Today we bring you the latest ROM review we’ve done here at PPCGeeks. Thanks to krazydude we have gotten some great insight on one of our Windows Mobile ROM developers work, the Touch Pro 2 Plutonium ROM by vin255764. Krazydude is here to share his own experience with the very popular Plutonium ROM.

You may have already seen, heard about or used this ROM yourself. Either way please take some time to really get to know what the ROM brings to your device.

1 ) What was your first impression when you first installed the CDMA Touch Pro 2 Vin Plutonium ROM by vin255764?
My phone is a world phone which can run both CDMA and GSM. So I use a GSM sim card on a CDMA phone. The first thing that i noticed was the speed at which I could operate the ROM. Also for me the most important aspect of any ROM is the stability while making and receiving calls.Vins ROM’s are outstanding as far as stability is concerned. I do not have to reboot the phone and I get very few SOD’s (or not at all) for days on end. This for me makes a good rom and Vins ROM’s never disappoint!!!

2 ) Can you give your input on the UI navigation/homescreen/buttons? What theme does it come with and how does it look?
Most of the time I use SPB mobile shell, which creates its own user interface. But the few times where I have not loaded SPB, I have always found Vins ROM’s to be asthetically appealing and functional. His programs are neatly stacked in folders and his ROM’s are very easy to navigate from. Also on the first boot as well, his choice of the WINDOWS BOOTUP ANIMATIONS are also very easy on the eyes and the color combinations (themes) used are very easy on the eyes as well.

3 ) How is battery life? (How much % drain per x minutes/does it noticeably drain in standby)
Battery life is also very good. I normally get 1-1.5 days on a single battery charge (though my usage is normal) I do use a lot of internet / phone / sms etc. on the phone and I would say that my usage is moderate – heavy. I have not noticed any noticeable drain in standby ever.

4 ) Does it have Sense UI or no Sense UI? If using Sense, is it CHT 1, 2 or no cookie?
I normally use the Titanium or Naked ROM builds of Vins (since I load SPB over and above). So the lighter the ROM (without sense / CHT) the better.

5 ) What are any specific applications that come with this ROM that you may not find on stock ROM’s?
Slacker Radio / provisioning utilities or cdma which I dont use

6 ) What is the bluetooth quality like on the device with this ROM? Were there any tweaks made in this ROM for that feature?
I’ve never had any problems using bluetooth with this ROM. I am not aware if Vin has actually made any tweaks on the bluetooth stack but if so, it must have helped in the overall functionality of bluetooth. My bluetooth usage is minimal though. I just use bluetooth to transfer a few files from my phone to my wives.

7 ) Can you describe how long boot time is? Does it take a while or is it pretty fast?
Boot time is pretty snappy. I also use Android on my phone and if the WM boot was slow I would never consider using android because I keep switching between the two. Boot time is normally around a minute (I’ve never timed it though) but its pretty snappy.

8 ) Can you describe RAM and ROM on 1st boot? (How much internal storage do you have after flash and RAM)
Immediately after the first flash I have around 175-200MB storage (depending if the ROM is plutonium or titanium or naked.) Ram is around 100MB on first boot which drops down to 70-80 after usage.

9 ) How well does the WiFi feature work on this ROM you use? Does it differentiate in any way from the stock WiFi features? Does it hold a strong network signal for you while in use?
I have not used a stock ROM since the first day I bought my phone so I can’t compare a stock ROM with a custom ROM. WiFi on this ROM is very stable and I have never had any complaints. I use my phone on WiFi at home and the office and I can say that the WiFi is very stable and fast.

10 ) What dialing options do you have available with this ROM? Can you give us details or screenshots?
Vins ROM comes with stock dialer options but he does give us skinning options (bling devotion dialer skins here.) These can be added to your rom to customize them to you liking. In fact, if you read the first page of vins ROM’s you have a lot of customization options and I love vins ROM’s for that reason as well.

That’s the end of this ROM review geeks and we hope you enjoyed learning what you may not have known already. If you own a TP2 and haven’t tried this ROM, what are you waiting for? If you have, that’s awesome! We hope to hear from you! Be sure to hop into our TP2 section and check out the official post and information on this development.

Welcome to another edition of the PPCGeek Spotlight where we get enlightening perspectives and great insight from well known community members, developers and leaders. In this edition we highlight a highly respected and talented Touch Pro 2 Windows Mobile ROM developer here at PPCGeeks.com, Sharkie405. Take a look at the biography followed by a Q&A with Sharkie405 below.

Biography with Sharkie405

I was born and raised in Miami, Fl. I moved to Durham, NC about 6 years ago where I still reside with my girlfriend of 3 years. I’m 35 years old. One of the things I miss most about Miami is being so close to the ocean. I love to scuba dive, snorkel and just be in the ocean. One of my favorite things about the ocean is of course, sharks! Ever since I was a little boy, I’ve loved sharks. I love everything about sharks. I have a great white tattoo on my right shoulder that’s my pride and joy!

