Pocketpc 2003 & HP

[Stevie]

Having bought an Ipaq 3970 late last month and from what I've seen on the web it seemed like I'd be entitled to a free upgrade to Pocketpc 2003. Upgrade supposedly free if you bought between 23 May 2003 and November 2003. Free turns out to be $15.99 to cover incidentals.



The HP US site goes into details of what is available, how much etc and I clicked through several pages expecting to be able to claim the upgrade. I got inked to an MS web site requiring a login as a new user and found it did not cover Europe, grrrr. So off I went the HP UK site which direct most of your Ipaq queries to the US site.



So I sent off an email to support in the UK and get told:



"Unfortunately the upgrade is not available within the UK. We are unable to advise if this product will be available for the UK. Sorry for any inconvenience caused."



Bring back Compaq.

[MikeB]

Same here I waited for the 26th as mentioned on the US site and nothing happened. This morning the page had been updated with the US customer details. Other clients were directed to contry specific site.



After blundering around a very poor navigation system on the UK site and being dumped back to the US site a few times I gave up and phoned them.



The response that I got was that there are currently no plans to release the upgrade at the moment. It should be available in a few months time. Please check the web site again in about 2 months.



Not that I want to rant and rave (again) but I bought my 5450 having sold my 3870 in the hopes that it would have evolved. Wrong!! There are so many more undocumented features (read bugs) in this machine than ever before. Not only are HP slow at putting fixes out for this hardware, the ones they do dont work. I cant use the latest ROM patch.



Sorry I wasnt going to Rant and Rave.
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Mike Barrett

[Stevie]

I was going to sell my Ipaq 3870 (for around £200) to pay for the 3970 I bought but I might actually try a Linux install on it as it looks quite good.



I've been looking at doing some simple business apps for work but coding on Pocketpc seems a bit expensive. At least Linux should be free.

[Parky]

Totally agree with what's said above, it's a disgrace the way you get the run around on both the HP and Microsoft site before you realise that there is not an apgrade for UK customers. Do these giants think that we are that far behind, or backward in the UK that we do not want the latest upgrades for our purchases. They sell the hardware, why not let us upgrade it.



There, that's off my chest.



Regards

Alan

[DavidW]

Stevie - unless you want to write using .NET, coding on Pocket PC is free. The SDKs and C++ compilers for 'native code' for both Pocket PC 2002 code (which will run on Pocket PC 2003) and those for Pocket PC 2003 only code are available for free download from MSDN.



Linux, meanwhile, I thought was mainly for older iPAQs. I wasn't aware of a version for 3800 series hardware, but maybe one has been developed now. I believe the boot loader technology changed in the 3800 series onwards, which may be significant.





Everyone - at the moment, the upgrade situation is a mess.



There's no way for people in the US to order the chargeable upgrades yet from HP unless it's changed since I checked yesterday. You can get into the online store from the link on the upgrade page, but the upgrade kits just aren't there. I expect when they become available to order in the US, we will have to look to HP UK to start taking orders very soon afterwards follows in making the upgrades available and if they don't, that's the time to show them we're not happy!



The HP instructions are clear that we have to check our HP country site. They're also clear that no upgrades are going to ship before the middle of next month (and October for 3800 series users). It could be that those entitled to a 'free' upgrade (which is, in the US, actually just over half the cost of the chargeable upgrade to cover shipping and handling) are allowed to order first and have their kits shipped first.





The 'technology program' - in other words, the 'free' upgrades, has been dogged by problems. microsoft.public.pocketpc is full of reports from American iPAQ owners who've found their serial numbers rejected by the site. That is Microsoft's problem, seemingly.





It would be nonsense for HP to announce some of the language versions they have if the upgrade is then not to be available outside the Americas.



I suspect that, for now, the ordering processes for chargeable upgrades are not in place in any country - and until they are, we can only wait. I think the time to get upset is if HP US starts taking upgrade orders and HP UK doesn't follow within a few days. When HP US start taking orders, hopefully we can get a part number or order code to take to the UK people.





