[MDA III, XDA III, PDA2k, 9090 Software Upgrading] Chef_Tony:
it would definetely not lock to the orange uk network, how would the device get the information what network to lock to, all the internal information is overwritten, in that thread the device did not get locked to any network either, he just posted, that his radio wouldn't work properly after upgrade, but when he downgraded, everything was back to normal again, plus, what are the odds? think about this forum. there are millions of users, permanently there are 4000 users online. the threads about the roms are filled with 100+ pages of people thanking the cooks for cooking the roms and everything went fine, and now there was 1 problem that is not YET resolved. what are the odds of that striking you too? by that means you shouldn't go out of the door because something could happen. in contrast to that situation, this one with the rom is reversible and still to be solved. no problem stays unanswered here.

and, if however it wouldn't work for you, (although i still don't see, why), you could still go back to wm2003 and what did you lose then? you are back to where you started and although you lost some time, you also learned a lot about windows mobile and met a nice guy who explained everything to you ;)

i just realized something else about the thread stated above. that guy has 5 posts altogether, all in that thread, meaning, he didn't bother to ask people before upgrading. he was not as careful and thoughtful as you were, who knows in what ways he tried to upgrade. we don't know the rom he picked, and where that came from, possibly not this forum. maybe the problem he experiences are related to his carrier in sarajevo. or maybe it is a hardware issue, why would your device be broken, just because his is?

another thing is the (financial) risk you actually take with this operation. your device running wm2003 can practically do nothing a normal phone should be able to do. all the great freeware, popping up everywhere, does not work on wm2003. the os itself is pretty ugly and not user-friendly. it is all in all outdated and practically worthless in today's windows mobile and cell phone world.

this would mean, by upgrading you gain a lot of cool stuff, better ui, better support, coolness, and a piece of 2009 mobile lifestyle.

in the (very unlikely) case, your device would suffer any tragic accident, while flashing, or completely unrelated, you let it fall to the ground and the hardware breaks (much more likely), what is the price of another one? 2 years ago, when i first got mine (without knowing about this great forum and the potential of the device) i paid 250eur for it. today on ebay, they go out between 30 and 60eur.

don't get me wrong, i don't want to get you to do something you feel unsafe about, i just want to make sure, you don't over-estimate the risk, but you are completely right, not to under-estimate them either!

it is your choice, maybe if you want to pick up flashing your device as a hobby and keeping up with new developments in that sector, you could look up the device on ebay first, so you are prepared, if one day, you might need a spare part or another device.

to share another personal experience. when i first flashed my device, with an OFFICIAL upgrade by t-mobile germany, i thought i broke my device, because i saw no warning, not to use windows vista, because that would disconnect the device in the middle of upgrading. then i ended up being stuck in bootloader, with an empty device and no second pc running windows xp to flash the phone from. i was pretty terrified, but then i found this community and i tried again from a friend's pc and it worked, pretty crappy though, because i did about nothing right, no maupgrade, no extrom resize, no extrom afterwards, didn't even manage to do a proper hard reset, i used the device for 2 months in a crappy state like that, and then someone bothered to explain to me, how it is really done. and when i understood it, i suddenly knew how to do it the right way, and from then on i started flashing my device regularly to keep up with the newest developments, and to this day i experienced NO PROBLEMS that weren't caused by my own stupidity back in the day. but i flashed at least 50 different roms and everything always worked out fine. because being careful and think about all the steps gets you through safely.

again, i really appreciate your concerns and your interest to understand the process before you start. that is way better than to try it on your own and then start posting, when you messed everything up.

there were people, messing up their devices, but none of those was as informed as you are now.

i hope for you, that maybe after reading a little more about this really interesting topic, you can convince yourself to do it, i wouldn't even write try it, because i know, you can do it. you will definetely like it.

cheers

Chef_Tony