Treo 700wx starts to get "custom ROM" treatment!

700w/wx Custom Roms

History

This was kicked off by Waffles over at PPCGeeks (http://forum.ppcgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=24255).

It was crossposted by LLC23 (http://discussion.treocentral.com/showthread.php?t=163847).



What you need to know

First off, flashing your rom is dangerous. Not blow-up-the-world type dangerous, but you're-out-500-bucks dangerous.

If you brick your phone (render it useless), it's your own fault. At this point the ROM is still what I would consider 'unsafe', in other words it's not at the point where you can follow steps 1 through 10 and achieve success.

Additionally, flashing your phone is completely unsupported by either Palm or your wireless carrier, and may void warrantees, insurance, etc, etc, etc.

I've only tested this with Sprint. Verizon and any other carriers may or may not work, try it at your own risk.



How to flash your phone back to standard settings

The basic method of flashing is essentially the same for any rom (at least with the Sprint update). This is the method of flashing your phone to standard/default settings, allowing you to (hopefully) get back to a standard rom should something go wrong. This is not 100% guaranteed, and may or may not work depending on how badly the flash went wrong.

[LIST=1]
[*]Download the (Sprint) SD card ROM update. (http://www.palm.com/us/support/downloads/treo700wxupdater/sprint_installsd.html as of this posting the update is at 1.15.)
[*]Format your SD card in FAT32 format (any other format will most likely not work). You will need at least a 128 meg SD card, I recommend larger so you can place a few useful programs on it (such as psShutXP) on it.
[*]Extract the SD card ROM update to your SD card. You should see 4 files in the root directory, and a folder named 2577.
[*]Have your power cable handy for your phone.
[*]Hard reset your phone. (The flash is designed to "upgrade" your phone rather than overwriting everything. Nice when everything is working the way you like it, not so nice if it's not. If you don't hard reset your phone you may not see all of the new options. For example, I didn't see the new Wait Cursor until I had performed this step in this order, a straight hard reset or straight flash did not actually seem to clear everything.)
[*]When the Treo splash screen comes up, but before it starts loading: Pull the battery on your phone. (Note: your battery should be nearly or fully charged.)
[*]Place the SD card into your phone.
[*]Hold the volumn up button on your phone.
[*]While holding the volume up button, replace the battery in your phone.
[*]You will see a screen that tells you to press up on your 5-way if you want to flash, or any other key to cancel. If you don't see this, go back to step 6.
[*]Before you press up, plug your power cable into your phone. The red light will not go on as normal, this is expected, but assuming your power cable is plugged in at both ends and working properly, the phone is still on AC power.
[*]Press the up arrow on your phone.
[*]Very carefully (without disturbing anything) place the phone in a safe location. You do not want to move it and risk disrupting the power or accidentally ejecting the SD card. This is a good way to brick your phone.
[*]Wait patiently for the "Download OS + BL" screen to finish.
[*]Once the bar is full, your phone will reset.
[*]If you get stuck on the Treo spash screen, you're bricked your phone. You may be able to recover by going back to step 1.
[*]If you get stuck on the Windows Mobile splash screen...be patient! The first time your phone boots it will take a minute or more to load. If it hasn't loaded after several minutes, go back to step one. You've bricked your phone, but most likely can recover as it's Windows that is not loading, and not the boot loader.
[*]If everything is successful you should be asked to setup your phone again (including calibrating the screen). Congratulations!
[*]You can play around with it at this point, but you will need to soft reset it for everything to take effect (especially recommended if using a custom ROM).
[/LIST]

Note: After you are done flashing--and your phone has reset--you may want to pop out the SD card. This seems to help decrease the amount of time your phone will take to boot the first time (This would be after step 14). Do not remove the SD card before your phone finishes flashing!



How to flash your phone with a custom rom

You will follow the directions pretty much above. The only difference is you will replace the default NapaBoth.nb0 file with your own custom one. This would occur between steps 3 and 4.

How do I create a custom rom?

You can now use Ebag's Palm Treo 700w Kitchen!

Simply extract the archive to the directory of your choice, place your NapaBoth.nb0 (ROM file) under the \Cooking\ directory, and then pretty much follow each step in order.

