WHAT'S HOT

SETUP

PROGRAM FEATURES

The Tweaks Menu

Tweaks2K2.NET main screen with Tweaks menu showing

    When you start Tweaks2K2.NET, you'll get the screen shown above.  The entire user interface at this point is the three menus you see on the Menu Bar.  We'll take each of them in turn, starting with the Tweaks menu, which is also shown above.  The Tweaks menu separates tweaks into six categories:  There are System Tricks, Internet Tricks, Keyboard(s) Tricks, System Colors (settings), Calendar (settings), and Security (settings).  Below the tweaks are options to do a soft-reset (often needed for the registry settings that invoke the tweaks to become live) and a hard-reset (which may be helpful if you can't remember the exact secret fraternity handshake that resets your machine to factory settings).  There is also an option to exit the program.  This is particularly helpful as the Tweaks2K2.NET interface almost always doesn't include the Start menu icon on the Title Bar.  I say "almost always" because, occasionally, the Start menu icon would appear as shown below:

  Partial Tweaks2K2.NET screens with and without the Start menu icon showing

    I suspect the Start menu icon isn't supposed to be available.  Most of the tweaks require a soft-reset to "take" which should be done before running any other programs.

    The first option on the Tweaks menu is "System Tricks."  Choosing this option calls up the dialog you see below:

Tweaks2K2.NET System Tricks dialog -- Collection 1 tab

    System Tricks are sub-divided into four "collections."  The first, dealing with display properties, is shown above.  You'll also notice one of the great features of Tweaks2K2.NET:  On the right of many of the tweaks (those which have a purpose which isn't particularly intuitively obvious) there is a [?] button.  Clicking on the [?] button calls up an explanation for that tweak.  Below is the explanation for "Screen Orientation."

Tweaks2K2.NET Screen Orientation help message

    You'll also notice that particular option is greyed out on my Pocket PC.  Any tweaks that don't apply to your particular PPC will be greyed out.  That prevents you from applying a tweak that doesn't work on your PPC and may, in fact, cause problems if it was applied.
    The remaining options under System Tricks -- Collection 1 will set the System Font (the character set used throughout the Pocket PC user interface) to Italic, Bold, or a font other than the default Tahoma.  There are also tweaks to turn on or off the graphical "animation" when a window is minimized or restored, to speed up the display by using more memory, to run Windows Media Play in low quality mode when another program is onscreen, to enable/disable Start Menu animation, and to show or hide the normally hidden "Network" folder when you're browsing files.
    There are also three icons on the Menu Bar as shown below:

Tweaks2K2.NET menu bar icons

    The left-most icon returns you to the main Tweaks2K2.NET screen.  The middle icon explains the purpose of the currently displayed screen.  The right-most icon only appears on VGA resolution (640x480) Pocket PCs.  It calls up the dialog box shown below:

Tweaks2K2.NET VGA tweaks dialog

    This dialog provides a work-around to a specific issue with Windows Mobile 2003, Second Edition (WM2003SE) and VGA-resolution displays:  Up until the introduction of WM2003SE, the Pocket PC operating systems were built on the assumption that the display would be Quarter-VGA (QVGA) or 320x240.  Most developers, prior to WM2003SE, also assumed QVGA.  Microsoft programmed WM2003SE to maintain as much compatibility with those programs as possible.  To that end, the system assumes that any program which doesn't have resources which specifically mark it is VGA resolution-compatible is written for QVGA resolution.  The operating system fools the program into thinking that it's displaying on a QVGA-resolution display and then quadruples every graphics operation (except drawing characters) so it fills the VGA screen.  At the same time, it runs any character display operation through a font resizing operation so the fonts appear in the correct size as well, but four times as sharp.  For most programs, this works quite well.  However, there are some programs that actually perform quite well in VGA resolution without this process.  Some of these, in fact, may look better when this process is over-ridden.  The VGA tweak dialog allows you to specify whether a specific program will allow the system to resize it or over-ride that process.  As more programs are updated to full WM2003 compatibility, this tweak will become less necessary.  For the time being, it's good to have the option.

