Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition update for Toshiba users

[Brad Isaac]

Geekzone found some news about a download link that will be made available for Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition updates for Toshiba e800 users. They also indicate the update will be free!
"Toshiba has posted a link to an upcoming file with a ROM update for the Toshiba e800 Pocket PC. The link points to a file wmo2k3seup-e800-wmo2k3se-en.zip and the description says "no file yet" and it's dated 23 April 2004. On a recent event I attended the presenter told the audience this update would be made available free of charge."

[jkendrick]

I posted that on Tools several days ago.. It's not changed and is apparently an internal Toshiba page that someone found out and publicized. I know that because the instructions for one of the files has an install tag and a note that this is a secret code that you should never tell customer as they will know that the ROM image can be installed in any major language of his choice.
Of equal interest however is the last ROM image on that page which is the current WM2003 ROM image. Downloading this gives the user a "way back" from SE if they decide they don't like it. Toshiba historically has never provided a way back from ROM updates.

[rodrigo]

so, in other words, there is no news about this download becoming available any time soon huh.

[kamikun]

THE NEW PHONE BOOKS ARE HERE! THE NEW PHONE BOOKS ARE HERE!
(/old school comedy reference)
Check JKendrick's site. The update is here. Now. Go. Run. You know you want it!
There are seperate files for bluetooth and WiFi versions of the e80x. Be sure to get the right one. Initial reports from those who have installed the update seem very positive.
I wanna back up a few directories before I do this but please... as they say in Japan
osaki ni dozo... and tell us how it goes!
here's the link from PocketPCTools:
http://www.toshiba-tro.de/unitdetail...nguage=English
UPDATE:
Here's the discussion thread from the wm2003se guiena pigs over at brighthand. Confidence is high, repeat: confidence is high. Looks like a keeper!
UPDATE PART DEUX:
Here's the discussion thread over at JKendrick's place. The early adopters look to be echoing what those other guys are saying... "It's teh kewl!"

[kamikun]

Well, there's one dissatisfied customer over at PPCTools but it's early yet. The $64 question is whether MyVGA will still work with the new OS while the new OS allows you to bump up the size of everything.
Myself? I'm waiting for some screenshots.
UPDATE: One user is reporting that MyVGA with SE produces a system freeze that requires a hard reset.
Looks like we'll have to wait for a new version if we want to see our cake in VGA and eat it too.

[kamikun]

Upon further review... it's looking more like a fumble.
Brighthand users are seriously unhappy with SE. There is no, none, nashi, nada VGA ability in the new OS. Everything... EVERYTHING (including netfront 3.1 for the e800) is coming up in QVGA.
The system performance specs are down. Battery life is reduced. VGA out in the presentation pack has been removed... and these are just the downside notes in Toshiba's own readme file.
WM2003se seems to give e800 users nothing more than the standard QVGA PPC experience albeit with pretty, high-definition icons.
All we really wanted was for MS to allow us to change the font sizes in wm2003. That was it. There were workarounds for everything else.
If you enjoy VGA functionality in ANY of your apps you had better consider giving this upgrade a pass for now. At least until the wizards working on MyVGA can pull another rabbit out of their hat.

[sracer]

What I don't understand is why people are directing their complaints at Microsoft. It isn't Microsoft that required VGA specs. That is something that Toshiba developed on their own. People are also forgetting that it takes a 3rd party app, MyVGA to harness the "power" of VGA.
It is Toshiba's responsibility to develop drivers for their hardware-specific options. And in typical Toshiba fashion, they fumbled.
Some are already saying that the future VGA offerings by ASUS and HP will be equally useless. I disagree. I believe that they will provide the proper drivers and support to make 2003SE operate as expected.
Ah, the price of being bleeding-edge... higher prices for the device itself, and limited compatibility with upgrades.

[rodrigo]

shit. i was only going to download it for the vga. so is the consensus that this download is a waste?

[kamikun]

Roddie:
*tsk tsk* You kiss your mother with that mouth? :?
Seriously, the mods wanna keep this a "family" rated site I think. For expressions of anger, disgust, frustration, unexpected hard-resetting, etc. try to stick with the traditional, "#&%$'!"
And the answer to your question is a qualified "maybe." For now just hold off and see if anything develops out of the MyVGA camp. I don't think I'll be using this upgrade until more apps are SE-aware, as Kendrick puts it.

[rodrigo]

so thats why me mum doesnt kiss me!

