I've upgraded my microSD card to 4GB and decided that this is a good time to reinstall my HTC Touch hopefully fixing some of mistakes I've made during the first 6 months I own it. This post is for my future references for the most part, so I don't have to invent the wheel if I need to do this again. But you are welcome to use this as a reference too.

1. Hard Reset. Hard Reset on HTC Touch is performed by holding both Call and End buttons and pressing Reset with stylus (hold Call and End until you see a warning message). Details and pictures here. Follow the instructions on screen. Install WMDC/ActiveSync on your PC if you don't already have it.
2. My Mobiler. My Mobiler is a great free software to control your Windows Mobile device from your PC. I don't use it much in everyday life but in cases like this when you install lots of things it makes life way easier.
3. Alternative HTC Home Plugin. This is probably the only "hack" that I do. So I decided to do it first in case I screw everything up and have to start over.
   Default HTC Touch Home plugin includes only 3 tabs: home, weather and program launcher. I want to add quick dial and profiles to that. To do that I've used HTC Home Customizer (HHC).
4. Hide SIM Contacts. In my experience SIM contacts interfere with "normal" phone contacts so I tend to hide them. To do that we need to edit the registry. I've used CeRegEditor for that but there are many registry editors out there that work quite well:
1. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ControlPanel\Phone
2. Create new DWORD key named ShowSim and value 0 to hide SIM contacts.
5. WMDC setup. Windows Mobile Device Center (for Vista) is available on HTC's CD or as a download from Microsoft. I leave all details intact, except I uncheck email synchronization with Outlook (since I don't use it).
6. PocketCM Keyboard and PocketCM Contast. Finger friendly virtual keyboard and contact manager.
7. GPRS. For my operator (Bite) I just go to Settings->Connections->Add a new modem connection and specify access point name "wap". Nothing else.
8. WiFi. Just enable WiFi and connect to my network. All default encryption parameters. Enter appropriate key.
9. GMail. I check my GMail mailbox via IMAP using Pocket Outlook. Don't allow it to try to get the settings automatically. Here are important general settings for GMail via IMAP:
• Incoming mail server: imap.gmail.com:993
• Account type: IMAP4
• Username: full email address
• Outgoing (SMTP) mail server: smtp.gmail.com:587
• Outgoing server requires authentication: checked
• Use the same user name...: checked
• Advanced server settings: require SSL for both incoming and outgoing email
• Advanced download settings: When deleting messages - delete them off the server.
• Message format: Plain Text
10. Microsoft Office Mobile 6.1. I don't remember why would I want this update but I still install it. This time I wont make the same mistake of installing this into the device memory.
11. eBook readers. I use CHM eBook Reader for my technical CHM ebooks and AlReader for my fiction (official site seems to be unavailable but download links are available here)
12. Instant messaging. I don't chat much on my phone but I have Skype and mChat installed and configured just in case.
13. ClearTemp. ClearTemp is a small utility to free your device from temporary files and other garbage in case you run out of space. It also lets you change your temp directories to memory card so you have more space to waste :)
14. Bluetooth and GPS. I have an external GPS receiver of some Taiwanese brand I forgot :). The model name is HI-406BT. I don't have it with me today but here are the required settings for it to work:
• In Bluetooth setting partner the devices and assign COM6 to the GPS receiver
• In "External GPS" settings:
• GPS program port: COM2
• GPS hardware port: COM6
• Baud rate: 4800
• Access: Manage GPS automatically - checked
• However in navigation software I've still used the COM6 so I don't actually know what are the generally correct settings and can't check now.

So basically this is it. That's what I want to have on my phone right away after the hard reset. Everything else can wait.

Sometimes I kind of don't understand Microsoft. Windows Vista was released like a year ago and Windows Mobile 6 was released this year and still there's no support for SideShow in WM6. And what is the first device that comes to mind as Vista PC companion device? If asked this question in the middle of the night I would immediately answer - PocketPC.

I would really like to have WMP "Now playing" information and controls on my HTC Touch docked next to my main monitor. And you can probably think of more useful applications.

Do divisions at Microsoft actually talk to each other?

The telling is as true as ever. Update to Windows Mobile Device Center was hanging for some time in optional Windows Vista Updates on my computer and I finally decided to install it this weekend. Installation went smoothly but this morning I found out that my HTC Touch couldn't connect to computer or vice versa. And there was an error in Application Event Log saying: "Windows Mobile-based USB device is plugged in but is unable to make a network connection to the desktop."

I tried many things including rebooting both phone and computer, dropping the partnership, plugging device to a different port, enabling and disabling firewalls, etc. Finally I decided that it was about time to google. After several unhelpful links I found this thread in Microsoft's forums and this post in particular saying:

Settings - Connections - Usb to PC - uncheck the "Enable advanced network functionality".  Disconnect device and connect back up.  Recognized it immediately

I didn't even have to unplug the device. It was recognized immediately and everything (as far as I noticed) started working. No idea, though, what functionality I lost disabling that "advanced network functionality". Go figure...