    System Tricks -- Collection 2 (the second tab) gives you access to another set of features shown below:

Tweaks2K2.NET System Tricks dialog -- Collection 2 tab

    The first tweak is a "slider" that allows you to set whether the Time, Date, neither, or both appear in the Title Bar.  As you can see from my screen captures, I've already set it to show both.  Showing both allows me to turn off the "Date" segment on the Today Screen and use the space I gain to show something else.  It also means that, whichever program I happen to have on-screen at a given time, I can still know both the time and date by looking at the top bar.  Below that tweak is a tweak to change how dates are displayed in their "long" format.  Below that is the "Wake up Power off" tweak.  One of the issues with WM2003 is that it only allocates 15 seconds to update when the system turns itself on at midnight each day to set times and alarms.  If you have a lot of appointments, particularly reoccurring ones, this may not be enough time.  The result is that your alarms don't "fire" until you turn your PPC on, even if that's after the alarm time.  Setting the power off time to 60 seconds quadruples the time and generally fixes this issue.
    Following the Wake up tweak are tweaks to set the System Font size, narrow the scroll bars that appear to the right and bottom of a window when it has more data than can be displayed on-screen all at once, and a tweak to turn on/off a warning when you insert a card while using battery power.  (Some cards draw a lot of power.)

    System Tricks -- Collection 3 gives you access to the tweaks shown below:

Tweaks2K2.NET System Tricks -- Collection 3 tab

    Collection 3 of System Tweaks contains a number of machine-specific and operating system-specific tweaks.  You can add a contrast control to the control panel on a Toshiba e740, enable the Bluetooth headset profile on hp 5400 and 5500 iPAQs, make the iTask panel transparent on Compaq h3600 iPAQs.  You can also set ClearType on for Pocket PC 2002 models, enable ClearType in Landscape mode for Windows Mobile 2003, Second Edition, set the Power on time for alarm setting at midnight (similar, but with greater control than the setting in Collection 2), wake up in Full Power for alarm settings, allow you to set sounds and notifications for low battery conditions, and reset the soft-reset counter to 0.  To be honest, I'm not at all sure why you'd want to do the last item, but you can if you want to.

    System Tricks -- Collection 4 allows you to move Shared Direct Link Libraries (utility routines used by a number of programs, abbreviated DLL) out of main memory and into a Storage Card.  It calls up the screen shown below:

Tweaks2K2.NET System Tweaks -- Collection 4 tab

      One of the least known bits of Windows CE lore is that Windows CE will use DLLs on any storage media provided the path to that folder is listed in the System Path Registry Entry.  This screen does all the work for you to allow you to move those shared DLLs to another location.  Moving the DLLs frees up Main Memory, but, because these DLLs are used by a lot of built-in programs, you'll have to move them to a location that is always present; either to a ROM File Store or to a Storage Card that you always have installed on your Pocket PC.

    The second option on the Tweaks menu is "Internet Tricks."  It calls up the screen shown below:

Tweaks2K2.NET Internet Tricks -- PIE tab

    The PIE tab allows you to tweak a number of Pocket Internet Explorer (abbreviated PIE) settings.  You can set the browser identification string used by PIE to fool web sites into thinking you're using desktop Internet Explorer 6.0, use ClearType with PIE, store PIE temporary files on a Storage Card or other media, save AvantGo files on a Storage Card or other media, change NetFront's browser ID string to IE 6.0 or PIE, and increase the number of files you can simultaneously download to 8.

    The "Security" tab opens the screen shown below:

Tweaks2K2.NET Internet Tricks -- Security tab

    The Security tab lets you cache (use memory to improve loading performance) SSL (Secure) web pages.  Cached pages are stored on your PPC and could be read if it were lost or stolen.  You can turn off ActiveX controls or scripting to prevent web-based programs from running.  Finally, you can show scripting errors.

    The "Inbox" tab opens the screen shown below:

Tweaks2K2.NET Internet Tricks -- Inbox tab

    The Inbox tab lets you tweak the behavior of the built-in Inbox (sometimes called Messaging instead) application.  You can increase the font size used to display messages, save attachments to a Storage Card or other media to free up Main Memory, and turn the Secure Sockets Layer off.

    The "Network" tab opens the screen shown below:

Tweaks2K2.NET Internet Tricks -- Inbox tab

    The Network tab lets you determine whether the wireless Ethernet icon (in WM2003) will appear on the Title Bar.  Some Pocket PCs have other means of getting to WiFi settings and hiding this icon will show more of the program title.  You can also maximize the amount of data a sending computer can send (called the "TCP window") to your Pocket PC which improves performance on large downloads.  Finally you can disable WM2003's "Zero Configuration" network setup for WiFi connections.  You should only do this if the automatic setup is interfering with the obscure settings your network is using.