Documentation is limited at the moment, and this Kitchen comes with absolutely no guarantees, warantees, or support (though I suppose if you ask a question here I might try and answer :p ).

The Kitchen is subject to being broken/upgraded/broken/changed/removed/broken at any point and without notice (did I mention broken?).

(Linkie at the bottom of this post.)



Where can I find custom rom's?

Ebag's trimmed standard rom

Rom File
File List



Ebag's custom rom - Take 1

Download

Removed:
MSN Instant Messanger
Picsel File/PDF Viewer
Pocket MSN
Software Store
OD
Various help files (pretty much all the ones I could get my hands on)
Various wav/wma files (several you couldn't even use)

Added/Replaced:
MortScript (and cDate script, changes your carrier name into a date line)
PIEPlus 2.2 (Unregistered)
PocketXpdf (replaces Picsel PDF viewer)
psShutXP
regedit (freebie version)
Sprite Backup
Ubuntu style wait cursor
Various popular registry tweaks found on the board
Start Menu\Programs has been cleaned up and streamlined (many programs are in subdirectories)
Radio On/Off sounds are replaced (reduces size from approx 256kb to approx 13kb)
Misc other things I forgot

*

DISCLAIMERS

1) No responsibility can be taken by anyone other than you if your phone is "bricked" (rendered unusable), damaged, or in any other way, shape, or form modified.
2) All files are property of their respective owners.
3a) Yes
3b) No
4) Flashing your phone is dangerous and should be undertaken with great care. Please be sure to follow all appropriate steps as directed.
5) This process is not guaranteed in any way.




(Semi)Useful Questions/Answers/Posts/Suggestions/Etc

Does this work for Verizon WX's?

I wonder if we can recover 700p/755p with this method?

Third post updated with the first custom rom.

Enjoy. :D

It's really tempting :cool: My family would tease me when I had the 6700 - "what, you didn't rebuild the phone today?" "Not even a hard-reset?" :D

Coming from the 6700, there's really not that much bloat in the wx. I start with 42/43M ram when I soft-reset, and it goes down to about 32/33 after a week or more. With the 6700 - try 21M after s-r and maybe 12-14 after a day of moderate use!

I never keep anything running (quick menu makes the ok button close the app - it's amazing ;) so memory is fine. The only things that would make this perfect is getting rid of the softkey program palm puts in (been trying to find that in the registry with no luck. Found a lot of other things, like having it not make souds/vibrate when you insert/remove the sd card, etc...) and html email - oh, and the three shortcuts it puts in the start menu on a restart are annoying (found them in the windows folder, but they are system files so can't be moved) but not a major annoyance. More room could be nice by putting some stuff in the rom, but I run everything off the phone, no sd card (just having it in drops you 1M in ram btw...)and still have 15M free :)

Still - just being able to rebuild and create new roms is a pretty fun thing :D

:p

Couple of important bits of news.

First off, you can now download my fancy kitchen from the 2nd post above. As always, no guarantees come with it. It's mostly just the tools that I used to build my customized roms, along with some batch/autohotkey scripts to make it more automated and less painful. Feedback is appreciated.

Secondly, I managed to extract the HKLM and HKCU registry branches. So far I have only been able to successfully flash and boot with a custom HKCU branch, the HKLM one booted into WM, but it was very much not functioning properly. I've included these files into my kitchen, along with a couple of batch scripts to make it easier to convert them back and forth (note: as of this posting, the two batch scripts expect to be in the root directory, so you'll need to move them out of the \Tools\ directory if you want to use them).

I also haven't compiled the Autohotkey scripts I use. To do so would increase the zip size past what can be added to a post (490 kb), so I'm not going to do that at this point. That means to use my handy-dandy file delete script, you need to download Autohotkey.

Speaking of deleting, the script won't try and delete modules. There are two ways to handle this.

1) Place a 'dummy' file in the \ToDelete\ folder (Example, pword.exe to delete the PocketWord module). I would suggest a text file with the same name as the module you want to delete. This will basically "trick" the script into adding that file to the delete script, which actually will delete files or modules without caring which is which (when passing paramaters). It's a limitation of my script that won't delete modules, not the program, so blame me (and no, I likely won't fix it :p ).