[jkendrick]

Originally Posted by sracer

What I don't understand is why people are directing their complaints at Microsoft. It isn't Microsoft that required VGA specs. That is something that Toshiba developed on their own. People are also forgetting that it takes a 3rd party app, MyVGA to harness the "power" of VGA.
It is Toshiba's responsibility to develop drivers for their hardware-specific options. And in typical Toshiba fashion, they fumbled.
Some are already saying that the future VGA offerings by ASUS and HP will be equally useless. I disagree. I believe that they will provide the proper drivers and support to make 2003SE operate as expected.
Ah, the price of being bleeding-edge... higher prices for the device itself, and limited compatibility with upgrades.

I have been rather busy today and haven't been able to stop by and chat about SE. Seems like everybody's in a dither- even those who don't have Toshibas. It's certainly been funny watching and listening to the two camps, love SE/ hate SE, entrench for the coming battle.
I think bashing Toshiba is mis-placed. SE is running on the e800 just like it will run on the ASUS and HP. I have tried dozens of apps and utilities now and I'm confident that statement will hold up. SE is running on the Toshiba just like it was written by MS. It's no surprise, or at least it shouldn't be, that few apps are SE ready. I'm not going to bash anybody for that either. That's the price early adopters always pay and this is no different.
Landscape works well for the most part and let's face it that's the major change that users want, both QVGA and VGA. It's a natural for web browsing. There's only two things I have been using landscape for on the e800 and that's web browsing and keyboard work with TextMaker. Unfortunately, TextMaker doesn't work well in SE and not at all in landscape so we'll just have to wait for an update for that. The other is web browsing but I've always used Netfront for that as PIE is so slow in landscape and doesn't allow you to view the web page like on the desktop. Unfortunately Netfront doesn't work well in SE so we'll have to wait on that, too. PIE doesn't work well in VGA and there's no real excuse for that. SE recognizes it's a VGA screen but won't format the web page for it. That's not Toshiba, that's MS. MS has stated that SE is VGA ready. It's not, at least the internal apps. They display just like in QVGA, only higher resolution. That's a failure in my book. Programs should display differently on different resolution devices. SE scales everything so they don't.
There will be no need for VGA devices with SE as there will be very little difference, other than clarity. That's not the way things should work at the OS level.

[knelson]

funny about the mother reference, I have a 13 yr old and his friends and him are doing the mother jokes... and they think they are originals. They are the same from over 30 yrs ago when I was his age....
Actually I was hoping that once you Toshiba (ers) have this update loaded those of us in the dark could get some serious reviews. So far nothing that makes me want to go get a se device. The battery life issue is alarming since I have a serious battery life issue with my 3950... gets about 2 hours now...

[Addic]

Jeez I almost feel redundant, it appears the forums are 'self-moderating'. Hmmmm! either that or I'm just slow.
Anyway I guess Rodrigo has been slapped on the wrist enough .
I must admit it's a bit of a blow, but not (unfortunately) surprising to hear about the issues with WM2003se.
Reminds me of a joke (bear with me): Bill Gates and Henry Ford were having a conversation (artistic license imposed).
BG with a bit of a condesending sneer "You know Henry, if you designed cars as I design PC's O/s You should have a car that can:
Travel 500 miles on a gallon of fuel
Travel at speeds approaching mach1
Cost on average less than a family of fours weekly grocery shopping".
HF Replies innocently "If I designed cars as you build o/s:
The cars would be to large for the garage due to compatible issues
When parked over night the car would be stripped of pieces due to insufficient security features
The cars wouldn't travel more than 2 miles before requiring a jumpstart
and
I don't believe winding the window closed and opening it again would really help much".
Another one is: If Architects designed properties the way programmers design software....... would you live in a purpose designed house or work in a purpose designed office?
So I guess we'll have to wait and see how soon Microsoft release an update for WM2003se.

[rodrigo]

okay okay all, i am terribly sorry for using excrement to describe my feelings but i was pretty excited about se then pretty disappointed by the postings. i apologize and i promise never to cuss in here again (though i will verbally slew a stream of obscenities as i type).
seriously though. could it be that toshiba released this as a beta? maybe they're still working on it which is why it hasn't been released on the public website? something to hope for?
what do you guys think?