    The third option in the Tweaks menu is "Keyboard(s) Tricks."  Selecting this option opens the screen shown below:

Tweaks2K2.NET Keyboard Tricks -- Default tab

    The Default tab of Keyboard Tricks lets you set which keyboard is automatically enabled when a soft-reset is done.  Normally, this would be the standard QWERTY keyboard, but, as you can see, most other input methods can be set to the default instead.  Tweaks2K2.NET even includes the ability to set as default some popular third-party input methods.  One caveat:  If you set the default input method to an add-on, make sure you reset it if you uninstall that program.  It won't crash the machine, but obviously, the default input method will be unavailable.

    The "Hide" tab opens the screen shown below:

Tweaks2K2.NET Keyboard Tricks -- Hide tab (with Input Method pop-up showing)

    The Hide tab lets you set which input methods will show in the Input Method pop-up menu (shown popped-up above).  This is helpful if you never use some of the built-in input methods and just would prefer not to have to ignore them in the pop-up menu.

    The "Misc" tab opens the screen shown below:

Tweaks2K2.NET Keyboard Tricks -- Misc tab

    The only option in the Misc tab currently is the option to increase the number of words the Input Method suggests from a maximum of 4 to 6.

    The "Skin" tab opens the screen shown below:

Tweaks2K2.NET Keyboard Tricks -- Skin tab

    The Skin tab is really a sort of catch-all for the appearance of the Input Method.  In my case, it only has one option and that is to change the appearance of the keyboard drawing.  Other Input Methods may have other options under the skin tab.

    The fourth option on the Tweaks menu is "System Colors."  It opens the screen shown below:

Tweaks2K2.NET System Colors

    The System Colors screen allows you to set the color of each of the user interface elements shown above.  Clicking on the red box on the left enables and disables the color change.  Clicking on the white box on the right calls up the "color picker" dialog shown below:

Tweaks2K2.NET System Colors -- color picker

    You can select a color from the basic color set or pick a "Custom color" and be allowed to set the particular color yourself.  Once the color is selected, the white box to the right of the option will change to the new color choice.

    The fifth option on the Tweaks menu is "Calendar."  Choosing it will call up the screen shown below:

Tweaks2K2.NET Calendar screen

    The Calendar tweaks allow you set when your working day starts and ends and which days of the week are considered work days.  These affect how the built-in calendar program displays information and sets appointment times.

    The sixth option on the Tweaks menu is "Security."  Choosing it will call up the screen shown below:

Tweaks2K2.NET Security Tricks

    The Security Tricks screen gives you access to options which hide icons in the Program section of the Start menu and the first option that allows you to prevent programs from being added to the Pocket PC.  These are of use to corporate IT managers to enforce company policy concerning what devices will be allowed to do.

The Info Menu

    The "Info" menu gives you access to two utility screens:  The first, showing RAM use, is shown below:

Tweaks2K2.NET RAM Usage screen

    The RAM Usage screen shows Main Memory use in terms of Storage and Program memory.  Storage memory stores files and programs as a part of the overall file system on the Pocket PC.  Program memory is used by running programs.  The screen also shows the OEM Name (built into the ROM) and the Device Name (set by you through ActiveSync or through the Control Panel) and the number of times your PPC has be soft reseted.

    The Battery Info screen is shown below:

Tweaks2K2.NET Battery Info screen

    The Battery Info screen shows the level of charge of the internal battery as well as information about the operating system.

The About Menu

    The final menu in Tweaks2K2.NET is the "About" menu with the two options shown above.  "About" shows you the version information and the contact information for bug reports.  "Registration" shows you the initial key you need to get the registration key and allows you to enter the registration code when you receive it.

HELP SUPPORT

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

BUGS AND WISHES

PURCHASING

PROS

• Eliminates the dangers of Registry Editing
• Provides all of the important hacks in one place and
• Provides them in an easy to use interface
• Also provides access to soft and hard resets
• Works well with WM2003SE
• Is very affordable

CONS

• Start Menu icon appears and disappears randomly
• Takes some time to various display screens

OVERALL IMPRESSION

All screenshots in this review taken using SOTI's Pocket Controller Pro