2) Delete the modules manually, either through manual calls to delfile (or your own script), or by dumping the files, editing, and recompiling them. For this purpose I've included in an easy way to recompile them as well as finalizing the ROM.

There isn't a lot of error checking in the scripts at the moment, so stuff is still easy to break. If you do...sucks to be you. :eek:

Oh, and maybe we could get a sticky on this? :D

1. Sticky. Yes... please!

2. GREAT progress! I am following along anxiously. I am not quite ready to dive in. Soon, maybe. I am looking for HTML e-mail to be ported over :).

Great work EbaG333. There are a lot of us 700wx users watching closely to see where this goes. I like what is done already.

combined with the WMExperts front page post.

Nice stuff!

Updated the kitchen in the 2nd post. Really bumping into the filesize limit, only 9 kb away now, hehe.

Quite a few minor bug fixes and changes. AddFile is supported via batch script now (similar method to DelFile, simply drop the files you want to add in .\Cooking\ToAdd\ and run the batch script).

I've also included in the tools a certificate signing program. You can use this to sign your applications/dll's so that they'll be trusted and won't get those annoying popups asking if you want to run them.

The problem is that the reg key to register that certificate is in HKLM. I haven't been able to successfully flash a ROM with a custom (or even extracted) HKLM, WM doesn't load properly at all. I can do the HKCU, which will be nice for a handful of mods, but we either need a way to flash with a custom HKLM, or figure out a way to trigger an autoinstaller after flash that'd install the special reg keys....

This is where I know the XDA community is awesome... I was following you until the HKLM issues. I flashed my phone twice with your kitchen... when it boils down to reg keys and that language in hex, I am a retard.

Be careful where you host your files, palm might come after you like they did with shadowmite

very interesting stuff...what would be needed to use this process to upgrade the 700wx to WM6?

Success!

I've managed to add the test certificate to the HKLM branch, without modifying the default.hv file.

It's actually really simple, and the way that the carriers do it. Simply modify the *.provxml file of your choice, and away you go. I chose the mxip_wpc_4.provxml to use.

As an example, to add the test cert (the one that's now included in my kitchen, so you can "certify" any program you want now), add this code to one of the povxml files.


















Incidentally, the Messaging files included here on the board utilize the test cert. So if you add this cert to the provxml file, you should be able to add the files to the ROM. I'm flashing my phone as I type to test this theory.

Interestingly enough, there's a comment in one of the provxml files (2) that reads:





I was sorely tempted to include the test cert in that section. :D

Is there any way to disable certs stuff completely?

A little update here.

First off, I updated my first post with an extra step for a really-truely-honest-it-works-this-time clean flash.

Seems if you just do a hard reset, then let WM load, not everything gets cleared. And flashing simply upgrades what you have currently, so if it's not stock (it's been modified), it won't touch it.

The solution (or at least one that's worked for me, YMMV) is to do a hard reset and before the bootloader kicks in (that is before you see the bar scrolling across the screen, at the Treo splash screen) pull the battery, and then continue with the flash as normal.

I had to do this exactly in this order to get everything to work. Darth Pooh did not however.... :confused:

Additionally you may have to do a soft/hard reset after the flash to get everything working properly. Since MortScript gets registered after cDate tries to run, you're going to have to do a soft reset anyway to get that working. (That's in my custom ROM, see below.)


I've just about completed my custom ROM. Here's a list of the changes.

Removed:
MSN Instant Messanger
Picsel File/PDF Viewer
Pocket MSN
Software Store
OD
Various help files (pretty much all the ones I could get my hands on)
Various wav/wma files (several you couldn't even use)

Added/Replaced:
MortScript (and cDate script, changes your carrier name into a date line)
PIEPlus 2.2 (Unregistered)
PocketXpdf (replaces Picsel PDF viewer)
psShutXP
regedit (freebie version)
Sprite Backup
Ubuntu style wait cursor
Various popular registry tweaks found on the board
Start Menu\Programs has been cleaned up and streamlined (many programs are in subdirectories)
Radio On/Off sounds are replaced (reduces size from approx 256kb to approx 13kb)
Misc other things I forgot


Darth Pooh (as mentioned above) has tested a beta version of this with only one issue (which I've resolved).

