[Dave Beauvais]

My Windows Mobile 2003 for Pocket PC upgrade arrived this past Friday while I was out of town. I got back this afternoon, opened the package to make sure they'd shipped me the correct CD and then proceded to prepare for the upgrade.

The whole process went very smoothly with no problems. The flash procedure took almost exactly ten minutes, just as the on-screen note said it would. The thing that took the longest to figure out was how to setup my wireless LAN. I have SSID broadcasting turned off on my access point so WM2003's Zero Configuration Wireless wasn't able to find the network automatically.

I have installed most of my apps and have yet to find something that doesn't work. I have not yet installed Spb Pocket Plus because I'm still not convinced that it won't mess up alarms and/or reminders. I'm going to have to sift through some of the threads on that subject, I guess.

Things I Like

• The new Internet Explorer is very nice! CSS support is wonderful to have, it loads pages much faster than the previous versions, and the pages are rendered much better. (i.e., there's actually a blank space between paragraphs now.)
• System-wide ClearType support is great! I haven't found any text so far that doesn't have ClearType enabled. I love ClearType on the Today screen, too. (I know, some people love it; others hate it.)
• SSL support for Inbox is also great! I like knowing that my usernames and passwords aren't going across the air in plain text at coffee shop hotspots.
• Along those lines, the Certificates control panel is a welcome addition. There are a couple places I go where I've been unable to get online since I couldn't install a security certificate. Hopefully this will permit me to do so in the future.
• Transcriber 1.51 is now in ROM. I haven't used it yet, though.
• I guess the replacement for Connection Manager is okay. It still seems a little more complicated than is really necessary, but it seems better.
• The new Media Player 9 seems snappier than previous versions. I have not yet attempted to play any videos since I don't have any that will fit on my 64 MB backup SD card. (My 256 MB SanDisk died a couple weeks ago.) I may convert a small clip using Windows Media Encoder 9 just to see how it works with full-screen video. Full-screen content under Media Player 8.5 was choppy at best.
• The new Jawbreaker game is probably going to become addicting. Simple, mindless entertainment.
• The Calendar app shows the number of years next to a person's birthday or anniversary! A very cool feature!

Things I Dislike

• After a soft reset, to turn the WLAN radio on, you must go to the iPAQ Wireless applet. Once you've turned it on once, it can be switched on and off using the icon on the menu bar. This is a stupid design oversight, in my opinion and has annoyed the crap out of me after only four or five hours of using the new OS.
• Media Player still adds songs to a playlist in reverse order when adding an entire folder at a time. Combined with an inability to sort a playlist automatically, this is pretty annoying.

Other Things Added or Changed

• ClearType Tuner was added to System Settings. I'm okay with the default settings, though some people may prefer heavier, bolder text. The ClearType Tuner allows you to tweak ClearType to your liking.
• The ability to disable hardware buttons while the h5455 is turned off is nice. The application buttons and record button can be controlled independently of each other, which is a nice touch. (Though this isn't a problem for me since my iPAQ is in a hard Vaja Morpheus case, I know this will be useful to many people.) I was kinda hoping HP would have given us the ability to remap the volume buttons without the use of third-party software, though.
• When pressing the volume button, the on-screen volume slider pops up to show the volume level. Not necessary, but a neat feature.

This is my first real experience with Windows Mobile 2003, and I'm very impressed so far. Overall, there are far more positive aspects than negative, and I was very pleased by how easy the whole process was. (Granted, I've been doing this for a while, and have gotten to be very good at making things work.) Bottom line, as long as you don't have some app that simply won't currently run under WM2003, this upgrade is definitely a must-have!

--Dave

[Dave Beauvais]

My Windows Mobile 2003 for Pocket PC upgrade arrived this past Friday while I was out of town. I got back this afternoon, opened the package to make sure they'd shipped me the correct CD and then proceded to prepare for the upgrade.

The whole process went very smoothly with no problems. The flash procedure took almost exactly ten minutes, just as the on-screen note said it would. The thing that took the longest to figure out was how to setup my wireless LAN. I have SSID broadcasting turned off on my access point so WM2003's Zero Configuration Wireless wasn't able to find the network automatically.

I have installed most of my apps and have yet to find something that doesn't work. I have not yet installed Spb Pocket Plus because I'm still not convinced that it won't mess up alarms and/or reminders. I'm going to have to sift through some of the threads on that subject, I guess.

