Last year, short before christmas 2005, i went by car to Germany to visit my parents and relatives. I never went before to Germany by car so it took like 7 hours to go there instead of 4 hours, the problem was that i was lost several times finding the right way to home. So my father decided to by me gps navigation device for which i am very thankfull to him because i still loose my way where ever I go without the navigator.
We bought the navigator in mediamarkt for 350 euros which was quite expensive, the price went down to 199 euros a month later. As written above name of the device is Falk Navigator 3500 Pro SC with some europe maps.
Of course i had to hack it, it took like a month that i was finished with it but it is now as usable as a handheld pc.
So these are the first steps to unlock it.
1. Install activesync to your pc and upload the file Regedit ppc.
The place to put the file regedit is in /Windows/AutoStart.
After putting it in autostart restart your device, and you will se a window appearing before the general application start. If the first time you dont succseed to catch the regedit window just try again until you have it.
When the application starts it looks like this. Then on the left side choose the registry LMachine and then init. On the bottom there will be a scroller, scroll down to Launch80: and delete it. In this picture it is not visible because i already deleted it the application name is i think miostartup.exe. After removing the key the device wont start anymore the application interface which keeps you away from the windows CE. Dont restart yet wait until you finish step 2.
2. Upload now the file Show taskbar and remove the file regedit from the autostart.
If you leave the file regedit in autostart it will always run when you restart your device so just remove it you dont need this any more. After uploading showtaskbar and deleting regedit restart your device.
After restart you will get a taskbar and can start to use the windows ce.
3. Not needed but good to do.
It is good to change the memory settings of your device. The device has total 64 mb ram. A part of it is used as system memory and another part is used as storage place for applications. Just leave around 30 mb for system memory and it would be enough for the applications to run. You will gain around 20 mb place to store now new software in your device. To activate the setting use the button on your device. The button is the round one on the left side and you have to press it straight with out any direction.
Now you have an unlocked useless device. To make it more usefull go to the forums at GPSPASSION . In the forums there you will find somewhere a post with applications which can run under your device. You have to upload some dll files in your windows director. The files can be found in the forum.
I was able to run oziexplorer, tcpmc (video and audio player), tomtom 6 (version 5 never worked), route 66, a wierd version of navigon which was custom made for medion gps devices, the total commander from ghisler.com and the nydiot screen something helper which is very cool it allows you to change the screen resolution and some other things of your device.
In the forums you will also see that you can change the rom of your device. They will tell you that the mio something rom is the best but i will advice not to do that. If you still wish, find the software called osloader and make first a backup of your rom, then install the rom. There are like 20 rom versions and only one works for falk navigator. And after you find the working rom you will see that the mio rom sucks even more, even to hack it is a lot more work because the dont have the installed the activesync interface.
This is it for now. You can spend unlimited hours to pimp your navigator but still it will be a navigator, and 98% of the applications that you would find cool will not work on your device. Have fun.
Recent Comments