One of the misunderstandings that many people have about platform upgrades for pdaPhones is that they are no more complex that upgrading a PDA. Often when a new operating system is announced by Microsoft or PalmSource,...

All,

Interesting comments in this continuing upgrade saga....

Your mileage (obviously) may vary, but for what it's worth, my experience in upgrading has been rather smooth and successful for me and my T-Mobile (HTC) PPCPE.

As was mentioned before, BE SURE you link to and download from only:
http://www.t-mobileapps.com/download...CEv4.01.16.exe
(if there is another similar link, just make sure you're getting ROM v4.01.16, ROM Date 02/04/04, with integrated Radio v6.25.02).

The one and only caveat I experienced in the upgrade process was initially when executing the installation file, I got an "error" dialog stating something to the effect that the process cannot continue (I don't remember the exact message). After a couple of retries with the same message showing up, it just dawned on me that I should simply see what happens if I ignore that message and hit OK (or was it Continue?) on the setup dialog underneath the (false) error message dialog. Whaddyaknow -- it worked! The installation continued on without fail from that point forward, and today I'm enjoying the benefits of the upgrade. If any of you might have been disillusioned by that same so-called error message dialog box popping up, just ignore it as I did and hopefully you'll be able to proceed....

So far, I've had none of the memory leakage and other issues some have mentioned....

Good luck!

Well, I did it and just as I feared my pocketpc is now frozen. I waited until T-mobile actually release their latest upgrade software and downloaded it from their Website. I followed the instructions to the letter and the upgrade appeared to go through smoothly. After the upgrade I took out the PPC from the cradle and performed a hard-reset. After that all I get is the Welcome to T-mobile screen with the G324e4, R6.25.02 and 4.01.16 in the lower left corner. And it just stays there and does not respond to any of the buttons.
I feel so stupid for doing it now.
Do anyone of you have any bright ideas?
Thanks

I'm sure you've tried this, but ... another hard-reset?

And if that doesn't work, you couldn't hurt it by trying to flash the ROM again.

If all else fails, other posts have said that T-Mo will replace the phones, even out of warranty.

I did the hard resets and soft resets many times with the same result. I know that someone had already explained how the ROM upgrade can be done using the SD Card. That would be the only way for me to try to recover the PPC because activesync is not responding at all anymore (basically the PPC is dead).
Can someone please confirm whether it is still possible to try to reinstall the ROM upgrade this way? And can you explain how I would go about doing it?
Thanks

Might want to check the forums/articles over at http://forum.xda-developers.com/front_page.php

They're the gods of all things SD.

I tried to do an upgrade on 3 devices. I have 2 new ones coming to me and I hate the one that does work. If you have a Darfon g7bo it will not work with the upgrade.

It also appears to be connected to the internet all of the time. I don't know how this will effect the battery.

The teir 2 guy was not having a good day when I talked to him with all of the problems they were having.

Hopefully that wasn't a surprise.