I should be OK if the upgrade is not sold in the UK; I have many friends in the US who would order it for me and post it (I'm after a chargeable upgrade - I bought my 3970 in September last year), but that's not the point. It shouldn't be that hard to order! I do believe HP will get this right in the end - it's a shame they hadn't sorted it out earlier, that's all.





Occam's razor says, essentially, that we should, in the absence of anything to the contrary, take the simplest explanation. Right now, I believe that is simply that they haven't got this sorted out yet rather than them having taken policy decisions, without even beginning to take US orders and judge the interest, to not bother distributing the upgrade kits in the UK. Having developed it, they may as well make the most money out of it that they can!









David

[Dave]

I think also remembering back to the Pocket PC 2002 OS upgrade, it came out in the states several months prior to the UK, and when it did come out, there was a huge shortage of upgrade CD's.



I'm confident it will come out, if people aren't prepared to upgrade to a new device, then it's an extra revenue generator, if it's only a small amount, multiply that by millions of purchases, it's still revenue. I think there will be restrictions, you probably won't be able to install the whole lot into ROM on a 3800 iPAQ.

[DavidW]

It would be sad if they can't get CD kits produced quickly enough (even if they do need Microsoft licence labels). How long does it take a record company to get an extra quarter million pressed?



It wouldn't surprise me, though, if the upgrade arrives here later than in the US. It would be disappointing - though I suppose we must temper that disappointment with the hope that others will find the incompatibilities and do the ranting at companies about hardware that needs new drivers and software that needs upgrading!





Whilst I can understand shipping CDs to get all the new bits and pieces, I'm surprised that a mechanism can't be found to download the new ROM and the required installer online when you place your order online by credit card. You can get ActiveSync 3.7 from the Microsoft site - surely that and the ROM is all you need.



(Though HP has talked about shipping Outlook XP with the upgrade kit, when this was queried in microsoft.public.pocketpc, a guy that has an iPAQ 2210 said that he had no problem using Outlook 2000 SP3 with ActiveSync 3.7 and his Pocket PC 2003 iPAQ - so Outlook XP appears not to be required).





I downloaded Windows 2000 SP4 to evaluate and probably deploy on my systems here last night - just over 110MB. A Pocket PC ROM and installer is more like 15-20MB compressed (the 3970 2.10 ROM is just under 15MB). Upgrade ROMs are made available for download all the time, anyway.



Further, I can't see that making the new ROM available for secure download will increase the risk of it turning up on warez channels that much - unless they're going for some very intricate copy protection on the CD (which the warez d00dz will probably enjoy cracking anyway). I don't support warez and won't use them. The upgrade is likely to cost so little anyway - if only we could order it!



They could even enlist the support of an outfit like Handango - after all, Microsoft sells some Pocket PC software through Handango already (the game paks).



I guess I'm just wishing in a rather futile fashion...





It's also of note that there's not yet a Pocket PC 2003 download section on the iPAQ software and drivers site here. I would expect that, in time, the ROMs and various drivers will appear there - though I'd expect you to need the CD (or a special upgrader distributed by other means) to apply the first Pocket PC 2003 upgrade to a device.





3800 series - I can't see any reason why the whole of Pocket PC 2003 Premium won't go into ROM on the 3850 or 3870. The 3850 has 32MB of ROM, the 3870 48MB unless I'm mistaken. 32MB is what Pocket PC 2003 Premium needs. You may have less iPAQ File Store after upgrade, mind you.







David

[ColinS]

I'm a member of the HP forum and can tell you that the same postings are appearing there. I'm not sure if unregistered users will be able to get to the link but if you can this is a typical example.

[DavidW]

There are two reports in microsoft.public.pocketpc that HP United Kingdom will start taking orders for Pocket PC 2003 upgrades for iPAQs in mid to late July.



As the 3900 series and 5450 series upgrades are, I believe, not likely to start shipping much before then (and the 3800 series upgrade won't be available until October), I guess this isn't going to mean much for eventual UK availability if it turns out to be correct; it just means we can't pre-order the upgrade.





I've heard nothing further about free upgrades.







David

[nicknick]

I must say I'm amazed by the histeria this (not available until the end of July - in fact nearly a month away) upgrade has produced.



