x50 series WM6 ROM?

[Joelacrane]

Haha, dont worry, I'm not asking "WHER CAN I GET A WINDOZE ROOM FOR MY DELL PDA... THANX."

Instead, I'm wondering what is stopping us- I mean, you people that know what you are doing... from somehow making our own Windows Mobile 6 Rom? Would Microsoft sell licenses to an individual?

It seems that someone with the technical knowhow could either put a Rom together to resell at cost, or just sell to make a profit.

Also, where does HTC stand on this? Did they not provide a Rom because its Dell branded?


I guess I'm just curious about the legal and technical reasons.

[Don Tolson]

Since Dell has effectively left the PDA market, I don't think there is any incentive (read $$) to have WM6 ported for the Axim series by Dell or HTC (the original manufacturer)

Essentially, MS provides the core of WM6, then it's up to the manufacturer/vendor to have it 'tuned' for their particular unit (from a hardware perspective) then add an additional applications they need (or want to provide) in their ROM offering. Oh, and the vendor is also responsible for building and testing the installation routines as well.

There are a number of very talented 'chefs' on the XDA-developers forum, but they are essentially working with already provided ROM kernels from HTC, then modifying them to add new applications, etc. I don't believe any of them are cooking ROMs from a bare-metal version of WM6. You could try contacting them, I suppose, but they tend to focus on HTC-released models only -- not the ones that HTC has built for other vendors.

[Joelacrane]

I would feel a little strange asking someone to take on such a huge task. I would be no help, my technical knowledge doesn't reach anywhere near to that length.

I wonder if there is a similar HTC device that they could steal a ROM from to modify. Kinda like a Toyota Echo, Vitz, Yaris, Scion Xa AND Xb all sharing the same motor and chassis (I drive an Echo). Manufacturers tend to do that.

[Joelacrane]

Wow, this is a bit of a shock.

[link deleted]
[link deleted]

I doubt this is legal, which is very unfortunate. If only I could buy a Windows Mobile 6 Classic license, but I'll bet its just not possible.

A little disclaimer:
This ROM could (Read will) turn your device into a brick, it is also most likely illegal as mentioned before. I'm just posting the news, ABSOLUTELY NOT endorsing it at this time.

Give me some feedback guys. What do you think of this?

[Nurhisham Hussein]

joel, discuss this as much as you like, but no links please!

[Joelacrane]

Not a problem. I appriciate the freedom that you are giving me.

There isn't much else to discuss anyhow. Someone hacked some Roms and according to the threads I've been reading, they work great. Aximsite.com will not even tolerate discussion of them.

[Cybrid]

I guess I'm just curious about the legal and technical reasons. In reality there is no technical reason why even older devices than that could not be updated. As you've seen by installing XP on a 233MHz laptop in your personal experience. The amount of work it would take is monumental, the device depending on spec may not perform very well and certainly illegal.
Even if you obtained license from MS, you'd still need drivers and need to also license those from the manufacturer. They will not deal with individuals. Theres just no money in it.

[Sven Johannsen]

There are some very talented cookers out there. I've even had some on my devices that added functionality I wished was available in sanctioned ROMs. I have had some odd issues with them on occassion too, so beware.

On an X50 to WM6 upgrade, I would think it would be pretty tough, or lack supporting some things. Dell never even did a very good job at their legitimate X50 upgrade to WM5. Their latest (and last) attempt went on mine and came back off within a week or two. Shame, too, as I would have liked to have the persistance, if nothing else.