Microsoft's Windows Mobile 6.5 update guide: no, no, maybe
By Donald Melanson 
posted Oct 6th 2009 4:12PM
posted Oct 6th 2009 4:12PM
Alright, so it's no secret that the upgrade path to Windows Mobile 6.5 is pretty limited, but Microsoft has nonetheless gone and laid thing out with another handy upgrade guide to avoid any confusion. The short of it is that those with Windows Mobile 5.0 or 6.0 devices are flat out of luck if they're looking to upgrade to 6.5 (although they may be able to upgrade to 6.0 or 6.1), while users of Windows Mobile 6.1 devices (but not those aforementioned users that have just upgraded to 6.1) may be able to upgrade to 6.5 at some as yet unspecified point in the future. Right now, that latter group is confined to just eight phones (including the likes of the HTC Dash, Snap and Touch Pro2, and the Samsung Jack and Epix), but Microsoft says more devices may be added at a later date. Still confused? Then hit up the read link below for the complete breakdown, and try to forget about that whole Windows Mobile 7 thing for the time being.
[Thanks, Jammal]
[Thanks, Jammal]
Do I hear crickets?
How should I know what you hear?
No, just iDiots
I own nothing, I SAY NOTHING! that is anyway affiliated with Apple.
Maybe a Lumux
or a FacePalm
Yeah I got nothin
Oh god, here come the trolls. I think there needs to be an IQ test before you can register. This might work:
Who is the best company?
Microsoft
Apple
Sony
Nintendo
Palm
All have their advantages and disadvantages
Only people who answer the last one are let in, the others can be sent to an appropriate site to them, such as TUAW for the people who selected Apple.
On the other hand, it would probably get rid of around 94% of comments.
@WindowsFTW,
you sir are a pathetic joke.
at least please make your profile private.
*fanboy fights are things of past. hello hateboy fights!*
.
My question: Can I upgrade to 6.5 on my Sprint HTC Touch Pro? It shipped with 6.1. Yes/No? When? Anyone? If it's not before November 15th I don't care because I'll be getting a Palm Pre that day.
yes!
search google for: xda developers forum
you'll find all the answers you need =)
What answers? All I see are shitty glossed-up ROMs that require hard resets almost every other day made by no-named "chefs" in their "kitchens" that end up being utter piles of shit. And then they have the tenacity to ask me for my hard-earned money for their "work" in making something unreliable.
It's like with my FUZE. I tried half the XDA-devs ROMs - half them required just that - a hard reset every other day.
And if anyone from there's reading - Olipro - stop profiting off your frickin' Touch Pro unlocker, it's been over a year and you've probably made well over two or three thousand dollars from poor saps being REQUIRED to pay you $20 or more to use it.
I upgraded 6 months ago.
XDA-Developers
PPCGeeks
All WinMo owners should know about those 2 sites
Dakota
If you have such an aversion for certain chefs, just download the STOCK 6.5 ROM off of XDA or PPCG.
It's not that difficult.
@dakota
dude, calm down. they do good work over there, i wouldn't be so quick to judge unless i could come out with something better. the donations are suggested; you don't _have_ to donate to use one of the roms. these people, however, are putting forth a decemt amount effort and there's nothing wrong with asking for a bone to be thrown their way. if you don't like the work? don't give any money. seems pretty simple.
and about the unlocking utility? they wrote it they can charge whatever they want. feel free to come up with your own if you think there should be no cost.
Dakota does have a point - cooked ROMs are highly overrated. The vast majority of 'em are complete and utter shit, and the developers as a general rule have zero interest in taking bug reports or fixing issues. Updating to a fresh ROM is usually one step forward and two steps back. ROM developers compete rather than collaborate, so switching to a different ROM series usually means giving up major features in exchange for others. The stock ROMs aren't a solution either - since HTC doesn't give a rat's ass about its users once your money is in its coffers, the ROMs get stagnant, fast.
This is what has always pissed me off about win mo phones, every time a new OS comes out 9 times out of 10 you need a new device.
As the best phones always come out last its frustrating.
I know you can get Cooked rom's but they never run as well as the approved ROMs.
9 times out of 10?
Try 1 time out of 10.
Virtually every WM phone can be updated by going to either XDA-Devs or PPCGeeks and grabbing the latest version of WM off of their, be it stock, souped up, and everything else in between.
Or you could just get an iphone and connect it to itunes.
