Touch Pro2 advanced tweaking

I have used the Touch Pro2 for almost a week.. I have lived with the ROM in its default naked splendour for as long as it took me to write the reviews. I couldn’t resist having a peek in the registry now they are finished!

I am a self confessed power user. The changes i am about to make have been tested, and used by me.. but neither I, nor Tracyandmatt.co.uk will take ANY responsibility for any damage and / or void of warranty that may incur! As a general rule, if you mess up your registry, you may need to hard reset your device to get it working. Worse case scenario, you will reduce your brand new device to a paperweight, or have it locked due to an Exchange admin that doesn’t allow any registry to be tampered with!

The essentials:

SPB Backup or similar. (trial available)
Registry Editor (for editing directly on the device Freeware)
Remote Registry Editor 1.2 (for editing the devices registry on your PC Freeware)
Advanced Configuration Tool (Freeware)
Microsoft .NET compact Framework 3.5

First things first. Some of the stuff that I am about to show you can be done in other ways! There are settings in the Windows Mobile 6.1 menus that you can set. I am doing this using a fresh install, with no additional programs or tweaks. All i have done is connected it to exchange, and configured my 3g connection. Some of these tweaks may also work for the Diamond2, or other HTC devices.

The backup has already been done: so lets start by updating the .NET Compact Framework:
The download is around 40meg, but only installs a cab that’s about 4mb pre-reboot, and about 1mb after.

Next I install the registry editor, and Advanced configuration tool. I have also extracted the remote registry editor to a folder on my desktop (no install needed!)

Firing up the configuration tool. And a big heads up to Julien Schapman from http://www.touchxperience.com/ for this excellent tools.
If you get this error, then go back and follow the instructions again!

You are greeted with the warning screen and you can tick the box after you have read the warning, and hit OK. You are then greeted with the initial screen.

The amount of setting in here that can be changed is mind blowing!

There is a TON of configurations in this tool! pretty much anything that you want to change can be done relatively safely from within the interface. Green means default, a changed setting shows in RED. The Menu option “More Settings” hides a few more as well!

The First thing I change is the cab warning setting, under miscellaneous.

This doesn’t warn me anymore if the CAB file that I am about to install has not been signed by the Mother ship. Luckily HTC and Microsoft allow unsigned apps to be installed, but do give you a “are you really sure” warning. Your provider MAY disable the ability to install unsigned applications, and out of respect to those providers, I am not going to show you how to unlock that feature directly. Please use Google in this case first, then come back.

The next setting that I like to change is under Phone settings, The call history cleanup. I always set that to never, as I tend to get more than 300 calls a month!

I personally also enable EONS, as I tend to find the info useful, however.. I am a geek!

Next is the GPS Setting, and enabling assisted GPS

Onto Messaging, and enabling the sent SMS message. I only activate this because i am paranoid about people actually receiving SMS’s and I always enable the delivery notifications as well. Better to be safe than sorry!

That’s all i really change with this tool, actually more to the point, that’s all i am willing to change at this stage. There are a few other bits in there that i am interested in, mainly power management, but until i have time to road test them I am not touching anything!

Time for a soft reset. then on with the tweaking.

Whilst the device is rebooting, Time to fire up the remote registry tool! This tool is great! It was designed by a company called Breaksoft, who seem to have just disappeared off the web. So the download file listed above is hosted on my server for download. It allows you to use the normal keyboard and mouse of your PC to edit the registry via Active sync or Windows Mobile Device Centre. You need to attach via cable, or its slow!

I mainly use the registry to “unlock” new camera modes on the HTC Touch Pro2

The settings are found in Mobile Device\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\HTC\Camera

Now.. those settings P1 – P10 are camera modes. I activate them ALL, by going in to each one and making sure that the key “Enable” is set to “1”

Burst
Mobile Device\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\HTC\Camera\P6
Sports
Mobile Device\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\HTC\Camera\P8
Video Share
Mobile Device\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\HTC\Camera\P9
GPS Photo
Mobile Device\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\HTC\Camera\P10

Change this key from 0 to 1 to enable the mode!

Another reboot, and lets view the changes.

The Burst option takes 30 pictures in quick succession.
The Sports Option Takes 5 pictures in REALLY quick succession.
The video share configures automatically for sending via email

The GPS Photo starts GPS tagging