First, the bona fides...

Based on Unified ROM Project 1.2 Pre-release

Removed:
Cyberon Voice Dial (if you're going to use voice dial at all, get Microsoft's Voice Command 1.6)
Clear Storage (hold down both soft buttons while pressing in on the reset switch to hard reset if you need to)
MSN (all of it)
IntelliPad (the goofy T9 SIP)
IA_Zip (Unnecessary with Total Commander)
SMS Retry (might be useful if it was automatic, but it's not...)
Wireless Modem (doesn't work on 3.5, use Internet Sharing instead)

Added:
1-Calc Lite (better calculator)
MMS with Sprint settings (self-explanatory)
Midlet Manager (Java Virtual Machine)
Total Commander 2.5 (freeware filemanager, FTP client and registry editor; also makes great fries!)
Windows Live Search (better than Google Maps)

.NET 2.0 Compact Frameworks are preinstalled.

Okay, here's how you use this. Follow this step by step, and nobody gets hurt.

1. Hard reset your phone. As mentioned above, you don't need Clear Storage to do this. Hold down both soft buttons with one hand and poke the reset hole with the other, ideally while holding a stylus in the second hand, unless you have really pointy fingers.

2. Put your phone in Bootloader mode. This is a special condition that prepares the phone to rewrite the ROM. While holding down both the power and record buttons, poke the reset switch, again with a stylus. The backlight should go off and the screen will say "Serial". When you put it in the crade, the screen will change to say "USB" and the backlight will stay off. This is normal. Wait for Windows to recognize the new USB device before moving on.

3. Run Kirvin AKU 3.5 NoJunk.exe. Keep clicking Next until it's done. Do NOT remove your phone from the cradle until it tells you to! Seriously. Don't make me come over there.

4. When told to remove your phone from the cradle, pull it out and hard reset it again. Congratulations! You're running AKU 3.5, probably the closest to Windows Mobile 6 we Apache owners will ever get!

Finally, the download link:

ftp://ppcgeeks:ezupload@up.ppcgeeks....3.5_NoJunk.zip

Thanks Jeff! One question though, why remove the SMS retry? If I try to send an SMS and I have no signal, what will happen? Will it still notify me? Also, to retry, would I have retype the whole message?

__________________
Palm IIIe > Palm IIIxe > Zire71 + Samsung a660 > PPC-6700 > Sprint PPC-6800 Mogul
Help make your wireless company fair

Near as I can tell, SMS Retry wouldn't help you anyway. It doesn't send stuff back out automatically. So you'd be looking at either remembering to go into a completely different program than Messaging and finding the message you want to resend and remembering to send it when you do have coverage, or just retyping something that by definition is at most 160 characters, far shorter than this sentence.

I guess what I thought was sms retry is not. When I send a text, if I do not have service, i get a message that tells me the message could not be sent, and it asks me if I want to retry when I get service again.

__________________
Palm IIIe > Palm IIIxe > Zire71 + Samsung a660 > PPC-6700 > Sprint PPC-6800 Mogul
Help make your wireless company fair

Huh. We'll, I'm uploading a completely stock 3.5 now, which has it.

Well, I tried installing your Clean and Simple AKU 3.5, and followed the instructions precisely.

When it begins to install, I get the following error:

ERROR 120: COUNTRY ID ERROR AMNWI568-AMNWI568-33-N-N

The ROM image that you are trying to use is not designed to work on your device. Please check the vender (sic) Web site and download the correct ROM update.

Click Exit to quit.

That's it. Ideas? I'm using an Alltel 6700, if that makes a difference.

Cheers,

Joe G.
Bishop, CA

__________________
Don't Die Wondering.

Loaded up great! Thanks!

One thing I can't seem to modify is my basehue (top and bottom bars on the today screen). I have made the change in the registry, but the color is still the blue of the base rom.

Any ideas on how i can change it?

__________________
If Guns cause crime, then Pencils cause misspelled words.
NE CCW
Nebraska Concealed Carry

I have two questions:

Since MSN was removed, would we be able to use Hotmail as our e-mail of choice? I have to be logged in to the MSN network in order to update hotmail downloads.

Also - does this rom exist in "kitchen" format so we can go in and add programs to customize our own roms from this base?

Very nice. Two Q's...

1. Carrier specific? I'm on Alltel.
2. How's the size KBwise? Smaller yet than Helmi's 3.3? I can use every byte I can get...

Either redownload it and try again (I fixed this late yesterday) or extract the installer with WinRAR and run MaUpgradeUt_noID.exe

No idea. I'm using Spb Mobile Shell, which doesn't have a problem changing the basehue, so I know it can be done.

I made a "stock" ROM for any Apache that does have MSN in it. Use that instead.

The kitchen is Shawn's pre-release 1.2, available on PPCGeeks.com.

1. It will work on any Apache in theory. If it doesn't work, you can always reflash the official ROM update from your carrier.

2. Not sure I understand. You'll have 36MB free on first boot.

"The kitchen is Shawn's pre-release 1.2, available on PPCGeeks.com."

Thanks for answering my questions - I saw the second "stock" rom after I posted my question. Would Shawn's pre-release 1.2 contain all the modifications you mention on this thread? Am I correct in assuming that kitchen is part of the unified custom rom project with the known fixes that the "bakers" have put together?

I'm really excited about that project, and would like to take advantage of all the fixes and improvements people have put in. But I'd also like to try to bake my own rom, starting with the most stable version of 3.5. This sounds like it might be the right base to start from.

I'm using it too and just decided to use the theme and put the picture of my son back up there and it works out.

1 weird thing I ran into was i can't access some links that I was able to be before with my stock Sprint Rom. It is for a secured web app fr my company. The error I get is "The URL is not properly formatted".

Unfortunately if this can't be resolved, I'll have to go back to the old school because I use the app daily.

Any ideas?

ETA: Ok, I just check to see what the actual link was pointing to and it was javascript. I have never had any problems accessing before, so I'm wondering if we aren't missing something in the "Kitchen"....

__________________
If Guns cause crime, then Pencils cause misspelled words.
NE CCW
Nebraska Concealed Carry

Yes, it's the collected fixes and tweaks of the whole project, and it's an excellent place to start from if you're interested in building your own.

Wow, that's awesome Jeff! Good work. Are you involved directly with that project?

This sounds like exactly what I want - a stripped down version with very little upgrades.

This sounds like a good base to start with. If I understand this correctly, any customization I care to do can be done with extended ROM's, right?

I really enjoyed the different flavors of ROM's out there, but what I really want is a bare bones that I can customize.

Good call on the Calculator, I really like the one you included.

Not directly, just a happy onlooker with time on his hands and just enough knowledge to be dangerous...

Yeah, you can still customize your own Ext_ROM partition.