Let's face it, most of those roms are just minor alterations intended to make people like WindowsFTW feel like a hacker. And all those 3rd party apps designed to make WinMo phones more like the iphone suck balls too.
But yeah, registering on a geek forum, browsing through 50 roms that all do they same thing, just slightly different, is a great way to spend your time.
We're constantly told WinMo is great for business; if you need a phone for business then you're too busy to be messing around on forums for hacks that will only cause you to hard-reset your phone every 6 hours.
Been there, done that.
WindowsFTW stop drinking that fanboi juice only techy's/geeks are going to upgrade their phone's that way. Just because you hang out in your mom's basement with the lights off, and that one person over the internet that is your friend on said forums do the upgrade like that. Does not mean that every other sane person out there is going to go through all that trouble of updating their phones, get real.
@ Fernando
I think that is pretty obvious that anyone who a) has a WinMo phone and b) knows the difference between 6.1 and 6.5 is going to have the ability to follow a few instructions in a forum.
Go back to your iPhone with all the other sheep.
cxp3, you're using Windows, there's way more of you sheep than there is of us.
My MD has a, HTC, he won't know how to upgrade to 6.5. So how does he take advantage of the great new features of 6.5? Oh yeah, he can't. Despite spending $200 a month on his cell contract.
Keep hacking, man. And by mean hacking I mean downloading some file someone else created and you just leached
I use windows because it is much more customizable and better value than a mac, and I would expect if your boss can afford to spend that much on a phone contract then he would be due for an upgrade in a few months anyway, if he would like all these new features that he doesn't know about.
Yeah, want a WinMo upgrade? Buy a new phone
wow what a bunch of tards, fighting over companies...I pity you all
HAHAHAHAHAHA
@cxp3, um, how is Windows better value than Mac OS X?
To get from XP to Vista to 7 on one computer will have cost me almost $400 come 22 October. Whereas to get from Tiger to Leopard to Snow Leopard on five computers has cost me $250. Tack on an office productivity suite and again, the Apple software is far cheaper for more licenses.
You are certainly able to build a PC for less money than a Mac, but this is beyond the average person and will not always result in comparable build quality. As for PC manufacturers such as Dell, equipping their systems to the same spec as a standard Mac is often just as expensive. The only area where your criticism really holds up is Apple's absurd RAM/hard drive upgrade prices.
ANYWAY, back to the matter at hand... it would be fantastic if Microsoft were able to release a standalone download for WM 5 and 6 so that *anyone* can upgrade to the latest version, regardless of their carrier, and without resorting to sites like those mentioned. It's not just about sipping the iPhone Kool Aid - Android and webOS phones are also following the carrier-independent upgrade path as it is far more user-friendly and allows far wider support of new features. The fragmented userbase cannot be good for Microsoft.
@redcard: I hope your MD is able to use his phone to make calls. Because I assume that's the main reason why he pays $200 a month.
@Dale: Assuming that you bought your Mac when XP was released (that's August 2001), it's unlikely that you were able to upgrade this computer to Snow Leopard. Because my PowerBook, which I bought in 2005, isn't compatible with Snow Leopard anymore. (Want the most recent version of the OS? Buy a new computer. Oh wait. I bought a MacBook in February this year. Does it run Snow Leopard with all features, like the 64bit kernel? No. Well. I just have to buy a MacBook pro, I guess).
@cxp3: My HP iPaq 514 can't be upgraded to WM 6.5, and I'm 100% certain that it'll never be possible to upgrade it.
@weg: But you're saying that a PC bought at the same time would run Windows 7 64-bit, completely feature-intact, all the same?
Of course I've bought new hardware in that time, but it was far easier to do so when my operating system upgrades didn't cost me anywhere near as much money.
I own both PC and Mac, both have their strengths and weaknesses, but the discussion about Mac pricing is always so completely focussed on the price of the initial hardware and not the overall cost of ownership.
Basically, you're suggesting Microsoft won't allow some phones to upgrade to 6.5?
Let the lulz commence.
...or, if an update isn't available for your phone, you can go to xda-developers and do the home brew update yourself. that's what i plan to do with the AT&T Tilt.
My tilt soft resets itself two or three times a day. I'm on my third replacement this year. As soon as the Sholes is out I'm moving on. WinMo sucks.
This is one of the reasons I left Windows Mobile behind.
Too many manufacturers, too many device and architecture variations, too much money to be made by companies in selling new devices instead of helping their existing customers upgrade to a newer OS.
