Develop Bugs

WM5 Versus WM6 day to day annoyances

I wanted to start a thread so that we can discuss what improvements we the USER has noticed with WM6 versus WM5. I am not talking about the "standard" M$ improvements but what we the end user has noticed by day to day usage. You can see in my signature what ROM etc. I am using.
Here is what I have noticed after upgrading to WM6:
1. Windows Media Player does not freeze after playing/stopping a track.
2. System always connects via Wifi when available (Messaging,PIE). In WM5 this was always an annoyance. If I would start Messaging and then turn on WiFi my device would always connect via GPRS and not Wifi. This annoyance has completely disappeared.
3. Skype. If I had opened many programs in WM5 and even though I would go and manually close all programs Skype would not start unless I did a soft reset. I never need to soft reset my device to use Skype with WM6.
4. Speed! I noticed a major speed increase with my device versus the standard HTC WM5 ROM. Due to great "cooking"
5. Stability! I can not remember when my device locked up?? Due to great "cooking"

My only annoyance with WM6 compared to WM5 is the way the on screen keyboard doesn't appear when i tap on an input field such as a new sms message/email, word document, web page form, etc. The keyboard should pop-up automatically except if the hardware keyboard is already pulled out, fairly obvious really?!
This was a fairly random affair with WM5, some times it did, sometimes it didn't, it never does now.

Omg 3g
i love the 3g tethering on wm6 (and aku 3.3) compared to wm5 with aku 2.3. It always works, with the old one i followed the setup instructions to the t but it only worked half the time and there were too many things you have to disable beforehand, I am typically surrounded by a lot of tech clueless bstrds students in my school, and being able to tether up and get internet anywhere easily is like i just performed a magical feat right infront of their eyes!!

So we can bring on WM6 - but why?

Hi all
I just got myself sent a Hermes the other day and I was looking around here, my favourite XDA resource, for nifty things I could do with it. One thing that seems to be all the rage is upgrading to WM6. Now, I'm all in favour of upgrading and the amount of information and material here is, well, staggering. Overwhelming even. But, for all I read, I miss one critical thing: why do we upgrade to WM6? What does it give us that WM5 doesn't?
All I see, at the moment, is a swankier interface and a faster operation. But neither of those are big sellers in themselves and don't justify the bricking and incompatibility risks. So, what's the big appeal that I've missed? I guess I'm looking for an excuse to do this
Lastly, as I mentioned, there's almost too much information about all this. i can follow the guides and tools for installation but one thing will vex me if I was to upgrade - and that's which ROM to use. Now I'm certain every one of you has a favourite and so I'm not looking for a definitive recommendation, but what the hot ones that I should look into at the moment? As I see it, the "XDA Live" and "Black" see pretty popular..
Cheers!

Three reasons for me.
1. TomTom doesn't occassionally freeze
2. Easier to set as a modem
3. More responsive menus, button presses, etc
By the way WM6 is more like WM5 second edition rather than a brand new system.

wywywywy said:
Three reasons for me.
1. TomTom doesn't occassionally freeze
2. Easier to set as a modem
3. More responsive menus, button presses, etc
By the way WM6 is more like WM5 second edition rather than a brand new system.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Pretty much says it all. I never soft reset anymore. More memory, faster than WM5, better tweaks, and has some things WM5 didn't cooked in to the ROM. As for the risk of bricking, that's an extremely low risk, very minimal actually, if you follow the guide and wiki.

and html email is not to be sneezed at.

Because we can!

Mobile Office 2k7 can read o2k7 native formats. You will never see this on WM5 unless some imgfs God with a lot of time on his/her hands ports it there....
Native SD card encryption is Huge. The A2DP stack is a thing of wonder too....

JasenR said:
Because we can!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
exactly!!!!!!!!

