Wednesday, May 25, 2005

Registry Fun with Windows Mobile 2003

So I recently got an Audiovox SMT5600, except that mine was shipped in from over sea's. I hooked it up with Cingular service here in Washington state, it works great. However, the phone that I had wasn't programmed to understand the Cingular network, it said "31041" instead of "Cingular" as the service on the screen.

Lucky for me I got to be friends with the guys in the Cingular store who told me it's just a simple registry edit that I could do if I have the time...

If I have the time?

I am a geek and nothing would make me happier than dig around in the SmartPhone registry. So naturally I found the PHM Registry Editor. It's free, it install's easy, and it's also easy to use.

One warning here is editing the registry can seriously mess up your phone, so be EXTRA careful!!

Once installed, I opened it and browsed to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\RIL\OperatorNames, then clicked the Values button. I created a key called "31041" (the string for the home network). Inside the key I simply typed, using T9, "Cingular Wireless". Then rebooted the phone. Whamo! Now my home screen says "Cingular Wireless" instead of "31041"!

Pretty sweet Eh?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Regardless of the 32041 or Cingular Wireless network description, does your phone show it as roaming?

Sean Daniel said...

Only if I'm on the AT&T network, which isn't infact roaming... sigh

Adam said...

Great tip. It seems that the PHM tool is gone, at least the link isn't working. Instead I found this: http://www.torchsoft.com/en/rw_information.html. The trial version lets you connect to your smartphone registry from Windows.

I found your post because I'm trying to connect to 31041 in Seattle. No luck yet. Also, nice choice of Blogger template.

Sean Daniel said...

You needn't fear, it appears that later releases of Windows Mobile have Registry editors on them.... or maybe that's just how my phone shipped.. {sigh} the carriers have all the control.

Anonymous said...

Hi Sean, followed your steps but didnt get it done here. Created new key but under 'values' we have varoius parameters.. is it dword?
Two columns, where did you wrote 'cingular'?
Thanks
eduardo
bell212@bol.com.br

Sean Daniel said...

I believe it's a string value.