It's the same on the Dell sites



And it's as if everyone thinks that paying to be an MS beta tester is such a good thing.



Take a step back:



a) it's Microsoft, it will have bugs, it could also screw up your (mostly working OK) PPC



b) even if you order it it won't arrive before 21st July



c) the only people who should be getting excited are those with the option of a free upgrade (and even then I'd store the CD until the first 'patches' are available - probably by end August)



d) yes some nice new features, but unless you really need them, then the chance of a) should make you wary anyway.



Then count to 10 and drink a cool beer


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Nick

[DavidW]

I'm absolutely with you, Nick. As I've said previously, I want to order the upgrade to future-proof my 3970 as much as possible - but I'm happy to let others find the bugs and problems it causes in third party software and drivers! (I'm now wondering whether I'm going to land up passing my 3970 to my mother and having a new Pocket PC for myself - I lent her my TomTom Navigator 2 setup for a trip today, and whilst she did give the iPAQ and GPS back to me, she was clearly impressed! In this case, I'd certainly want both units on the same OS version eventually).





I tend to avoid desktop OSes completely until SP1 is available. Only now am I considering switching to Windows XP on my main machine - and that's because I'm looking to buy a new workstation, which will almost certainly be dual processor. I have to go to XP if I want to experiment with Hyperthreading on a dual processor setup; Windows 2000 Professional will think I have four processors and refuse to work. It's a very deliberate decision to go to XP based on this and a few similar factors.



Latest doesn't necessarily equal best. It's all a case of what works for you. I took a look at Office XP, and couldn't see the point. Office 2000 works fine for me and upgrading all three machines to Office XP would have cost a small fortune.





I downloaded Windows 2000 SP4 last night - but I'll hold off on a test deployment for at least a week to see if anyone finds problems. Anything it is deployed on will be backed up to tape first!





I'd like to have a play with Pocket PC 2003 so that I could try to support others better. A new IE would be nice. However, my Pocket PC works fine as things are now and there's no way I'm swapping that for the brokenness I'm sure I'd experience if I could upgrade it to Pocket PC 2003 tonight. For a start, I don't think there's drivers for my wireless LAN card yet, which would be a huge loss of functionality.







The people I feel sorry for are people buying new units now who have no choice of which OS they run. A lot of very good software apparently has problems or doesn't work at the moment on Pocket PC 2003. I have no doubts that most of this will be fixed in time. However, unlike those of us who are looking to upgrade Pocket PC 2002 units, people who've bought a new iPAQ 2210, for example, have to put up with the problems caused by the new OS.





The other thing that is annoying is the people who insist they have to have the latest - then complain when they get sliced at the bleeding edge. I've lost track of how many separate threads there are in microsoft.public.pocketpc about Money 2003 not working on Pocket PC 2003!







David

[Stevie]

Having looked around at the reaction by any to the process known as 'Upgrading to Pocket PC 2003' I think it's just stupidity.



HP obviously want to share in the publiciity it's generating but don't have the sense to let their customers now the real situation in a simple, honest manner.



There must be quite a few who cannot find clear info and have an expectation of getting hold of the upgrade pretty quickly and end up narked by the conflicting feedback from HP. Looks as if the US users have it just as bad.



I read on a newsgroup that the site where you enter a serial number won't accept any legitimate ones simply because HP have given the site operators the list yet!



If some users have to wait months they either buy new units - good for HP; forget about the upgrade or buy another make.

[Dave]

This may or may not be the case in this issue, but the amount of times we get told about the latest new product that's due out in a months time, then anything from an hour later to several days later (and sometimes after we've announced it) we receive another email saying "Er, sorry that was confidential, please don't announce it".



Most of this boils down to management and politics within the company. Some companies are more than willing to share, and we real welcome that, but some will literally castrate their employees if they leak any of this information out.

[MikeB]

Stevie,



You are right about that. HP havent given the serial munbers to Microsoft yet. Therefore when the US users try to enter their details on the MS site they are rejected. Initially everyone blamed Microsoft.
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Mike Barrett

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