My softbank x01ht came with WM5 and the only upgrade I did was the radio upgrade to 1.40.
May be it is my luck, but my x01ht seems really stable in its original ROM version (WM5 aku 2), I have never hard reset and the machine seems really stable. So my need to upgrade to WM6 to avoid system hang is not really existing.
Also, I use a lot of BUILT-IN functions such as Push Email, Wifi and Chinese support (my x01ht was flashed with a Hong Kong version 838 pro ROM before sold to me). If ANY one of such functions is WORSE in WM6 than in WM5, than WM6 is a no no for me. I can't stand any frequent freeze of the x01ht because I now depend solely on it for my daily phone/PIM use. If I don't have it working 100% normal, then I will lose many important phone calls.

I see WM6 really as an evolution of WM5. In WM6, MS has fixed many bugs that were in WM5, for example:
- Crappy A2DP
- WiFi now supports WPA
- HTML email
- Faster and more stable
- I'm sure MS has updated little things here and there to make WM6 more telco-standards (GSM, etc.) compliant

Well, are you still using Windows 95 on your PC?
My reasons for upgrading have been for (in order of importance) the speed, bug fixes, better memory management, the X button actually closing the app not just minimising it, Office updates, better compatibility and usability in the new Internet Explorer, etc.
When I bought my TyTN I was shocked by how slowly it responded to user input compared to previous Pocket PCs I'd owned.
After the developments that started occurring here a few months ago, there really was no turning back. I upgraded and now the OS is quick and very responsive. WM6 has been a godsend. The phone application also doesn't take 3-4 seconds to load when I press the call button to answer a call like it used to!
WM6 also has a much more polished look to it I think.

hold on, TomTom still freezes on mine with WM6 !
I still love it though (tomtom that is and wm6)
Let me know if this is solved will ya ?
ta
bb

I did it simply because WM5 was a little unstable and I love experimenting / playing with stuff like this.
A side benefit which I didn't know I would get is the LVSW version that I installed allows WPA2 & WPA2-PSK authentication on the Wi-Fi. That meant I could run my Hermes at the same security as my network and didn't have to modify my wireless router and other PCs.
There's probably still a few other good reasons that haven't been mentioned in this thread yet.
Cheers, Oggy.

Bug fixing, more speed,...
With WM5 I had issues like the phone applicatoin reacted too slowy on an incomming call. so i missed the call. Or sometimes it even didn't ring.
WM6 works in that point.

bingobob said:
hold on, TomTom still freezes on mine with WM6 !
I still love it though (tomtom that is and wm6)
Let me know if this is solved will ya ?
ta
bb
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you install TomTom 6.03??? As of that version I never had freezes anymore...

I to have tomtom lockup and sloooooowwwww to get map directions. Please I miss my fast tomtom 6. I am using 6.03. I wonder if i did something wrong. I never had this problem with wm5.

What about support?
One benefit of wm6 is that the hackers, tweakers, rom cookers, and random slackers such as myself keep this hermes wm6 forum active (albeit sometimes unforgiving to newcomers). If you have a question about wm6 on a hermes, it is probably already answered here. Can as much be said for the wm5 forums?

Just works
Personally I was about to ditch my TyTN. The default OS was infuriatingly slow, buggy, and had me resetting several times per day. If I hadn't stumbled upon XDA-develoopers and started flashing WM6, I would probably be a Nokia user again... WM6 just works. I've flashed maybe 10 different versions now, also the radio, and it's completely worth it. No big risk of bricking if you do your homework first.

F*SH said:
... faster operation. But neither of those are big sellers in themselves and don't justify the bricking and incompatibility risks. So, what's the big appeal that I've missed?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't think anyone with half a brain has bricked their phone doing an OS only upgrade (especially if they read the wiki etc etc)... and you answered your own question... who doesnt want a faster device?