A. Suspend/resume - Your handheld will now maintain its IP address when the screen is off and during phone calls. When you activate the screen again or end a phone call you will no longer have to initiate a GPRS connection in order send and receive data.
B. Closing a GPRS connection - To close an active data connection hold down the red end key until the Data Connected icon in the Start bar reverts to the signal strenght indicator (approximately 5 seconds).
C. Today theme - The default Today theme has been updated to the default Windows Mobile 2003 theme
D. T-Mobile My E-mail - Your handheld now comes pre-loaded with a link on the Today page and a link in Internet Explorer’s Favorite’s folder to set up the T-Mobile My E-mail service. This service will allow you to get your work (Exchange, Lotus) and personal POP3 e-mail wirelessly through Pocket Inbox.
E. PowerPoint viewer - Westtek ClearVue Presentation Viewer is now bundled on your handheld.
F. PDF viewer - Westtek ClearVue PDF Viewer is now bundled on your handheld.
G. Updated VPN - Support for IPSec/L2TP now included.
H. Phone mute - Phone dialer now offers mute function.
I. Auto-suggest of e-mail addresses in To:, CC: and Bcc: fields
J. Auto-correct automatically fixes common spelling errors as you type
K. Pocket Inbox now supports SSL for IMAP and POP3 accounts
L. Windows Media Player 9 - Supports WMP v9 audio and video codecs. Improved play list management and support for Windows XP Plus! Photo Story.
M. Pocket Internet Explorer home page - The default home page has been updated to a new T-Mobile page.
N. Enhanced Pocket Internet Explorer support for other standards - Support for XHTML Basic, CSS and Jscript 5.5.
O. Improved connectivity user interface - Connection manager UI has been simplified. Connection status now available by tapping on signal strengh indicator.
P. Dual volume control - Phone and PDA volume can now be adjusted indepedently by tapping on the volume icon in the Start bar.
Q. Richer ringtone support - Supports MIDI and Windows Media Audio format ringtones.
R. Quick contacts search - Entering the beginning of a first or last name in Contact’s search box will progressively display those contacts whose name matches.
S. Signature support - Users can append signatures to outgoing messages. Users can assign signature by account.
T. Updated Inbox plugin for Today page - Tapping on an account name on the Inbox plugin will automatically take the user to that account.
U. Improved SMS integration - Inbox will look for the phone number on an incoming SMS in the Contacts database and display the sender’s name if there is a match. An option to call back the sender of an SMS has been added to the SMS notification screen and to Inbox. The SMS account in Inbox is now available when the radio is off-line.
V. IPv6 - Supports mixed IPv6/IPv4 environments.
W. Jawbreaker - New game.

I have only 1 problem with my 2003 update, It wont play MIDI, ive tried everything, i've uploaded diffrent midi, media player wont play it, the system allows me to set the midi as a ringtone BUT it wont play, a few will play but sounds like the speaker is about to blow and it sounds awful. anyone have this problem? let me know if theres a fix to this or the MIDI playback is bugged.

Followed the directions to the letter. Ended up going into an upgrade loop:

1. Failed
2. Said to hit OK to reset device.
3. Booted up
4. Started upgrade again
5. Failed at 1%

Called T-Mobile support and went through their front line support, then wireless--nothing. They're shipping me a new or refurbished unit in 5 business days free of charge. Return shipping of original phone is also free.

The support tech said that on the 3rd return, they upgrade your shipping to expedited (3 business days). He also read off a script saying that a replacement phone is dependent on:

1. Warranty period
2. Chipped LCD screen
3. Excessive plastic destruction

And others...

Basically, if you're in the warranty period and reasonably took care of your phone, you're OK. It does make me wary of trying the 2003 upgrade when the new phone arrives. When I asked, the tech said 2002 will most likely be on the phone (darn).

John

The new phone has problems out of the box. It'll work for about 20 minutes than die. Full battery and all. I was able to upgrade to 2003 without problems, but it didn't solve the issue.

This is getting pretty annoying. Didn't have any real issues with my phone before my first attempt at an upgrade. Now, I'm going to be getting a 3rd phone.

I've become an expert at aligning my screen.

Now my phone's working fine. Hasn't froze in the last 2+ hours. I had some issues playing an mp3, but after a little tweaking, it seemed to work. Let's see how this guy lasts.

Good luck with your upgrades!

I am still having problems after installing 2003. I have reinstalled 3 times and still can't get the SD card to function normally. The Pocket PC Phone itself works without a problem, but the SD card will no longer work. I can copy data to the SD and it will be there for anywhere from 1 hour to 1 day. Then it will just disappear. I called T-Mobile tech support and then things got really crazy. I was on the phone with their 2nd level support for about 30 minutes. He finally gave up and told me he would pass me to the 3rd level support and they would be able to help me. When I told the support guy I had installed 2003 he told me I had trashed my unit and it would need to be replaced. He said the 2003 upgrade does not work. He passed me back to the 2nd level support to get my information to replace my unit, then the new guy on 2nd level support said there was nothing wrong with the 2003 upgrade and I just needed to do a hard reset and all my problems would go away. Well I did a hard reset. Still problems... I did a hard reset then reinstalled... Still problems. I am very UNhappy about all this. It seems there is some major issues with T-Mobile and their support staff understanding what is going on with this upgrade.

I would just like to reinstall the 2002 and be able to use my SD card again. Does anyone know how to reinstall the old 2002? I would appreciate any advice or help on how to do this. Thanks...

