[HD2 General] saxjase:
Hi everyone

I have searched through numerous forum post and development websites to find these answers (has taken a couple of weeks, with no help from $&% Telstra), so I thought I would put them all in one post. I don't take credit for any of the work arounds, I just figure there is a lot of individual posts without the answers in one spot.

Tip 1:

Don't use the default GMAIL settings as this doesn't allow you to actually specify to connect to 'The Internet' and is default set to Telstra Internet (was for me anyway). There is a good step by step guide on the GMAIL website - create a new acounnt but the key is to not enter gmail.com as your email address as it automatically detects the settings and masks/blocks the advanced screen. By following this, I could then have GMAIL on my WiFi with no data plan enabled (long story)

Tip 2:

Do this to configure a new Telstra Data connection as the default one can't be modified:

(link to be approved so msg me and I will send in mean time)

However make sure the 'This network uses a proxy...' part isn't checked, opposite to the guide on the above link.

Doing this actually meant my GMAIL could now connect using the DATA plan but by default used the WiFi when it was connected.

Tip 3

The ActiveSync and Exchange part is by default configured to Telstra's dedicated email plan. On my phone there was actually a PDF on the storage card about this and also a step by step guide on how to configure your ActiveSync/Exchange to connect through the normal internet, not through Telstra's plan. However, as I have seen many similar examples on the internet, following this procedure was great except the settings would not save. Changing from 'Dedicated' to 'Internet' never actually accepted.

I was determined to figure this out, so installed a registry editor. With some snooping I found enough information to be dangerous and did some searching, and found this link:

(link to be approved so msg me and I will send in mean time)

If you go to the bottom about Network Registry Settings, the key one is:

HKLM\System\ActiveSync\SyncAPN

By changing this to 0, my 'Internet' setting would save for the ActiveSync/Exchange and sure enough, connection to my exchange server was succesful.

CeRegEditor is the program I found really simple to use.

Tip 4

Install these two free applications for Data Connection management

Good for Enabling/Disabling Data Connections - DataController.CAB

I don't fully understand the full power of this one, but it is good to see what is happening and has an auto disconnect: BandSwitch.V2.8.CAB that is mentioned in the registry tips/tweaks section, tip 50 or somewhere there abouts.

Tip 5

Cookies Home Tab - sensational!!

Tip 6

Unlock the quicklinks (plenty of posts on how to do this) and also remove the non-used Telstra Home-Tabs (well I don't use them as they always have a wap redirect to m.bigpond.com)

Tip 7

If you are facebook user, check out the 'touch' version. Go to m.facebook.com and down the bottom there is a link to facebook touch

So that is about it for now, following all the above, after a hard reset worked a treat without having to install a non-telstra ROM.

Hope this helps, like I said, I don't really know all the details of the work arounds, more just posting them all in one spot for future frustrated people with the Telstra version. I am loving the phone now (also have followed other registry tips from this site).

Happy using and massive thanks to all of you who actually did figure out the solutions!

Jason