LazPL said:
Personally I was about to ditch my TyTN. The default OS was infuriatingly slow, buggy, and had me resetting several times per day. If I hadn't stumbled upon XDA-develoopers and started flashing WM6, I would probably be a Nokia user again... WM6 just works. I've flashed maybe 10 different versions now, also the radio, and it's completely worth it. No big risk of bricking if you do your homework first.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I feel the same way as LazPL in that I was about to stop using the phone.
What I hated most about WM5 was a lack of real integration between the phone and contacts funtions, eg.:
. If you chose a call from the recent call list you could not access the contact directly (eg. if you just tried calling someone on their fixed line and wanted to try their mobile, you could not just click on the recent call you just made and select a different type of number, you had to select the name again from the list). In WM6 you can do this
. If you saved an unknown number from your recent call list it would automatically create a new contact, instead of giving you the option to save it in an existing contact (and choosing what type of number it was) or creating a new contact. In WM6 you can.
For me these 2 were just basic everyday usability features that I can find in the cheapest phones, and totally unacceptable to be missing in a €600 device. On the basis of these 2 alone, upgrading to WM6 was worth it.
In addition, my original Orange ROM had some bugs that were just pathetic (although these could have been cured with a newer ROM, or perhaps were due to the original radio ROM - which I also upgraded - and not the OS):
. Calls to busy numbers started blaring the busy tone through the loudspeaker (very loud)
. Trying to answer a call waiting would freeze the phone and require a soft reset
Hope that helps.

Pastings WIFI keys!!!
I've not been able to paste a wifi key in my WM05 ROM somone told me it was security...
rubish i think M$ to implement the copy/paste code.
Modem -> Bluetooth PAN is HUGELY more stable, my connection used to drop all the time in modem mode, i can now sit for 2 hours on my laptop at coffee shops and surf the web, whithout paying silly 1 day WIFI pass prices!

Tomtom s..l..o..w..! (Official Dopod ROM)

Has anyone else had any issues with Tomtom Navigator 6 since upgrading to WM6 (offical SEA ROM)?
Under my old buggy WM5 ROM, it was perfect. As part of the WM6 upgrade I reinstalled it, and not it is unusably slow. It takes about 5 seconds between screen refreshes etc... you miss your turns by the time they are announced.
Does anyone know the cause or fixes? I've done a forum search and the problem has been reported on a couple of threads, but no real solution.
Some initial questions:
Under WM6, are people using the GPS manager in system settings? Or just pointing TT6 at the COM port directly? (What should the baud rate be set to?)
Is tngpseng.exe still required (never been entirely sure what this does exactly)
Does running it from the storage card (SanDisk 4GB) cause any performance hit? (I'm hoping not as my device memory is full)
The other chance I made is upgrading to the latest Australian maps. (Sinsis v675?) Are these known to be worse performance wise?
Does anyone else have Hermes, WM6 (official), TTN6, latest Australia maps working? can you post your settings?
Any help greatly appreciated!

Zilch said:
Has anyone else had any issues with Tomtom Navigator 6 since upgrading to WM6 (offical SEA ROM)?
Under my old buggy WM5 ROM, it was perfect. As part of the WM6 upgrade I reinstalled it, and not it is unusably slow. It takes about 5 seconds between screen refreshes etc... you miss your turns by the time they are announced.
Does anyone know the cause or fixes? I've done a forum search and the problem has been reported on a couple of threads, but no real solution.
Some initial questions:
Under WM6, are people using the GPS manager in system settings? Or just pointing TT6 at the COM port directly? (What should the baud rate be set to?)
Is tngpseng.exe still required (never been entirely sure what this does exactly)
Does running it from the storage card (SanDisk 4GB) cause any performance hit? (I'm hoping not as my device memory is full)
The other chance I made is upgrading to the latest Australian maps. (Sinsis v675?) Are these known to be worse performance wise?
Does anyone else have Hermes, WM6 (official), TTN6, latest Australia maps working? can you post your settings?
Any help greatly appreciated!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
MrVanx's BT Receiver Setup
Works fine with me.
TT v6.201 (Build 7160)
OZ Map v675.1431

