Date & Time Registry Hack

[Jason Dunn]

Marshall Burke emailed us this rather interesting registry hack that some of you might be interested in. You'll need a registry editor, so check this one out. Here's what Marshall suggests:<br /><br />"I was very annoyed when Microsoft removed this function (Date and Time) so I pulled out my old PPC and started to analyze the Registry and found the setting to allow it on the PocketPC operating system (I have tested on both PocketPC 2000 and PocketPC 2002). Use a Registry Editor and add the follows:<br /><br />Add a Binary Value to the following Section:<br /><br />\HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Shell<br />Value Name: TBOpt<br />Value Data: 13 00 00 00<br /><br />Do a soft reset and you will get both the time and date. The disadvantage is that you can't switch to the totally useless analog clock (it will show '1/1'). I believe what the above registry setting does is to decrease the font value of the time and date area to allow both items to be displayed."<br /><br />(we posted this previously, but it was too good to remain lost...)

[Paragon]

Cool! Thanks! :D

Now if someone could tell me why my desktop PC keeps changing it's date to March 2001 :x

Dave

[ScottG]

What's a good, free registry editor for the Pocket PC 2002?

Thanks,

Scott

[Paragon]

Scott

Try this one.

http://www.phm.lu/Products/regedit.asp

Dave

[T-Will]

To get the old time display back just delete this new registry entry?

[Pony99CA]

Marshall Burke emailed us this rather interesting registry hack that some of you might be interested in. You'll need a registry editor, so check this one out. Here's what Marshall suggests:

"I was very annoyed when Microsoft removed this function (Date and Time) so I pulled out my old PPC and started to analyze the Registry and found the setting to allow it on the PocketPC operating system (I have tested on both PocketPC 2000 and PocketPC 2002). Use a Registry Editor and add the follows:

Add a Binary Value to the following Section:

\HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Shell
Value Name: TBOpt
Value Data: 13 00 00 00

Do a soft reset and you will get both the time and date. The disadvantage is that you can't switch to the totally useless analog clock (it will show '1/1'). I believe what the above registry setting does is to decrease the font value of the time and date area to allow both items to be displayed."


I've just done some research on my 3870, and while it seems like the above works, I'm not sure it's all correct. (Note: I've only tried this on Pocket PC 2002, not 2000, and only on one machine.)

TBOpt (probably short for Titlebar Options) appears to be a set of bit flags. The first two bits (represented by the "3" above) appear to control the date/time display. Here are the results I get replacing "3" (binary 11) by other values:

0: No date/time display
1: Time display
2: Date display
3: Date and time display

This implies that if you want to undo the change, you don't need to delete the registry value, you only need to change it to "01". That will make the change easier to reenable, as you won't need to remember the key name or where exactly to put it (of course you will need to remember where to find it).

While it is true that the analog display won't work properly if set to 3 (or 2), it won't always show 1/1. I'm getting 2/1, presumably because the date was 2/11, so you'll probably see the first 3 characters of the date. On October 23, I bet you'll see "10/", for example.

Finally, I did not find that "13" was necessary. The "1" corresponds to the decimal value 16, which may be used for something else, but I didn't see any differences between using "13" and "03".

Steve

[Gerard]

That was the sound of Steve's input rocketing over my head. ;)
But hey, I just did this one for the heck of it (I use Gigabar, and so, always have date/time in view). I tried adding the binary value, but as a DWord of the same exact name existed in the same location I got an error every time. (Casio EG-800, PHM regedit, following exactly the above instructions.)
So I backed up the DWord (exported it), deleted it, then made the new binary value. Soft reset, and Hide Gigabar... ta da! Date and time on parade! Oh well, hidden quickly to be shut of that ugly blue useless space, but control is control, and thus good for the ego.
Is it a Casio thing, this DWord?
(Oh, and I'm no fool; I'd also backed up with the latest Sprite Pocket Backup Pro, just in case...)
Hey, what about this one? Adding a 3rd partnership by adding a new key, thusly:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows CE Services\Partners\P3

With the DWord and string added like the ROM pair, would this work? I only sync with one PC, so I've no way to tell, but if it works, a lot of folks with busy lives would thank me, right? I added such just to see, and the new stuff survived a soft reset, always a useful test in regedits.

[T-Will]

Is there a way to get the time to be over the date?

[CUShane]

Hey, what about this one? Adding a 3rd partnership by adding a new key, thusly:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows CE Services\Partners\P3

With the DWord and string added like the ROM pair, would this work? I only sync with one PC, so I've no way to tell, but if it works, a lot of folks with busy lives would thank me, right? I added such just to see, and the new stuff survived a soft reset, always a useful test in regedits.


This doesn't quite work. Close but no cigar. This is the general principle behind how Kelbran's SyncManager software. Active Sync only looks at P1 and P2. If you want a 3rd, you need to copy the values back and forth before you sync. It's kind of a pain to do this manually which is why I use SyncManager, but it works.