Things I Like

• The new Internet Explorer is very nice! CSS support is wonderful to have, it loads pages much faster than the previous versions, and the pages are rendered much better. (i.e., there's actually a blank space between paragraphs now.)
• System-wide ClearType support is great! I haven't found any text so far that doesn't have ClearType enabled. I love ClearType on the Today screen, too. (I know, some people love it; others hate it.)
• SSL support for Inbox is also great! I like knowing that my usernames and passwords aren't going across the air in plain text at coffee shop hotspots.
• Along those lines, the Certificates control panel is a welcome addition. There are a couple places I go where I've been unable to get online since I couldn't install a security certificate. Hopefully this will permit me to do so in the future.
• Transcriber 1.51 is now in ROM. I haven't used it yet, though.
• I guess the replacement for Connection Manager is okay. It still seems a little more complicated than is really necessary, but it seems better.
• The new Media Player 9 seems snappier than previous versions. I have not yet attempted to play any videos since I don't have any that will fit on my 64 MB backup SD card. (My 256 MB SanDisk died a couple weeks ago.) I may convert a small clip using Windows Media Encoder 9 just to see how it works with full-screen video. Full-screen content under Media Player 8.5 was choppy at best.
• The new Jawbreaker game is probably going to become addicting. Simple, mindless entertainment.
• The Calendar app shows the number of years next to a person's birthday or anniversary! A very cool feature!

Things I Dislike

• After a soft reset, to turn the WLAN radio on, you must go to the iPAQ Wireless applet. Once you've turned it on once, it can be switched on and off using the icon on the menu bar. This is a stupid design oversight, in my opinion and has annoyed the crap out of me after only four or five hours of using the new OS.
• Media Player still adds songs to a playlist in reverse order when adding an entire folder at a time. Combined with an inability to sort a playlist automatically, this is pretty annoying.

Other Things Added or Changed

• ClearType Tuner was added to System Settings. I'm okay with the default settings, though some people may prefer heavier, bolder text. The ClearType Tuner allows you to tweak ClearType to your liking.
• The ability to disable hardware buttons while the h5455 is turned off is nice. The application buttons and record button can be controlled independently of each other, which is a nice touch. (Though this isn't a problem for me since my iPAQ is in a hard Vaja Morpheus case, I know this will be useful to many people.) I was kinda hoping HP would have given us the ability to remap the volume buttons without the use of third-party software, though.
• When pressing the volume button, the on-screen volume slider pops up to show the volume level. Not necessary, but a neat feature.

This is my first real experience with Windows Mobile 2003, and I'm very impressed so far. Overall, there are far more positive aspects than negative, and I was very pleased by how easy the whole process was. (Granted, I've been doing this for a while, and have gotten to be very good at making things work.) Bottom line, as long as you don't have some app that simply won't currently run under WM2003, this upgrade is definitely a must-have!

--Dave

[ChristopherTD]

Dave

Thanks for the detailed posting, it is great to hear that it was smooth and all the positive aspects. I am a ClearType fan, so I am pleased that it is enabled everywhere. I shan't hesitate now when my CD arrives.

[William Yeung]

Dont be too happy yet... check this
http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/foru...ic.php?t=17277

Let me know if your BT is a success or problematic.

[PR.]

My BT has worked fine with GPRS.

I agree with everything from the initial post, why they can't just have a "Network Connections folder" were you add and remove reconnections in the same way you do on Windows 2000/XP I don't know. I want a VPN setup for work no problem, when I want to use ActiveSync via wireless at home tho, well it wants to use the VPN and I have to go through the process of going back through Connetion Settings and switching use Work to use ISP, its such a waste of time :/

[ChristopherTD]

Originally Posted by Dave Beauvais

After a soft reset, to turn the WLAN radio on, you must go to the iPAQ Wireless applet. Once you've turned it on once, it can be switched on and off using the icon on the menu bar. This is a stupid design oversight, in my opinion and has annoyed the crap out of me after only four or five hours of using the new OS.

Could you not put the iPaq Wireless applet in the Startup folder so that it gets started automatically?

[mtillett]

Does anyone out there know the command line used to turn the WLAN on/off? Then we could setup a shortcut to toggle the power. I agree the current setup is annoying... If anyone can figure this out please post here.

[Dave Beauvais]

Originally Posted by William Yeung

Dont be too happy yet ... Let me know if your BT is a success or problematic.

Unfortunately, I don't own a Bluetooth device. Nobody I know does, either. In fact, the only time I get to use Bluetooth is when I visit CompUSA or Micro Center and connect with their display models. (When their batteries are charged and they aren't locked up. :roll

--Dave

[ChristopherTD]

Dave

Do you have a CompactFlash sleeve? I use a CF Sleeve to backup to various CF cards, and for a CompactFlash 56K modem. I was just wondering if you used either of these and could verify if they worked on the upgraded 5450.

Just curious...

[FredMurphy]

What's the ROM version number for the CD release? Is it later that the 2.0.21 that got distributed through "less official" channels?

[Dave Beauvais]

Originally Posted by ChristopherTD

Do you have a CompactFlash sleeve? ...

Sorry, I don't own any sleeves, so I can't say whether they work or not. I would assume they would, though.

Originally Posted by FredMurphy

What's the ROM version number for the CD release? Is it later that the 2.0.21 that got distributed through "less official" channels?

No, the official CD version is also v2.0.21 dated 2003-07-08. (That's July 8th, not August 7th, for anyone unfamiliar with ISO 8601.)

--Dave