Dell Halting Upgrade CD Shipments? [Archive]

Jason Dunn

11-01-2005, 07:05 AM

We received an email from <a href="http://www.clintonfitch.com/">Clinton Fitch</a> today regarding the Dell Windows Mobile 5 upgrade CDs that's rather disturbing: "I have been on the phone with Dell for the better part of an hour regarding the upgrade for x50 and x50v owners - both the free upgrade for purchases since July 2005 and the for purchase upgrade. Apparently Dell pulled the plug on the upgrade CDs being shipped. What few did ship had serious upgrade issues and Dell decided to go back to the lab. The problem as they stated was that they did not have an ETA on when this will ship. In looking at the Dell site, they are offering the upgrade for sale but they will not be shipping it until they get whatever issues they have with the upgrade itself." I have a call into my Dell PR contact to get an official statement, so far no response.

hiatus

11-01-2005, 08:30 AM

I have been waiting for it for a long long time :(

Come on Dell, dont let us X50/X50v users down.

mr_Ray

11-01-2005, 10:13 AM

nitestrike

11-01-2005, 10:35 AM

So this begs the question, is the delay in the iPAQ hx4700 WM5 upgrade justified? But as always it is going to be a wait and see game.

mr_Ray

11-01-2005, 11:30 AM

So this begs the question, is the delay in the iPAQ hx4700 WM5 upgrade justified? But as always it is going to be a wait and see game.

hx4700 - delayed til Q206
Loox720 - delayed til Q106
X50v - released, broken, recalled.

Not a very good looking pattern, is it.

SHC

11-01-2005, 11:44 AM

I've just returned an o2 exec because it was unreliable and kept falling over - and this is a device made for WM5. Maybe it's WM5 thats the problem no matter what hardware it's on?

rkopper

11-01-2005, 12:14 PM

So the cd I just recieved from dell yesterday (10/31) is bunk? Should I not attempt the upgrade? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

joefuture

11-01-2005, 12:39 PM

Without details, this may just all be speculation. I'm going to upgrade mine today, and if it ends up as a brick, then Dell can send me a new x51v instead :)

EvilOne

11-01-2005, 12:55 PM

Without details, this may just all be speculation. I'm going to upgrade mine today, and if it ends up as a brick, then Dell can send me a new x51v instead :)

Well, it looks like Dell has put a Dell Axim X50v VGA System ROM Reinstallation from Windows Mobile 5.0 to Windows Mobile 2003 SE (http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/download.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&releaseid=R111630&SystemID=PDA_AXIM_X50&os=PPM&osl=en&deviceid=11729&devlib=0&typecnt=1&vercnt=1&formatcnt=1&fileid=145807) download on their support site for the x50v to reverse the CD that they sent out....

MleB

11-01-2005, 01:05 PM

Without details, this may just all be speculation. I'm going to upgrade mine today, and if it ends up as a brick, then Dell can send me a new x51v instead :)

Sounds like a plan - except I'm reading that Dell Axims with WM5 as the native OS aren't faring much better. Sounds like (as noted earlier in this thread) less a Dell thing than an OS thing.

Meanwhile, my purchase of an X50 included the 'free' upgrade CD that, according to my order form, would be delivered in October 2005. Well, its now November so that seems to be a breach of contract to me. Especially as Dell has never contacted me to keep me apprised of the situation. I'll be calling them later today to see what they say and what they intend to do to keep me happy....

JMckie

11-01-2005, 01:08 PM

Rod3

11-01-2005, 01:16 PM

Well, that cinches it for me. I'm not upgrading. It aint broke now. :roll:

Clinton Fitch

11-01-2005, 01:37 PM

Most of the users who tried to install it claim that it works. See the following poll.

http://www.aximsite.com/boards/poll.php?do=showresults&pollid=946

A snapshot at this time:

Upgrade Went Perfect & Easy - 25
Upgrade Worked but with issues - 9
Upgrade Failed & I Rolled Back - 4
Upgrade Failed & My Axim is DOA - 2

The presence of the rollback utility does not imply a recall. It is Dell's standard practice to offer a way to back out of an optional upgrade.

I think the story needs a bit more corroboration.

I won't agrue a bit that it needs more corroboration. I did a lot of trawling on this last night and there are a lot of reports of confusion both from Dell Reps and users alike. It is possible I got one of the confused ones but the chap was pretty insistant on it.