Zilch said:
Has anyone else had any issues with Tomtom Navigator 6 since upgrading to WM6 (offical SEA ROM)?
Under my old buggy WM5 ROM, it was perfect. As part of the WM6 upgrade I reinstalled it, and not it is unusably slow. It takes about 5 seconds between screen refreshes etc... you miss your turns by the time they are announced.
Does anyone know the cause or fixes? I've done a forum search and the problem has been reported on a couple of threads, but no real solution.
Some initial questions:
Under WM6, ....
Any help greatly appreciated!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not related to WM6 but have you checked the number of Points of Interest that TT6 is trying to display. I use TT6 and have noticed no problems with WM6 so far - but regardless of ROM I found that unless I turned off the POIs that TT6 slowed right down and kept freezing.
Regards

tony.wheeler said:
Not related to WM6 but have you checked the number of Points of Interest that TT6 is trying to display. I use TT6 and have noticed no problems with WM6 so far - but regardless of ROM I found that unless I turned off the POIs that TT6 slowed right down and kept freezing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks Tony. I've turned them all off except the speed/red-light cameras and it does seem to have helped. (I won't know 100% until I take it out in the car, but it seems much faster at home on my balcony!)
The strange thing is I many POIs enabled on the previous install under WM6/older maps. Maybe the newer map is larger or something.
Does anyone know if custom POIs are more performance intensive than the build in ones?

I've had some kind of issue with TomTom since upgrading from Black Dymond (first to Magik and now to Satin). On the first upgrade I had to reregister my unit with my account to get access to my plus content (device ID change).
Now, I intermittently get a warning that it cannot find some file. I can't replicate it reliably and haven't had a chance to note the missing file. I suspect it has something with how TomTom is accessing info on the card.
My problem only presents itself when shutting down, so it's not a real issue for me. If it was, like yours is, I would first try increasing your caches. If that doesn't work, try going into the TomTom manager console when synced with the computer and remove everything (program, maps, voices, etc.) from your device/card and then reinstall it (make sure you have your disk or a backup, plus your registration code). If it has anything to do with lost file links, this should solve it theoretically.
I suspect your issues are due to either caching or lost links in TomTom itself, or both.

Tomtom has some problems with some wm6 roms not all.
My experience:
It worked fine with black dymond. No slowdown. No Problem.
It was painfully slow with black majik
It was OK with VP3g's v2.0 but after I added HTC home plug it slowed down considerably
Currently I am running latest Black Satin and TomTom runs just fine, stable, superfast, no freezes. This time I am going to stay away from HTC home plug.

You do not have shut down all of the 'nice to haves' (POI's) in such unnecessary and draconian fashion, quote "have you checked the number of Points of Interest that TT6 is trying to display".
Like Quist, I beleive the build of the ROM is much more at issue.
From my observations - Dopod / Black Satin / Sleuth's and Black Dymond are not at a problem.
I have noted significant refresh delays when using Schaps and Black Majik.
Good luck.

I've never seen TomTom run as fast as it does on my phone with vp3G's 3.0 WM6 rom.
I'm running TomTom version 6.100 (8330)

Im using Schaps 3.57a with TT6. So fast. Cold boot around 10s to 20s. Thanks

Upgrade to WM6 successful but PDA has slowed down.....

I was over the moon when I heard I could load WM6 on my TyTN....
my phone is now slower than it was before.......why would this be?
battled to get active sync working again. MS Active Sync 4.5 installed Outlook 2002 but it has not serial number....where do I get this from?
I was hoping they would release GPS software for this phone but it dont like it.... Anyone know if there is GPS software available? I know about the navigate software but that's the same as having a map book or street guide.
What has your experience been after upgrading your TyTN OS to WM6?
What are the new features in WM6? To me it still looks the same in terms of functionality.....