I never had any training on anything computer related and none of the jobs I’ve had were computer related at all. The only class I took in highschool was a typing class that used typewriters! My girl likes to make fun of me for that. I guess these days that is pretty old. So, needless to say, when I first started to tinker with all of this stuff, I may have well have been reading a foreign language. People would say “look in your Windows directory” and I’d be like, directory? What is that? Come to find out that’s what folders are called!! Who knew!! LOL, I didn’t. That’s just one tiny example of how far I’ve come.

I also try to remember that it wasn’t too long ago that I was a TOTAL noob. I try to answer everyone’s questions and not get caught up in that ‘holier than thou’ attitude that seems to pervade some threads.

I didn’t used to be a ‘phone’ person. I was perfectly happy to have my crappy flip whatever phone. Then a friend sold me an HTC Mogul that he had laying around the house and it was on! I was introduced to the wonderful world of WM! I never got ballsy enought to flash a custom ROM on the mogul but I cabbed the heck of it. You know, Manila 2D the whole nine yards. Then, I stepped on my Mogul one day and, thanks to Asurion, became the proud owner of an HTC Touch Pro! That’s when it really started going!

Q&A with Sharkie405

1 ) How did you find PPCGeeks?
I came across PPCGeeks while using Google Search to search for mods for my mogul. Any google search with anything WM or Manila related will definitely bring up a PPC Geeks thread or two.

2) What projects are you currently working on, if any other than ROM’s?
I’m not currently working on any projects other than my ROM.

3) Have you worked with designing your own themes for ROM’s or do you have help?
I have not worked with anyone else to create my ROM theme. My theme is a mix of a several different themes and my own work combined for a sophisticated yet colorful, “I mean business”, but “I can play too!” overall look and feel of the ROM.

4) When you became interested in ROM development were there any users specifically that you would like to say contributed to your knowledge and success?
Oh man! There are sooooo many! You could probably safely say like all of XDA and PPCGeeks! But if I had to pick out of a few special ones, they’d have to be:

Raidzero: His kitchen was the first one I used and he was always there to answer all of my stupid questions!

Lat and jbradthomas: They were users of RZ’s kitchen and continued to teach me after RZ moved on to Android.

All the guys and gals from the Collaboration Kitchen Thread: These guys just killed it! It was/is a great collection of WM best people and all their work and knowledge is scattered throughout that thread.

Rootlinux: He was always there with great cooking advice!

5) You currently only cook for Windows Mobile right? Do you plan on moving towards the Android or Windows Phone 7 operating system?
I’m not sure yet. Once upon a time I would have said WP7, but in hind sight, I’m not all that impressed which leaves me with Android, one day…maybe. For the moment WM 6.5.X is still going via the name WEH (Windows Embedded Handheld). So there’s still more fun to be had with WM and that’s what I intend to do!

6) Have you ever considered tweaking the iPhone OS?
No, I have no interest in apple.

7) You have built several WM Rom’s. Which one would you say is the most successful and used ROM?
The most downloaded ROMs are always the 6.5.X Sprint ROMs. Most people these days prefer the finger friendliness of 6.5.X and I guess there are just a lot of Sprint users that frequent these threads.

8 ) Have you ever created ROM’s for GSM devices or do you strictly work with CDMA only?
I’ve never owned a GSM phone and so I’ve never built a GSM ROM.

9) Do you work with kitchens when building ROM’s or do you use certain tools? Can you explain?
Yes, my ROM is built using a kitchen. The kitchen I use was originally an Evirus Visual Kitchen. Then it was turned into a Calkulin Kitchen and then it was modified further by the Collaboration Kitchen folks, and then of course it has been turned into my kitchen. The kitchen I use (and most kitchens, I believe) came with a lot of the tools needed to build a ROM. Basically you can build a simple ROM with any kitchen probably, but the more you want to do and the more you learn you can do, the more tools you will need to accomplish these new things and ideas.

10) What are some examples of tools you need to be familiar with when building a WM ROM?
Tools (other than the kitchen) that I would say are needed to make a WM ROM are: Notepad, some sort of cab editor (I use WinCE Cab Editor), a registry editor, EXT_Packages_rebuilder, Packages Creator, rgu-2-xml, XmltoReg, Recmod, M9Editor and cfc-gui, LuaScript, a *.dll editor, a *.dsm editor and I’m sure there are more that I can’t think of right now.

Aside from those necessary tools, I also use Photoshop and/or Gimp2 on regular basis. These are really only necessary for skinning.

11) Do you name your ROM’s individually or by device type? How do you categorize them?
I name my ROMs with simple names based on what they are. They are all “SharkieROMs”. I just add the necessary info. to them such as” “6.5.X Generic SharkieROM v4.5”. I’d thought about naming them different names of sharks that I like, but I figured it’d just be easier all around if I kept it simple.

They are categorized by Build style, whether they are 6.5 or 6.5.X and by Carrier. One is generic for any carrier and one is Sprint specific with a couple of Sprint specific Sense tabs.