The original iPhone can accomodate the 3.1 OS. Granted, there are some things left out due to hardware (Compass and GPS), and some other things left out to kinda nudge the user to get the newer hardware (read: MMS, video [sorta]), but that image above is just cold turkey for many WinMo users.
I upgraded my T-Mobile Dash to Windows Mobile 6.5 today.
http://gadgetsonthego.net/2009/10/t-mobile-dash-joins-windows-mobile-65.html
The chart is not confusing enough!
Microsoft should have added non-update options for Windows Mobile 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 and 4.0.
Ahh, Microsoft.
Just as confusing as your "Upgrade to Windows 7?" charts.
You really have a knack of complicating things and frustrating users - fanboy or not, there's no doubt about it.
Yeah that chart certainly would require some sort of genius to interpret.
hahaha
Doesn't get easier than that upgrade list. It's basically up to the manufacturer and/or carrier when it comes to individual phones.
For example, HTC will offer an update to its Touch Pro2 (euro gsm version), but T-Mobile may shaft their users and not offer an official update to the T-Mobile branded version..
I love how people are like go to XDA or PPCGeeks as if the average user would even know how to do that crap.
Steps for upgrading a WinMo phone
1. sign up for a forum.
2. look for the upgrade forum.
3. look for the thread for your particular phone.
4. look for the firmware of your particular device.
5. download firmware
6. install firmware on your phone (oh yeah you're losing everything on that badboy, better make sure that activesync is working)
7. hope and pray that you didn't download that wrong firmware.
Or.
1. Plug in your phone
2. Get prompted that there is a new update.
3. Download update.
4. Install update.
I know that the average user would much rather do the first set of steps. Yeah right!!!
APPLE FANBOY!!!
Sorry I forgot there is another step in there between 1 and 2.
1a. Wait for your registration email and activate it.
You forgot one thing Fernando...enjoy whatever they make or let you have.
No sense letting you choose to change things around yourself or customize it anyway you'd like. Who would ever want to do such a thing?
Don't forget to add the step where you need to wait a few hours after installing the new iPhone firmware because the Apple servers are overloaded and you have a brick until they fix their stuff.
anyone know why winmo hasnt launched 7 w/ win7? thatwould have been epic.
I don't think "epic" means what you think it does...
Ballmer said they aren't ready. Somebody screwed up.
Let's see how many of those 6.1 phones are allowed to upgrade by the carriers in the first place.
"Hey ladies, check out my Winblows Mobile 6.5, You like it?"
anyone know what build they've decided to release as 6.5 final?
It's going to be an interesting 22nd.
Hahaha. WinMo 6.5 is a TURD.
http://gizmodo.com/5374876/windows-mobile-65-review-theres-no-excuse-for-this
http://www.pcworld.com/article/173186/windows_mobile_65_arrives_mostly_disappoints.html
http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review-it-still-sucks/
Oh god, again with the whole "OMG chart iz confusing to 'tarded consumers!" Anyone technical enough to be investigating this is likely also smart enough to understand the chart and look for information elsewhere.
Any by the way, if you want the upgrade skip the middle-man and flash your own ROM! I don't see any Apple users running the next iPhone version ahead of schedule. WinMo users already have 6.5.1 to use, for free.
Also, the organizations responsible for this mess are the carriers, not MS or the OEM.
ahh, Blame the carriers! Is that right???
Lack of MMS on the iphone was also the carriers' fault. But you never gave Apple a pass then, did you? ;)
Idiot.
I don't recall saying anything about it, actually.
But wouldn't you say an OS update is a bigger deal than MMS, something practically every phone (including most feature phones) have had for years?
Thanks for the "idiot" part, by the way. No need to get that impassioned over blog comments, is there?
Yeah, there is no need, and typing 'idiot' is hardly evidence of that.
You're definitely not one for typing impassioned comments on blogs, are you? ;)
MS are getting closer to Apple on the desktop, a few years more and they might be as close in mobileland.
Even Balmer admits WinMo is a failure, shame the dwindling number of fanboys they have left can't agree
"Any by the way, if you want the upgrade skip the middle-man and flash your own ROM! I don't see any Apple users running the next iPhone version ahead of schedule. WinMo users already have 6.5.1 to use, for free."
That is because we have an actual upgrade path, as in WE ARE GETTING AN UPGRADE no matter what. Why would i want to load beta software on my phone if im not developing for it?
