-SPL" let's just simplify it by saying you then have to always do the workaround FIRST before you install the new ROM.

Thus, 9 out of 10 people here recommend that you go through this first workaround installation -- it doesn't take long at all -- and then your phone is "HARD-SPL", and thereafter you can flash a new ROM to your phone 100 times a day and never have to bother with that safety-lock. Bust remember: If you ever expect warranty work to be done on your phone, by doing this HARD-SPL you VOID YOUR WARRANTY. But here again, the geniuses at XDA have simplified the method to "UN-DO Hard SPL" -- if you ever need to restore your phone to factory settings, so as to submit it for warranty work.

5. HOW do I peform the HARD SPL? Follow this link, as I showed a poster earlier in this thread. ... THE REST OF THIS POST assumes you have already performed Hard SPL. BUT: WARNING: You MUST

backup your phone's data first

, because in this Hard SPl process, the whole drove inside your phone gets overwritten. (Search elsewhere "How to backup my phone's data". This guide is not covering it.)

Yes, essentially that is it.

6. So you've downloaded a great ROM like the one thanhy25 has released on this thread. And you have already done the whole Hard-SPL thing. Now what?

My Simplified Answer.. So if anything is a mystery here, exit, and go search for one of many GUIDES TO FLASHING ROMS.

The file you download is most likely a .RAR file. This is a compression method, sorta like ZIP is a compression format. You will need a .RAR extraction piece of software, just like you have an un-ZIP piece of software that extracts the files that are contained inside the compressed file. GOOGLE the name "7-zip" . That's free software that handles .RAR files and zip files too, so just get it.

7. FROM YOUR PC (not your phone device): RIGHT-CLICK on the .RAR file, and select in the pop-up menu: "7-zip" > then "Extract Here".

This will unpack the .RAR file into its own folder in that same place on your drive where the RAR file is. Just do it this way :)

8. Now, inside this folder are files that are needed to work together to automate the flashing of this new ROM to your phone. The one with the extension .nbh -- that's the actual ROM that the XDA cook made -- that, once installed onto your phone device, will magically blossom into a full operating system, software, utilities, look & feel, etc. ... But you don't just drag & drop that file onto your phone. There is a "wizard" that is run that will do a whole sequence of things, including, activating internal pieces of your phone, turning the screen at one point into a tri-color display of solid colors red, green and yellow (if i recall the colors exactly). That's just the wizard prepping your phone to go into a special mode which allows it to overwrite the device's drive with new software. So, it's a good thing, not a scary thing. It means your phone is doing exactly what it's meant to do in this installation process.

9. Remember, you MUST have your USB cable connected from your PC to your phone. As for ActiveSync Mode, sorry, once again, read up if necessary. For me though, at this point I don't bother with Active Sync if I've already PRIOR backed up my data... because my data's all going to be wiped out in this new process.

10. Back to that Folder you extracted from the .RAR file. Depending on the cook, what's inside could be sort of an "A" or "B" arrangement of files. "A", with a picture example below, has these kinds of file names at top level -- ie, with no subfolders inside, just these files --- for example:

or...

B) Inside your extracted folder could be a bunch of FOLDERS, kind of like this:

NOTE: In "B", directly above, I have highlighted the folder called "RUU". "RUU" stands for "Rom Update Utility" ... and the RUU "file" is what you will launch to begin the flashing process.

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(Part 2 follows in next post)