Filed under: OS Updates, Features, Windows Mobile
How to downgrade a Dell Axim X50v the hard way
Last week we let you know about an amazing hack that brings Windows Mobile 6 to the Dell Axim X50v. What makes this hack so amazing is the fact that Dell has no plans that we're aware of to offer Windows Mobile 6 for this discontinued PDA. In fact, Dell's Windows Mobile 5.0 "upgrade" for the X50v was pretty widely panned for being buggy and slow.Windows Mobile 6 runs better than Windows Mobile 5.0 on the X50v. But there are still some problems. After a week of playing with Windows Mobile 6 on our crash test unit, we got tired of occasional slow downs and the constant need to reinstall programs that had mysteriously stopped working. So we decided to downgrade to Windows Mobile 2003SE, the operating system that originally shipped with the Axim X50v, which runs like a dream.
Here's how it's supposed to work. First, you reinstall Windows Mobile 5.0 using a Dell utility. Then you use another Dell utility to reinstall Windows Mobile 2003SE. If only it were so simple. After the jump we'll tell you about some of the hurdles we faced and how we overcame them.
After spending the better part of an hour on 