I'd gladly be wrong on this one... I'm one of those waiting for the upgrade as well - obviously.

takotchi

11-01-2005, 02:25 PM

I got my upgrade CD yesterday, and I tried like 10 times to upgrade.

First, it starts the bootloader and copies something to ROM and asks you to hard reset... this is kind of strange, the other ROM updates never ask you to do this. So I hard reset, and it says to hit cancel when AS asks to make a partnership, and I do. It then connects as a guest, and the installer then claims the device is not connected, when CLEARLY it is connected, and the installer will not continue with the upgrade.

I've tried different USB ports, reinstalling AS, and so on... but nothing works so far.

I tried asking Dell, and they told me they DO NOT SUPPORT the upgrade and won't help me, and instead direct me to their fee-based support line, which I will *not* call.

jutae

11-01-2005, 02:34 PM

I received my cds yesterday. One cd icluded active sync and bonus programs. The other was the actual wm 5 upgrade. I followed the direction
and didn't have any problems. I haven't installed any programs yet (primarily use an Ipaq 4705). Most programs I own are windows mobile 5 verified. I think some people have done so many rom updates in the past that they didn't read the instructions.....

joefuture

11-01-2005, 02:45 PM

Well, I've started a thread (http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=aximgensw&message.id=18010) on the Dell forums to get Dell's perspective on this. Let's see what they say.

takotchi

11-01-2005, 02:49 PM

You mean that grammatically incorrect Engrish gibberish? Those instructions? I followed them, the upgrade does not work. :roll:

Here's an example of one of the menu screens, this is word-for-word what it says:

After reset the device and Windows Mobile logo shows on your device,click Continue to proceed with next update process.

*Note: It seems the forum is supressing the extra spaces between "click" and "Continue", there are about three which makes it look even worse*

That's the one where my upgrade stops. "Continue" is grayed out even though the device has been reset and connects to ActiveSync. It just gives me another badly-worded dialog telling me to connect and install ActiveSync before doing the upgrade (despite the fact to get to that point, you must have already copied the first part of the upgrade to the device so the connection MUST already have worked once!)

MasterOfMoo

11-01-2005, 04:15 PM

Just an update (potentially). I had ordered my upgrade a couple weeks ago and received and estimated ship date of 26(29?) November before I'd see it. But as of this morning, I received a shipping notice that the CD has shipped, so hopefully this is a sign that if there *were* any problems with the update (code, process, etc) they may be resolved.

Sven Johannsen

11-01-2005, 04:16 PM

I tried asking Dell, and they told me they DO NOT SUPPORT the upgrade and won't help me.

This must be an uninformed tech. There are only two ways to get the upgrade. Buy it from Dell, or have it a part of an X50 order, neither of which could be legitimately not supported, unlees that fact was plainly indicated before purchase.

joefuture

11-01-2005, 04:19 PM

Whew... the upgrade is over. I was really nervous at one point after the final hard reset. I got the screen explaining that the WiFi was turned off by default blah blah blah... and "tap the screen to use your Pocket PC". I tapped, heard a jingly "bling", and nothing happened.

Then I did a reset, got the same screen, and again nothing happened.

Then I did ANOTHER reset, and this time I got to the Start screen. yahoo!

Now I'm off to go install all my apps again.

SHC

11-01-2005, 04:25 PM

Maybe us 4700 users will benefit in the long run from our extended wait for an upgrade. Hopefully by then all the bugs will have been fixed and everything will go smoothly :roll:
We'll have to wait and see.

Jonathan1

11-01-2005, 04:31 PM

You were on the phone with Dell?

I'm so very very sorry.

Jonathan1

11-01-2005, 04:42 PM

Why am I getting the sneaking suspicion that Windows Mobile 5 is going to be the Windows ME of the Pocket PC? Granted its circumstantial evidence but the fact that its going to be almost a full year before WM5 starts really shipping screams that something isn't right. And the implementations of WM5 we have seen seem to suggest that there are some issues going on. Whether that is the OEM's fault or MS though is anyone's guess. Could we be seeing the Palm Cobalt of the WM world? :?:

gt24

11-01-2005, 06:04 PM

I visited Aximsite to see if there was a thread about this. There was one quoting this site, with few replies. Elsewhere in the forum, there was a thread posted today with a report of the CDs being recalled.