[jkendrick]

The OS is produced by MS, not Toshiba. Toshiba just makes sure that any added h/w works and has drivers. I believe this update will function the same on all the VGA devices soon to be released.
It's important to remember what MS is hoping to accomplish with this OS. The OS must work on all devices whether QVGA or VGA. The way they chose to do this is basically to make the GUI look the same no matter what the native resolution of the device is. To accomodate VGA resolutions devices they added the hooks for s/w developers to include HiDPI resources for their programs that will be very sharp and good looking while essentially leaving the rest of the screen alone. They then added pixel doubling so that QVGA only programs would attempt to run on VGA resolution screens. They accomplished this as every QVGA only program at least ran full screen under SE.
The only reason there is an uproar with this update is because Toshiba took a chance last year and released a true VGA device with limited VGA functionality because the OS didn't support VGA. The user community saw the potential for true VGA and wrote some utilities to enable true VGA in the whole OS. Users have seen the light with true VGA and there are some who feel that the SE way of providing VGA falls short. Others really like it and think it's a big improvement. AS with all things PPC users are different and want different things which keeps it all interesting and fun.
I personally have taken SE off my e805 because several key applications I depend on every day in my daily (real) work do not work well at all under SE and will have to be updated. When they are I'll probably reinstall SE.

[rodrigo]

okay then do you think that deez or others who wrote vga apps will update these apps to work with se?
i haven't upgraded because i was hoping that toshiba was going to address vga isssues when they released the public version. i guess i am deluding myself.
my question then is whether i should upgrade and hope resfix comes out with a patch or wait until the public toshiba release.

[ObiWan_Kanobi]

Hi All,
In case anybody is interested
I Have just noticed that Windows Mobile 2003 SE is now on Toshiba's UK Download Page for the E800 as of the 26th may 2004.
Regards
ObiWan Kanobi

[sracer]

Originally Posted by jkendrick

I think bashing Toshiba is mis-placed. SE is running on the e800 just like it will run on the ASUS and HP. I have tried dozens of apps and utilities now and I'm confident that statement will hold up. SE is running on the Toshiba just like it was written by MS. It's no surprise, or at least it shouldn't be, that few apps are SE ready. I'm not going to bash anybody for that either. That's the price early adopters always pay and this is no different.

Not exactly true, yet. Unless HP and ASUS have made their version of SE available on a VGA device, we really don't know if it will run the same. Toshiba can certainly be criticized for prematurely releasing an upgrade that doesn't take full advantage of their hardware.
Perhaps it was a deliberate "face saving" move by Toshiba to show that they WILL be offering an upgrade.

[jkendrick]

Originally Posted by sracer

Not exactly true, yet. Unless HP and ASUS have made their version of SE available on a VGA device, we really don't know if it will run the same. Toshiba can certainly be criticized for prematurely releasing an upgrade that doesn't take full advantage of their hardware.
Perhaps it was a deliberate "face saving" move by Toshiba to show that they WILL be offering an upgrade.

I've spoken to several people using early versions of the ASUS and SE is running the same for them. Bear in mind I'm not saying there's anything wrong with SE- with apps that support it it looks very good. I'm just saying there's no need to bash Toshiba for it. The OS philosophy is trying to make all resolution devices look more or less the same and it does this well. It's just not true VGA that we've come to expect.
Imagine running your desktop WindowsXP at 800x600 for a while and then you change your resolution to 1024x768. You'd expect the amount of information to display to increase because your physical monitor is the same. What SE does is take that 800x600 and increase the resolution but not how much info is displayed. It deliberately causes the UI to look basically the same on all devices regardless of display. There's nothing wrong with that- it's just not taking advantage of the new hardware that's coming out with VGA screens.

[bkbroil]

Wow, I can't believe I missed this whole thread over the past two days....I guess I've had my head up my *&%.
Anyhoo, my two cents....I think Toshiba is doing a fine job of getting the OS out first...and their customer support has been outstanding....(I just had my screen fixed and returned all within a three day period...for free)
I don't think Microsoft is going to address VGA until it becomes a bit more mainstream...and in that case...it may never...
Myself, I'm not upgrading to SE..thanks to everyone on this forum informing me of all the goings on at PPCTools and Brighthand..
I say stick with the old OS for now and take advantage of MyVGA and TodayTaskMaster for overclocking....What more do you need?

[amix]

Originally Posted by jkendrick

I personally have taken SE off my e805 because several key applications I depend on every day in my daily (real) work do not work well at all under SE and will have to be updated. When they are I'll probably reinstall SE.

Hi,
What was taking it off like? Could you provide a step by step guide at all please? This is my first PPC (e800) as I've been a Palm supporter for years. I was quite dissapointed when my video adapter no longer worked under SE.
Thanks,
Amix

[jkendrick]

Well, I have since put SE back on my Toshiba as all the programs I use now have SE versions. To take SE off you need to reflash your device with the original ROM. The process works just like the upgrade to SE and is painless except for the hard reset part and installing all your programs again. I don't have a link to the original ROM handy but if you search on Tools you should be able to find it with little trouble.

[Brad Isaac]

Amix,
Have you looked for updated versions of your programs?