Bless u...
but u know almost every Tytn got slower when upgraded to WM6(it's not real WM Version6 but a Second Edition of WM5). According to a developer of Microsoft in Asia Research Center, WM5SE has a memory limit which only allows 32 process in a row therefore we can see WM5SE(the so called WM6) cannot handle memory well.
That's the reason why Tytn got slower...

can i downgrade to WM5 again?

sure
downgrades are don like upgrades...

Is there any GPS software available for the HTC?
where would I get WM5 from? HTC site or google?

bradlesliect said:
Is there any GPS software available for the HTC?
where would I get WM5 from? HTC site or google?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
HTC site is a better choice...

bradlesliect said:
I was over the moon when I heard I could load WM6 on my TyTN....
my phone is now slower than it was before.......why would this be?
battled to get active sync working again. MS Active Sync 4.5 installed Outlook 2002 but it has not serial number....where do I get this from?
I was hoping they would release GPS software for this phone but it dont like it.... Anyone know if there is GPS software available? I know about the navigate software but that's the same as having a map book or street guide.
What has your experience been after upgrading your TyTN OS to WM6?
What are the new features in WM6? To me it still looks the same in terms of functionality.....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not sure why your upgrade seems slower, but my upgrade from the official WM6 upgrade from the HTC site went smooth as butter and everything seems faster for me. I've also noticed that it boots up a bit faster and I don't get errors from Xpress mail upon boot ups. The only thing I did notice was that it used up a bit more memory than WM5. My bluetooth head piece connects faster/better, I don't have to soft reset nearly as often as I did with Wm5 either. The messaging program has a few new features that I like too. I actually like my Tytn now. Unfortunately, Youtube still doesn't work out of the box and requires the flash bundle upgrade and that other video player TMCMP or what ever its called.
I use SPB Mobile Shell and SPB Pocket Plus and they work flawlessly with WM6. Overall, this was the best thing to happen since I got this phone in August.

Itsdarts said:
Not sure why your upgrade seems slower, but my upgrade from the official WM6 upgrade from the HTC site went smooth as butter and everything seems faster for me. I've also noticed that it boots up a bit faster and I don't get errors from Xpress mail upon boot ups. The only thing I did notice was that it used up a bit more memory than WM5. My bluetooth head piece connects faster/better, I don't have to soft reset nearly as often as I did with Wm5 either. The messaging program has a few new features that I like too. I actually like my Tytn now. Unfortunately, Youtube still doesn't work out of the box and requires the flash bundle upgrade and that other video player TMCMP or what ever its called.
I use SPB Mobile Shell and SPB Pocket Plus and they work flawlessly with WM6. Overall, this was the best thing to happen since I got this phone in August.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi,
Clearly either I have done something wrong, or there is something wrong with the phone. Is there a particular order in which this upgrade should be done?
My PDA is slow opening applications and I am battling with Active Sync 4.5
It displays an error each time and I dont know what it means. I have tried to google the error but cannot pick up anything.
I want to downgrade to WM5. Where can I download it from? I only find the SDK version of WM5. Any ideas where I can get WM5 from. I dont see it on HTC website either
Any help will do.
Thanks

I'd begin by reading Mr. Vanx's downgrade guide

You can use some registry tweaks/settings to improve responsiveness of your device if your flash goes ok. Official release ROMs are slower than cooked ROMs - so your choice also matters. For me the performance of WM6 has always been superior in comparison to WM5.

Any upgrades for a iPAQ 5450/5400 ?

I did a search and could not really find anything. I have an 5450 that I use for another account that I work with and it works pretty well over all (also own a XV6800 and a HX4700).
The problem is, it's Wm 2003, so when the battery goes, so does all my data. Backing up every day is getting to be a pain, and I just need it to work.
Is there or was there any upgrades for this machine to go to WinMobile 5 or higher ? I am sure it's limited but, I would love not to have to reinstall everything and reconfigure programs every time the battery dies.
Thanks !

bumb....Does anything exist for this unit ?