Hey everyone,

On my adventures of trying to remove the numerous .RGU and .DSM files from the \windows\ directory, I stumbled across a program that'll unlock the 6700's extended ROM giving you write privileges! The unlocking program called “[Apache] Extended ROM unlocker” is found on a site called www.buzzdev.net (not sure if I can re-distribute the file freely, so for now please register and grab it from their development site: http://www.buzzdev.net/blahblahblah)

The benefits for now are few, but might be useful if not fun for many:

1) modify the checklist of installed bloatware programs directly following a hard reset. (the tutorial I used is here: http://www.vishalsworld.com/?q=node/65).
2) the ability to remove the CAB files that install the unneeded bloatware. You free up about 5.5 MB from the internal ROM (which might actually be considerable for some)!
3) Modify the Sprint startup logo to your liking (I haven’t yet figured out how to get it to load your own logo without a hard reset)
This is what mine will be after a hard reset:



There might be more possibilities, but these are the ones that became apparent to me after playing around for a short while.

PS: If anyone knows how to get rid of those .RGU and .DSM files in the windows directory, please let me know. What I believe (as of now) is that the .RGU files are any registry tweaks made in the past. I have no idea what the .DSM files are. I’ve read something that involves building a custom ROM image to get rid of these files (read from the XDA-developers website: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=279322)

PPS: How long does it take your 6700 to load? mine takes at least three looong minutes...

edit: It looks like there are a many other people on this forum who have discovered the unlocking of the external rom already. If this is not news to you, please try to answer my PS and PPS questions. I'll also be searching for an answer. Thanks.

You can change the WM splash screen (not sure of the sprint logo screen yet). I took this from http://www.htcwiki.com/page/Change+Splash+Screen :

Change Splash Screen
A tip from Preston:
When WM5 starts up, there is a first screen that lasts about 18 seconds, which is replaced by a second screen that lasts up to minute It is easy to replace the second screen. Here is how. First, take a picture you would like there, and turn it into a 320 X 240, 24bit .png file. This can be done with MS Paint. Open the picture in Paint, resize it and Save As a .png with the 24bit color quality. Use the filename welcomehead.96.png and just drop it in the /Windows directory using Activesync Explorer.

anyone know if it is possible to show what is going in the background (similar to a linux boot up) during the start up instead of the screen?

does not work for me says i cannnot overwrite the default one.

RoninR6:
I was able to successfully overwrite the welcomehead.96.png file and customize my boot screen. Maybe you need to unlock the extended ROM first with the unlocking utility?

Just wanted to update what I've found.

Regarding boot times: I was able to get my phone to reboot noticeably faster and load the /windows/ directory faster by moving a lot of the unneeded .htm and .bmp files in the /windows/ directory (ones not in the rom) to a windows/junk folder.

Regarding the immutable internal ROM files: I'm going to try "cooking" my own ROM with the tools found on buzzdev.net. I’ll first dump my internal rom files to my desktop and then try to recompile a customized working rom with this tool: http://buzzdev.net/index.php?option=...id=65&Itemid=1

I don't think anyone's really going to take notice of this until it is working and done, so I'll try to come out with some results soon.

I thought i did that when i removed a lot of the sprint customizations? I will try it again and see what happens.

Well I ran the linked unlocker and it gave me the success message, then i soft reseted and got the same error message.

oh well I can deal with the windows image, not like i reset very often anyway

When I use the unlocker, it says SUCCESS but after resetting I don't see the extended ROM in Resco. In fact, a previous registry hack had given me read-only access to the Extended ROM, but now I don't even see it.

You need to type /extended_rom/ manually in the navigational bar of Resco (or in my case TotalComander) in order to access the files in the extended rom.

You can over write the file by using resco or maybe total commander.

Weird, still doesn't work. I tried the path in file explorer as well, and no luck. I also tried running the program again and resetting, still no luck. What the heck is going on?

I just tried to access the extended_rom with built-in file explorer and it doesn't work. Microsoft seems to have blocked access to the folder on purpose or something. I didn't find an option in Resco File Explorer to manually navigate to the extended_rom, so that might not even work. You need to install Total Commander (it's free and can do a lot of things) and it should work.

Just FYI Resco works fine. You will find the ext rom in the collapsable tree next to the storage card, if you have one.

Hm, I think that for some reason the hack doesn't let it show up. I think I'm going to try reversing the original read-only hack, and see if that helps.

Yep, that did it. So I guess for me, the hack enabled write but not read access to the store, so I still needed to hack the registry to make the store visible.

nic nic enice

Which .htm and .bmp files did you move, i'm just curious cause that sounds like a good idea. Thanks

-s

__________________
"The difference between a smart person and a wise person is that a smart person knows what to say and a wise person knows whether or not to say it." - unknown

Since I'm not sure how to get a list of files I moved off of my device, I'll write down some steps I took to find these extra files.

In total commander, I first off hid all the ROM files so that I wouldn't get any file move errors. Then I just sorted by extension ("Ext" in total commander) and went to the htm/html section. Many of these files are associated with help files, so don't move them if you depend on some programs' help pages. I then proceeded to the image files and moved files that I thought I didn't need. This was pretty time consuming and I'm sure there's a better way of cleaning the windows directory up.

PS: I just noticed a lot of files I moved were related to NetFront. there are 100+ files dumped into /Windows/ related to that single program! Now I'm going to uninstall it just to see what else it could speed up. Eten dialer skins are also windows directory hogs... hmmm

You can also place and choose which cab files open and their order by editing the config file in the extendid rom.

You can also make and place a cab with all your reg edits.

I don't have the exact post but you can find the info at these sites:


http://ppc-central.com/index.php?topic=70.0


http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=259



http://www.ppc6700users.com/forums/v...d7c12072ebfd0a


good luck!