I get a call last week about the CD to confirm reciept again, well i live in miami and my cell was not working properly thanks to wilma (still dont have power by the way) anyways when i call yesterday to tell them i dont have the CD still, even though they "two day aired it from DHL" for me, the guy puts me on hold for like 20 mins to look around. I ask him what is wrong and he tells me there are no more available and that they arent shipping anymore. I said to him, so microsoft recalled the CD's and he's says yea looks like it, im searching for a part number and dont see one.
<snip>
Emphasis mine. Link below.
http://www.aximsite.com/boards/showthread.php?t=103169

I know, it wasn't Dell specifically saying that Microsoft recalled it, but what is the chance that Microsoft themselves are recalling Windows Mobile 5 softwares... at least for upgrades?

alex_kac

11-01-2005, 06:05 PM

From what I've seen, WM5 does have quite a few bugs - most of which aren't even noticeable by a developer right away. But even more so, WM5 requires a different drivers from OEMs and most of the drivers the OEMs are using are just slightly updated ones from WM2003SE. It'd be better if they'd just write new ones.

So I'd say the worst offenders are the OEMs. I've been saying this all along, but people should wait for WM5. Wait until the OEMs get into fixing their issues.

Jason Dunn

11-01-2005, 06:47 PM

I think the story needs a bit more corroboration.

If I can get my Dell PR contact to get back to me, I can get some clarification, but since she didn't I wanted to at least get this story out there.

takotchi

11-01-2005, 06:48 PM

I had three different Dell drones tell me that the upgrade is NOT supported by Dell, and I'm own my own if I have a problem. So... I don't know what the deal is, but at this point... I'm tired of trying 15 different ways to get this thing to work and I just want them to either give me ALL my money back for the device and the upgrade or just give me a freaking X51v that already has WM5 on it.

joefuture

11-01-2005, 06:53 PM

Well, I haven't played with the upgrade much yet, but I can tell you all this:

1) It feels much faster than WM2003SE. The 2D painting, for whatever reason, just seems to be quicker and smoother than before.
2) My x50v now says it has 79MB free storage memory (90.4MB total), and 22.6 MB free program memory (49.29 MB total). Sweet!

Update - I just noticed that my "built in storage" appears to be no longer available. That used to be ~100MB. So either the upgrade merged built-in storage with program&storage memory and now I have less than before, or something went wrong.

I'll probably spend the day digging up registration info for all my old apps, but so far NewsBreak installed and seems to be running without any problems whatsoever.

I'm likin' what I see so far.

TheWolfen

11-01-2005, 07:53 PM

My upgrade went very smoothly. I've been installing all my apps since yesterday. So far, I've found it to be more sluggish than WM2003SE, not faster as one person here mentioned. Once I get it all setup again, I'll use it for awhile and see if I want to stick with it. Needless to say, I am very glad Dell has provided a path for going back to 2003 if I choose to.

Most of my apps work with WM5 as well, although I've had a few that break down during the install process, which has changed - most notably the game Ancient Evil. Hopefully I'll find a way to get it installed.

joefuture

11-01-2005, 08:24 PM

One trick I learned long ago to improve speed was Start -> Settings -> Sounds and Notifications -> uncheck "Events". For whatever reason, doing that seems to make things like the start menu draw faster (probably because it's not pulling the .wav from flash every time you do it).

Jason Dunn

11-01-2005, 10:13 PM

Update - I just noticed that my "built in storage" appears to be no longer available. That used to be ~100MB. So either the upgrade merged built-in storage with program&storage memory and now I have less than before, or something went wrong.

Ok, so here's why: your X50v has 64MB of RAM and 128 MB of ROM. Under Windows Moible 2003 SE, some of that 128 MB of ROM was used for OS+apps, and some was available to the end user for programs. Now all the Flash ROM is bundled into a big ball, of which "X" MB is taken up by the OS+apps...and Windows Mobile 5 is bigger than 2003SE. You should still have 70 MB or so free, but I haven't done the upgrade so I can't say for sure. The difference is now it won't show up as a built-in storage card, it's just "device storage" now like everything else. Kind of like installing to RAM under 2003SE.

