Understanding ROM Structure

From HowardForums Wiki

When we talk about ROM, we are talking about the firmware of our pocket pc device not the storage ROM listed in the specifications. The reason this is called the ROM is that originally Pocket PC's only used RAM and loaded the ROM from the firmware, but modern Windows Mobile 5.0 and beyond Pocket PC's use the RAM only to execute programs and the ROM for some of the things the RAM used to do so when people talk about ROM in the specs they are talking about memory, but when they talk about ROM/Radio/Extended ROM they are talking about the firmware of the device.

The ROM Structure of HTC Phone Edition devices is divided into three basic sections. They are the ROM, Extended ROM, and Radio. At first, this should seem like jargon to you, but understanding it isn't that difficult.

The ROM contains your device's operating system build and updates to this often fix things like bugs in the operating system and upgrades built in software such as Word Mobile and Windows Media Player. The Radio contains the drivers and software that control the radio of your device and helps with things like reception. The extended rom is a collection of programs and files that install automatically everytime your device is hard reset. Programs in the extended rom often are the same cab files that you use to install software on your Pocket PC without Activesync. These customizations make it easy for distributors to customize handhelds by installing programs on top of the operating system without modifying it. So that the manufacturer can release a new build of the operating system without having to provide individual images for each distributor version of the product.

What Version are you using?

You can find out what version of ROM/Radio/Extended Rom you are using by going to the Start Menu, tap Settings then tap the System tab on the bottom, then tap the Device Information icon, then tap the Version and it will display what version ROM/Radio/ExtROM you are using.