12) What is your main goal/focus when building a ROM for any device? Do you shoot for faster speeds, smoother functionality, better battery life, etc.?
I would have to say my no. 1 one goal is stability. I think if one works towards that goal a lot of the other things will fall in line like speed and battery life and what not. I also put a lot of energy and focus into the look and feel of my ROM. It’s definitely evolved into quite a unique look and one that I think is easily recognizable as a SharkieROM.

13) Do you spend a lot of time building a single ROM? How much time does it take to get one going from the ground up?
It’s hard to guage how long it takes to build a ROM since all the work is in the kitchen. That work is an ongoing process and has been built of over long periods of time.

14) 14 ) Do you get great support from the users who use your ROM’s? Do they give you great tips and suggestions?
I get fantastic support from the users of my ROM! They have helped my ROM become the great piece of work that it is today. They are always bringing new ideas to the table and letting me know of any issues that may arise. I also have great group of people beta testing that also provide invaluable feedback.

15) PPCGeeks appreciates any ROM developers who enjoy helping others and benefiting others needs and wants. Do you feel like PPCGeeks is a great place of support and interaction for the hobby you’ve chosen?
Yes, I do feel that PPC Geeks is a great place for support with this hobby of ours! When it comes to CDMA phones, there’s no place I’d rather be!

Geeks, that’s the end of the spotlight with Sharkie405 and we hope you gained some insight or found answers to questions you may have had before reading this. Have you used his Touch Pro 2 ROM’s before or are you still using them? If so, leave some comments and share your appreciation with him below. If you haven’t tried one yet, what are you waiting for? If you still own a WM For now, leave your comments in the boxes below.

OK so for you Touch Pro 2 users out there, how ever many faithful followers there may still be running stock! Now that is key STOCK Rom… It appears that HTC has issued a small update to the People Application. It is supposed to add stability to the Application itself. While this is a small update it should be noted that you can grab it here.

This update is for the People application on devices with ROM versions between 2.00.xxx.x and 2.10.xxx.x. Details are not shared, but you should expect a smooth, bug-free experience.

Then connect and synchronize the phone with your PC via Microsoft ActiveSync or Windows Mobile Device Center using the USB cable and copy the downloaded file to the Touch Pro2. Start the file on your phone and follow the on-screen instructions.

Source: intomobile.com

After Reading the forums at https://www.ppcgeeks.com it didn’t take users long to realize that the HSPL was the cause of the ROMs hang, or was it the ROM its self? Well its both.  Users soon figured out that if you flash back to a stock bootloader the MR2 update would boot no issues. Then shortly after this another user Nightraven from PPCGeeks decided to do what any chef would do in a no boot situation and start digging into the xip and the drivers associated with booting the OS. he or She discovered that one of the OEM XIP Kernel drivers was to blame, specifically OEM_FLASHDRV_1.DLL. Removing this and while you’re at it you may as well remove OEM_FLASHDRV.DLL and also edit them and any reference to an extended rom out of the boot registry, will in fact allow you to recook and boot the ROM successfully.

Is this all just a sad coincidence that many users have to relock to flash this rom, is it poor rom building on HTC/Verizon’s part? Was this intentional? No one is really sure.  It’s up for dispute as no one has any facts to be honest.

Now here is my take on this, my diagnosis of the issue if you want to call it that.  Now part of this is based on an educated guess as I’m not a SPL expert.  OEM_FLASHDRV.DLL and OEM_FLASHDRV_1.DLL appear to be drivers for an extended ROM. I’m not sure why they are included because they are not needed by the device at all to function properly nor are any of the carriers appearing to deploy and use an extended ROM partition for their software customizations.  No chefs that I know of are taking advantage of the EXT partition “proses” and this makes these drivers and there reference to boot up with the XIP/Kernel and launch useless.  Now my speculation is that for some reason when the OS boots its halting and most likely has something to do with the driver and looking if an EXT ROM exists.  My theory is that for some reason the HSPL causes this proses to malfunction causing a no boot situation.  This is the first time I’ve personally seen a OS have issues booting from a HSPL flashed device so your guess is as good as mine if this is even the right theory, but its a pretty good guess as to whats gumming up the works.

There was enough users on the forums reporting issues that I took it upon my self to dump the ROM,  clean out the xip of the above DLL files, removed all EXT ROM reference, made it tethering safe, added in a HTC task manager, Added in Wifi Router, replaced the D3D driver with a better preforming one and put in a driver patch that will stop the SOD (sleep of death) from occurring.  Basically i made this ROM the way it SHOULD have been shipped out.

The last two sense 2.5 updates pushed out by HTC for the Touch Pro 2 seemed to be a mess in some way, the Sprint MR1 is a mess, even the device name in active sync partinership in the Sprint MR1  has a damn typo in it.  Looks like some one is dropping the ball these days.

As promised above here is the FIXED version of the Verizon Wireless MR2 Touch Pro 2 Rom Upgrade.

Download