Sven Johannsen

11-01-2005, 10:17 PM

Update - I just noticed that my "built in storage" appears to be no longer available. That used to be ~100MB. So either the upgrade merged built-in storage with program&storage memory and now I have less than before, or something went wrong.

That's correct, though I didn't look at detailed numbers. What was RAM, is now only used for execution, both what the OS needs and whatever you run. It is no longer divided into Storage and Program. You should have 64M minus whatever is loaded at startup (soft reset).

The old ROM, which was about 128M total I think, was used by the OS and built in apps etc. taking up about 36M, leaving about 92M as File Store. That 128M is now all of storage, with something like the 36M of basic stuff and all the PIM databases and registry that used to be in the Storage section of RAM. The rest is for you, but remember to not fill it up to full, as adding appointments, contacts etc. will need some space.

It's much more like a PC now, where you have 64 of system RAM and a 128M 'hard drive' which has the OS, programs and data installed. That's why the newer ones are coming with 64M Ram, which is fine now, but somewhat bigger ROM, i.e Hard Drive.

gkarpe

11-01-2005, 10:36 PM

It sure seems there is a lot of confusion on the WM5 upgrade. It seems some people do not understand what the instructions say and read too much into it. Too many think they know something and act on it when what they knew was wrong in the first place.

Doing just what the instructions said, my upgrade was fine. Too many decide to figure things out because they "know" things.

Personally, I discount the list of issues people claim to have. I am sure we all watched someone do something, seeing them miss half the important details, add a few steps themselves and complain that the system is garbage.

Ask the people who do it right and not the guys who fail. Don't get mad at me if you had problems. I just think we need to look closer to home to find the cause of most of our problems.

PS: By the way, maybe I am confused, but that rollback to WM2003SE looks like it was originally made to rollback the A00 version of WM5. Was that not the test version? The released WM5 version I received is A01. I think A00 was also the test version number used on the test version used on the X51 systems sent to testors. The first released version for both the X50 and X51 should be A01 according to the testors I have heard from.

Majestic

11-01-2005, 10:45 PM

I have an X51V so the upgrade doesn't affect me but all of this does bring back memories for the upgrades I used to do on my Ipaq 3600 and HP pulling code off the website because it boofed people's paqies. :)

Good luck to those that are upgrading.

zcmc1066

11-01-2005, 11:00 PM

My Pda is up and running,

But, I can not install many apps that are wm5 compatible. Think outside BT drivers, Resco Today plug-in, Pocket bible to name a few I was able to get Pocket Informant, My sports training , my food add in Resco- media minuses the Resco screen plug-in this stinks . the speed of start up is not a issue it’s a once a day thing.

I will have to do a roll back because I dont have my tools I'm peved because I valadated my software for wm5 and purchesed a few upgrades :| to be compatable I realy want the persistant storage

Zachary McDonald

takotchi

11-02-2005, 12:01 AM

Ed Hansberry

11-02-2005, 01:41 AM

This report is totally wrong. See http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=372604 for the real scoop. We should probably lock this thread and let any additional discussion happen in the thread with the facts. :D

Patrick Y.

11-02-2005, 02:02 AM

gkarpe, you don't know what you're talking about. People are having genuine problems with the WM5 upgrade, myself included. I am not a Pocket PC "n00b" or anything of the sort.

It's the fault of Dell's poor-quality software for updating the ROM. It's not as if Dell doesn't have a HISTORY of this kind of thing.

Really, what am I supposed to do? I followed every step correctly, it's not difficult, but the software does not work as expected, it says "it's not connected!" when it is... and Dell refuses to give me or anybody else any help. So pardon us if we feel the need to complain a little about it. :roll:

No offense, but you must be doing SOMETHING wrong. Over at aximsite, people are successfully upgrading the their x50v/x50. Really, people just blame everything on the product when things don't go as expected. I wonder why you are having problem while most people who have the CD have no problem upgrading.

takotchi

11-02-2005, 03:33 AM

I'm not doing anything wrong. There isn't a whole lot you can do that is "wrong"... you just go through the wizard and hard reset when it asks you to.

Anyway, I finally got it to work by reformatting my computer and installing Windows XP (and all the updates), Office 2003 (and all the updates), and ActiveSync 4.0 - and nothing else (yet) and the upgrade is, so far, working.