Nice, I like how you failed to respond to my main point at all and instead resorted to some strange argument about MS catching up to Apple on the desktop (in what way? certainly not market share).
And I would say name calling does indicate a higher degree of passion than simply debating points without the nice little "idiot" tacked on at the end. My initial comment could be more properly termed "exasperated" than "impassioned."
Love the smug winks, by the way.
Jailbreak FTW
Weren't there some WinMo phones by HTC that could be upgraded to Android? Sounds like a better deal to me.
oh wow, talk about flame wars on here. Im with the people who have lost faith in WinMo. Im on my 3rd or 4th WinMo phone and this HTC Touch Pro is good, but it could be great, and im tired of seeing great hardware stumble because of its software like my archos is.
I used to do the roms on my Moto Q and theyre cool an all, but realiability is lacking, and theres alot of stuff that just seems half hearted.
WinMo really need the app base down that apple has because it makes a diff. ive been using WinMo and its varients for years and they really suffer from Quality apps, every download has 17 different options for different processors and OS types, smartphone ,widescreen, qvga, vga, etc.. too many variables that if i downloaded 100 apps i would probably get 10% to run smoothly on the phone. I know apple has alot of shit too, but at least theres enough shit that youll find a random jem, you cant find something in a pile that doesnt exist.
Sure glad I bought a new Propel Pro when i broke my Blackjack 2 -- NOT.
"Why would i want to load beta software on my phone if im not developing for it?"
Oh please. If Apple offered iPhone OS 3.2 today, you're saying no one would want to use it? Yeah right, people would be going nuts over it. Engadget would have daily updates about how the new 3.2.1.2343.246576 version adds 8 pixels of white to the scrollbar.
seriously, this is the stuff that ms can come up with, on the date of your marketplace release? and 2 out of 3 criteria that they posted, is no, we don't have updates. then when I clicked on the one that said update may be available to you. I get a list of phones, with no release dates? and to top it off, I clicked on the common operator and manufacturer, it then takes me to their generic site with no 6.5 update?
typical fashion on how microsoft handle all windows mobile phones, and at that, a typical, and an utter FAIL.
pretty annoying you can't just upgrade any phone to the new OS, but i guess they have to take into consideration that most people get a new phone every 2 years and don't really need the update...
Windows Mobile 6.5.x is nothing more than a band aid on broken arm. Other than a few cosmetic changes to the OS, it’s really just the same ole Windows Mobile they have been repackaging and selling for several years. I truly wish them the best of luck with Windows Mobile 7 as it may be their last chance to recapture the mobile market. Meanwhile, Apple, Palm and Google continue tightening the noose.
can you upgrade? yes? maybe? no? sadly this is main reason why i hate buying a windows mobile phone
Anybody who can unlock a phone and flash a custom ROM can update to 6.5 on anything resembling a late-model phone. I've been running 6.5 on my touch pro for months with no reliability issues, period. I've also run TouchFlo 3D 2.1 and 2.5 (from the Leo) - take that Microsoft!
The biggest problem with Winmo is not the OS itself, but the pitiful effort carriers put into configuring it. Just look at what HTC can do, then check out what some individuals are capable of publishing for free (NRG roms for the TP, Diamond, TP2 are absolutely incredible).
If you just want a phone that can do some stuff, Winmo sucks. But if you want a computer that can make phonecalls, then Winmo is pretty much as good as it gets for now. Maybe Android, soon, but not quite yet, imho.
Interesting that the Palm Treo Pro isn't on this list, even though it's 6.1 and has plenty of cpu and memory to do it. Bummer! (guess it's true that Palm is only doing WebOS moving forward)
In our company we have Pre's, Pro's, and older Treos. I'd love to move to Pre's for the 700wx users, but not until the Voicemail issue is solved (Pre won't play .wav files sent via email from many voicemail systems, including ours).
Once that gets fixed - I'll be upgrading at least two 700wx users to Pre's or WinMo 6.5 devices - user's choice.
Only carrier we're currently interested in is Sprint - great service, great coverage, killer pricing for Small Business. My iPhone 3GS 32GB went to my wife as a hand me down - I need a reliable phone too much to use AT&T.
Aaron
http://www.varvid.com
Wooo Hoo!
My X1 gets the upgrade!
I still don't see what is wrong
I know for a fact that my phone only has 2003SE, 2 and 6.1 roms
Does microsoft ever make a chart easy to read, an upgrade easy to choose or a product easy to use? Par for the course.