Unfortunately, it sounds like you may have to get a new phone shipped out. While some people have had success with the 2003 OS from T-Mobile, others (like me) have not. I'm currently waiting for my 2nd replacement since upgrading my original phone to 03.

Support's been pretty responsive with shipping out a new phone. I'd love to just have it work the first time though. I plan to ask T-Mobile for a month of service free for this inconvience. I'm going on two weeks without a phone now.

Somehow I do not believe it is a coincidence that so many people are experiencing problems with their SD Cards right after installing WM2003. I too have a 128mb SanDisk SD Card which now have bad sectors over half of the memory space. I did not have these problems before upgrading to WM2003. As for T-mobile's Tech Support, most of them are not trained to handle problems with the XDA phone but I must say that they are quick to offer a replacement phone when they are cornered and cannot offer any more suggestions to try. WM2003 does offer some enhancements over WM2002 and I still believe that the upgrade is worthwhile. However, if it is causing SD Cards to be toast then T-mobile should issue a warning on their official Website or maybe they should be held accountable.

Since upgrading to WM03 I have noticed two significant glitches. First, the unit now powers on by itself constantly (3-10 times/hr) burning up the battery rather quickly. It seems to be geographically oriented, perhaps when switching towers, and only does this when the phone is in standby mode (if I turn on "flight mode," disabling the phone and internet, then it won't keep turning on).

Second, my 256kB SD card has self-erased multiple times since this upgrade, and I can't seem to find the root cause. I have tried the theories of the "picture application" ( http://www.pocketpcpassion.com/forum...threadid=34291
) and the "default today theme" ( http://pdaphonehome.com/forums/showthread/t-23832.html ) without success. The only way I can prevent this is by "locking" the SD card so that the PPC can't write to it and screw it up, however, then it can't be used for many of the useful functions that I would like to use it for.

Note: in total this is my third PPCPE as a result of T-mobile problems, and the second as a result of wm2003. I thought they waited to release WM2003 for the 9-month gestation period so they could work out the bugs. Apparently I was incorrect.

I give up on 2003. Does anyone know how I can reload 2002? I tried to run the "old" update I had saved from the update "to" 2002 and it will not work. Always says the device is not connected. I also saved the 2002 when I was installing 2003 I just do not kno how to reinstall it. Thanks for the help

You will need to uninstall activesync 3.7 and install activesync 3.5 back. Then the "upgrade" to WM2002 should work. Otherwise you will need to copy the rom to SD Card first and install it from there. I am not 100% certain how to do the latter. I believe that you open the RUU_CEv31440.exe using winzip and extract the NK.nbf file and copy it to your SD Card. I think that you then install the Card in your PPCPE and reset it while pressing the power button. It should install from there.
Somebody please correct me if I am being a blind person guiding another blind person.
Hope it works.

Hi All,
About two months ago I was really having problems with my T-Mobile PPCPhone Edition. I happened on to this post on one of the forums. I called and I belive I spoke with Cindy. She really was able to help. This number is the Executive Desk. Don't let them transfer you to the teir levels. Those teir levels are usually in Canada,the UK,etc.& they really don't know enough to help.If you push to talk to the chief they will do all they can. Hope this helps. It's not fair about whats going on with the 2003 upgrade & they need to hear about it.
BELOW IS THE POST I COPIED:

Finally I got so tired of it I called TMO Corporate headquarters at (425) 378-4000 and asked to speak to Robert Dotson. His ext if you get automated system is 4065. Of course they won't let you talk to him but you will get to talk to Executive Customer Care. This is what finally got my problem fixed. Hope it helps.

So far so good. Best part is that T-Mobile pre-installed Windows Mobile 2003 on it. The two previous replacements I got both had 2002, so I'm optimistic with this one. Still charging now, but hopefully, all will be well.

And I ended up getting 2 weeks of service free. Not the month I wanted, but something for my pain.

The T-Mobile download no longer works.

Does someone have a link they can send me so I can get the upgrade from PPC 2002 to PPC 2003?

Just to make sure, my current info is as follow:

T-Mobile Phone
Using ATT Network
Rom: 3.14.40 ENG

If you can send me the file, link me the file, or anything, please email me at <A HREF="mailto:steven1580@tamu.edu">steven1580@tamu.edu</A>