I shouldn't have had to do this. I just reformatted a few months ago and keep a very clean system, and everything was up to date. I honestly have no idea what caused the problem of the installer not detecting a connection, and I'll probably never know.

To anybody who hasn't upgraded yet... good luck, you'll need it. :?

Rocketeer

11-02-2005, 10:42 PM

Takotchi, are you using a USB hub? If so, bypass the hub and see if that makes a difference.

I got my CD's on Saturday and upgraded Sunday. No problems except I miss not being able to listen to Real Audio files. It appears that Real isn't interested in supporting WM5 (unless someone knows how I can get it to work). When I try installing the Real Player, it says I don't have a valid version of ActiveSync. (WM5 comes with ActiveSync 4.0).

http://static.flickr.com/27/57817077_281cb31c5e_m.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/kt/57817077/) -- from The Rocketeer (http://www.flickr.com/people/kt/)

takotchi

11-02-2005, 11:24 PM

No, I wasn't using a hub.

Like I said, reformatting my desktop PC fixed the problem... the only thing I can think of is something got screwed up because I had AS 3.8, then uninstalled and installed AS 4.0 later, and then installed the newer build of AS 4.0 that comes on the WM5 CD after that. All my drivers and everything were the same otherwise.

Of course, I do have a few problems with WM5 itself now... sometimes it's snappy just like WM2003SE and sometimes it's really sluggish, seemingly for no reason. Also, just sitting on my desk, off with no power connection, the battery lowered to 52% overnight. Finally... I tried to turn it on today and had to soft reset to get it to turn on.

*Most* of the time it works though... so I'll keep my fingers crossed and hope it works out.

Patrick Y.

11-03-2005, 01:41 AM

Can't you just try to copy all the files of the program without using the desktop installer?

Just let you know, there is big finger print on your power button. :lol: :D

Rocketeer

11-03-2005, 06:54 PM

Can't you just try to copy all the files of the program without using the desktop installer?

Just let you know, there is big finger print on your power button. :lol: :D

Since it is an executable file, I'm not sure how I would do that, Patrick. :|

Yeah, after I uploaded the photo, I realized... man... I should have wiped it clean first. :lol:

Patrick Y.

11-04-2005, 02:04 AM

Maybe you can copy the whole program directory from the device which you have realplayer install to the upgraded x50v.

Darius Wey

11-04-2005, 04:24 AM

Maybe you can copy the whole program directory from the device which you have realplayer install to the upgraded x50v.

For what it's worth, RealPlayer runs pathetically on anything but a QVGA WM2003 device. I'm not sure if it's worth Rocketeer's efforts moving program files from one device to the other.

Patrick Y.

11-04-2005, 04:33 AM

I guess... :cry:

TimFountain

11-04-2005, 09:22 PM

Not at all like the WM2003 upgrade for the X5, then.

What a nightmare that was - completely unusable slow, buggy, and rubbish devices and upgrades shipped. Lies to customers - including myself. Glossing over it to sites reporting on it. :evil: :evil: :evil: Let's hope Dell learn from it and this time around. Well from a PR point of view I mean - they obviously didn't learn not to ship something faulty in the first place.

My thoughts exactly. What a feeling of Dejavu. I was an early adopter of the X5, and had all these issues with the X5 and 2002. In the end I returned it 3 days before my 30 days were up and got an IPAQ-2215.

Dell - when will you learn, it really isn't so difficult!?!

Rocketeer

11-04-2005, 09:49 PM

Maybe you can copy the whole program directory from the device which you have realplayer install to the upgraded x50v.

You made an assumption that I have more than one device. I upgraded my X50v to WM5... I don't have two of them.

If anyone comes up with a method of extracting the .cab files out of the Real Audio installer program, I'd be interested.

Thanks for your help.

Patrick Y.

11-05-2005, 01:09 AM

One crazy suggestion: Roll back to SE, install realplayer, copy the file/program to the desktop computer, install WM5 again, move the exe from the PC to x50v.

Nurhisham Hussein

11-07-2005, 02:15 AM

You could try installing Real Player without your PDA connected. The installer program will extract all the necessary cab files somewhere on your PC - the Temp, Program Files, User Settings or MS Activesync directories are the usual spots. You can then copy the cab file over to your PDA.