As always no guarantees and I've only tested this on Sprint.

I'm not *QUITE* done with it yet (almost). When I'm finished I'll upload it. That is.....if anyone's interested in it. :D

Great stuff!

I hacked the heck out of my ROM on the 650, and I look forwrad to doing the same here.

Of course, by the time I get it all figured out it will be time to move on... :(

My phone is starting to shows signs of age - small cracks in the case, etc.

@ Ebag

I have a Verizon ROM from my phone. I dumped using grab_it. I can send you a dumb.bin, imgfs files, or the ROM dump. Let me know what you want and I'll send it to you.

Ebag,

Very much looking forward to your new Custom ROM. I've already flashed using the one you posted earlier and it worked just fine, as far as I can tell. And as soon as you get the new one up I'll flash it quick as I can.

I would encourage you though, if there is any way to replace Pocket Outlook with the WM6 Pocket Outlook that would be great. And, of course, please keep working on the threaded SMS incorporation into the custom ROM as well.

Keep up the good work, you've got a lot of 700wx users sitting on the edge of our seats waiting to see where this goes. :D

Ebag,

I'm very interested to know if your custom rom fixes the freeze issue when connected via BT DUN. can you test this? basically it happens when there is a lot of data being transferred, such as downloading attachments. it happens using PDANet, USB Modem, or straight DUN, all when connected via BT. When connected via USB, the problem doesn't happen. The problem is well reported in this forum.

thanks!

Not only does the rom feel snappier, with the same amount of applications (if not more) I have less lag. It's almost if I have a completely different device at times. It's no PALM OS snappy... but then again, PALM OS doesn't do half of the things WM does good. So, take that for what it's worth.

is there a way to save my current rom image before trying your custom rom? i'm on sprint 1.14 and don't want to upgrade to the latest 1.15 if i don't have to.

ROM posted!

Check second post for link.

There is one small "bug" in it. Mortscript launches every time (should only launch first time, then remove itself). You can either remove reg_Mortscript.lnk from the startup or just hit OK on the message that pops up. It's not a big deal to me since it only comes up after a soft/hard reset, so I just hit OK.

i keep getting a rom not found error once i get to the part where is ask if i want to flash the rom. i'm trying a alltel treo but i WANT it to be sprint after the flash is that possible?

Okay I am trying to cook a ROM, but can't figure out how to get a .nb0 file. Can I get some help with that? Thanks.

Custom ROM - Take 1 works great!

So far so good, ebagg333. I'm quite impressed. I like the way you organized the Programs.

One thing, the PIE+ expires in 2 weeks, and costs $15. Is there a way to just downgrade back to PIE? If not, I can figure something out. After all, this is Your ROM, not mine. :) Thanks for sharing it with the community.

So let me see if I got this right...
The only con to this is you could brick your phone if you are not careful...

The pluses are... Faster phone... (Less looking it has to do...)
Loading programs into the ROM will free up memory in the RAM of the machine..

With the programs in ROM when you do a hard reset you can have the phone back up and running in a short period of time with minimal additional steps needed. (Syncing your contacts etc and maybe adding any new programs since last burn..)

I am assuming then if I were to take my phone as is.. Strip down the ROM, add the programs I use into it... Then the Free Ram is increased which by its self should help speed up the phone as well?

Just trying to see if I am catching the drift here...

Thanks!

Oh and how do you install programs into the ROM? Is there a way to install the CABS or something or how is it done?

Thanks!

Rodney

OK...this is starting to sound good here, I have 2 quick questions before I try one of the custom ROM's posted here:

1-Has anyone tried this with a Verizon device yet? If so, what was the outcome?

2-If I have a current backup of my device, do I just run the backup file after the flash, or is that an instance where that is a 'no-no'???

Thanks guys, some great work being done here!!

My error is happening after step 12. i press up then get the message unable to locate rom image. i am fairly sure my card is fat32 but i am barrowing a friends card reader to try the reformat myself.

