Windows Mobile Needs a "Safe Mode" Bootup Option

Kris Kumar

I was on my way to an appointment, I pulled out my Dash and noticed that the screen was frozen, no matter what I did the screen would not change. I turned it off and turned it back on, the home screen would not show up! I would get the screen as shown in the image below. Once I was done with my appointment, I wanted to make a call but the phone wouldn't let me. Behind the frozen screen, I knew that the phone was working. I could power off the phone and access the Communication Manager via the power button but no matter what I did, I could not get the phone to boot up properly. Couple of times during the bootup, I got the message indicating that the phone couldn't run an executable associated with one of my home screen plug-ins. Since I couldn't get to the home screen settings screen, I couldn't do anything about it. I ended up doing a hard reset after I got back home. Evil or Very Mad

I could have avoided the hard reset, if Windows Mobile had provided me with a "Safe Mode" bootup option during power on, something like the F8 - Safe Mode option on the desktop Windows. I could have booted into the safe mode with default/basic home screen, none of the executables in the startup folder would have been loaded. I would have been able to change the settings and reboot the Smartphone in the regular mode with the new settings, and get my work done. Instead I spent more than an hour and a half on the road fidgeting with the phone because I needed it to work desperately. What are your thoughts folks? Do you think the "Safe Mode" bootup option is a good one to have? Have you been in situations where you think it could have come in handy?

crispeto · Posted: Sun Nov 12, 2006 9:21 am Post subject:

A safe mode would be great but I don't think we'll see one anytime soon. I went through something similar on my sda. Luckily I had a sprite backup on my storage card. So I did a hard reset and then a restore and I was back in action. One of the first things I did after I got my dash the way I like it was a sprite backup. By the way, how do you hard reset the dash? Sorry to hear that about the dash. Hopefully it was just a freak thing.

Kris Kumar · Posted: Sun Nov 12, 2006 9:33 am Post subject:

Sprite Backup definitely helps, but when you are away from home and don't know what the key strokes are for triggering hard reset during bootup, there has be some standard way to power on the phone get to the PIM information without triggering any applications or data connection.

Dash hard reset info is available here.

Jerry Raia · Posted: Sun Nov 12, 2006 9:58 am Post subject:

You took the rant right out of my mouth Kris. It is crazy that we don't have a safe boot option. They give us no way to at least get the phone working. This is like the "X" in the corner and "Cut and Paste". They discussed it, you can read all of their wonderful blogs about it, but in the end they decided we didn't need it. Why make an OS that allows you to take some of the desktop with you and then leave out some of the most basic things? The subject of your rant being one of them! Confused

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[BlackJack] [8525]

crispeto · Posted: Sun Nov 12, 2006 10:14 am Post subject:

Just curious Kris, what version of Sprite Backup are you using? I am using 5.1 build 1468 but noticed at smartphone.net there is a 5.2. I can't for the life of me figure out how to upgrade to that version. When I go to spritesoftware.com they show version 5.1 but when I choose "version history" they show the latest being "Sprite Backup for Smartphone version 5.2 build 1511 now available and supporting MotoQ devices!" I wish I could figure out how to upgrade to that version. Any ideas? Thanks
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Tmo Dash
Nokia E61

Darius Wey · Posted: Sun Nov 12, 2006 10:14 am Post subject:

I have Safe Mode functionality on my Pocket PC, thanks to Spb Pocket Plus, and it's proven very useful. Now if only Spb continued to make Smartphone applications, eh? Wink

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Jerry Raia · Posted: Sun Nov 12, 2006 10:22 am Post subject:

crispeto · Posted: Sun Nov 12, 2006 10:47 am Post subject:

I finally went to their forums page and found a link to 5.2. Very confusing from their homepage though. I'm backing up using 5.2 as we speak!
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Tmo Dash
Nokia E61

Jerry Raia · Posted: Sun Nov 12, 2006 10:57 am Post subject:

Keep in mind 5.2 was out at least 2 months ago. I guess it's back to the usual Sprite Software behavior. Sad

They had gotten really responsive for a brief moment in time.
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[BlackJack] [8525]

Kris Kumar · Posted: Sun Nov 12, 2006 11:13 am Post subject: