[HD2 Windows Mobile 6.5 ROM Development] ployters:
1.61 Firmware HD2

Guys,

Thanks for all the help on this site. I am a newbie to SmartPhones so this whole website is a massive boon. Here are my thoughts and results of upgrading my HD2.

I bought (free with business tarrif) a HD2 for my wife on 12th Dec. I found out that they were discontinuing it in early Jan after moving to a private tarrif! I now cannot get support becuase it is not supported on private tarrif and if I phone business team to get support, they tell me I am on a private tarrif so they can't help! What a load of bollox. Hence the use of this site.

We had all the problems described on this site with 1.43. Very poor signal quality, dropping all the time hence poor battery life. SMS messages wouldn't go, or be recieved sometimes. Just pants. After trawling this site, and of course Vodafone site for a firmware upgrade (none likely to be provided until doomsday), I picked up a 1.48.405 WWE version from the HTC website. I did this by using my phone serial number and changing a few numbers and letters until it allowed me to download the upgrade. Easy enough. I also downloaded the other upgrades. This were able to be loaded without ID checks.

I figured I should use the HardSPL since I wanted to stay reasonably up to date with firmware and couldnt be bothered with GoldCard. I downloaded this easily and connected using ActiveSync. It worked as described on the box. Well done guys and THANK YOU.

I was then able to burn the 1.48 firmware onto the phone. It worked straightforwardly. It didn't improve the radio signal though, as descirbed by others on this site. It solved a few things but I was primarily after a better signal. I then downloaded the 1.61 version with 2.06 radio. I noted a few people had problems with burning the ROM. I ran it on my HD2 and it ran quickly (about 2 mins) and rebooted.

It asked the Turkish/English question and rebooted. Everything worked fine - but NO SIGNAL! I also had the problem with region in Turkey/ clock being 2 hours ahead - as a few other people have mentioned. It didnt allow me to change the location. Some geezer on here created a new location and assigned that to his location (Manchester I think). All I did then was a hard reset - remembering what someone had said that you should hard reset after each ROM upgrade. This immediately solved ALL problems. The signal appeared - immediately much better (even saw a H!). This meant everything connected properly. It found my location, and weather, it found the correct time and runs faster. The web pages appear quickly and I am thrilled. So is the wife. All works well. The home page is black and white though - probably have to change a parameter or two, I'll check.

The bloody bluetooth problem connecting or pairing with a TomTom Live was irritating. I know about needing to be discoverable but the bloody thing didnt obviously show how to make it so. Page 207 of the manual tells you but it is bleedin silly that there is a different route to change the parameter. Anyway, if someone has a bluetooth problem connecting to a handset then page 207 has the answer. I have typed those words so that Google will find this and tell people what to do to solve it.

ALL IN ALL guys, I have two comments.

1. Fekkin well done on this site and for all you guys worknig away on your phones. If it wasnt for you, the likes of Vodafone support would collapse under the weight of requests.

2. If you are a newbie like me, don't waste everyone's time by asking the same question over and over again, with the same problems. Use Google, find the thread and therefore probably the answer to your problem. A lot of these threads are padded with drivel. I havent asked one question, havent had a single problem, and am up to speed with a very fast working HD2 on the latest ROM. How? By using this site as it is supposed to be.

Thank you.

Kevin.