Okay, so for kicks and giggles I took the Sprint .nb0 file you uploaded and went through the process of starting a ROM cook. The "1-Tear Down ROM.bat" file created two files, imgfs_raw_data.bin and imgfs_removed_data.bin.

Like I said before I have a VZW ROM dump. I tore it down and ended up with two files with the exact same names. So in order to cook a VZW ROM, could I not just start with my imgfs files from my ROM dump. Cook, then build it back up to a .nb0 file? Is my theory flawed somehow. I am trying to find something that will compare the Sprint ROM dump to my VZW ROM dump and see if I can determine what the differences are.

Any input on this? Thanks.

Confirm working on Telus/Bell Treo 700wx (But it replaces your trun on/off logo with Sprint)

I am a WM newbie, (had to read elsewhere how to do a hard reset..), so no tweaks/cooking, I did backup my current rom with r2sd. (I hope it contains a complete backup..)

I used your "Take 1" rom.
The on/off sound is different too.
I tried ##PRI but its still not responding.
Also does it update your 'version' (ie: ROWEN) number.?
Will try using LAN Bluetooth with my picoblue later on. (For reverse DUN)


Do you plan to use the "CAB and left softkey" method for flashing? (It was mentioned somewhere in the forums)

Thanks for your time and effort. I did the similar thing for people with 700p into 755p :) You have better control of organizations/english than me so the positive outcome was better than mines.

this whole process was originally started as a result of my putting a sprint nb0 rom that I customized onto a verizon phone; so, yes, it works on verizon.

ebag333 has been a leader/pioneer here in making this process easier for folks to manage (kitchen), and for keeping everyone updated with project progress reports. great work, ebag333.

the only main difference here is that the sprint rom that we started with is a rom from an SD updater, which is a raw image; verizon only allows for pc-based updates, which use the encrypted rom format ruu. yes, there are slight carrier branding differences, but they are essentially the same rom.

those of you who are trying to use grab_it dumps must beware of the rom structure and offsets if they try to build a rom; it is much safer to use the nb0 as a starting point until more information comes along regarding the rom structure within the actual device itself.

Another Successful flash using your custom rom and instructions on a sprint treo 700wx, love what i see so far :P, will def block off some time this weekend to play around with the cooker and see what i can come up with.

Thanks for all your efforts ebag and everyone involved in this project, i will be watching this thread very closely

:cheers:

Ebag. Maybe I can get some help. I want to replace two files in Windows with others so that I can use my SDHC card after a hard reset. DO I need to put the original files in the To Delete folder and the new files in the To Add folder? Or do I simply put the files I want in the To Add folder and it will overwrite the originals? Thanks.

Alternative Cooked ROMS?

I Successfully flashed my (Sprint) Treo 700wx with Ebag's example ROM and I'm wondering if anyone else out there has created a ROM using the Kitchen utility and would like to share their results?

Okay. Sorry again, but I am having trouble. The batch files do not seem to be working for me. I can run the first one on the .nb0 file and get the imgfs, but it does not create the .nb0 original folder. So when i try to rebuild the ROM it says it can't.

The second problem is that I can remove the stuff just fine, but it does not want to add the two .dll's I want to put in.

So as a last ditch effort, I just used the tools located in the \Tools\ROM\ folder via a command prompt. It all went well there. I got the imgfs files out of the .nb0. I deleted the 4 files and added my 4 files back. However, after doing this I dumped the ROM to see if the changes got made. The graphic files updated fine. The dll's though, are in the ROM, but don't get extracted to folders like the rest of the dll's.

Can I just dump the ROM and replace the files I want in the dump and then just rebuild it all.

Also, in the SD Updater download, acoording to waffles, I need to delete the firmware.bin file. I am assuming I also need to ditch the firmware.md5. Will I need a new .md5 for the .nb0 file? Also, do I need to remove the firmware files in the 2577 folder. Alternatively, could waffles provide an SD updater sip file that includes only what I need to flash my VZW phone.

Thanks for all the help fellas and for bearing with me through this. It is much appreciated.

Has anyone got Opera Mobile 8.65 to work with the cooked rom? it seem to have some problems with the "options" screen, can't drag up/down and "full screen"..