Newest(er) Microsoft Reader on HPC 2000

Has anyone tried hacking the latest copy of Microsoft Reader to get it to run on a Jornada 720 or other HPC platform? It says it support PPC 2002, so it might be possible. I have an older version that works well, but this new one has some neat features I would love to have.

http://www.microsoft.com/reader/downloads/ppc.asp

well some wm2003 apps can be hacked as well..

ok, let's see this stuff...

Microsoft Reader for PPC 2002 works in the j720. i found out 20 mins ago.

After the most boring hacking session in my life, and with the invaluable help of cmonex, i got MS Reader to work in a J720 -flawlessly and at (almost) full 640x240-

For those technically inclined, the hack involved
a) 16.5kb aygshell
b) changing the resources in the "MsReader.exe" file, so that the icons are <= 8bits (256 colors). that's the really tricky part, which i had to do like 3 times and yet, the hpc version has got no icon. i can't explain why it didn't went as expected, but i don't care much about the icons, as long as the exe loads fine.

I have some screenshots down (yeah, i know that it's the spanish version, but i promise i'll soon hack the english one and post more about it in my site)

1) the reader starting for the first time
2) my first ebook loaded
3) the TOC of that ebook
4) a random page from the same ebook.











Attachments
----------------
ScrSnap001.JPG (20KB - 11 downloads)
ScrSnap002.JPG (23KB - 6 downloads)
ScrSnap003.JPG (18KB - 9 downloads)
ScrSnap004.JPG (34KB - 5 downloads)

This is great news! The prior version of MS Reader had significantly distorted menus when running at the Jornada 640*240 resolution. I usually ran it using Nyditot in pixel doubled resolution and with larger fonts in order to compensate. Have you tried any DRM'd ebooks? The in-application registration system for the prior version of MS Reader didn't work, but I was able to register the earlier version of the player by copying over and renaming some files from a registered version of MS Reader running on a desktop PC.

I tried to hack the application myself, but met with very strange results. Every time I would try to open the program's directory, explorer would freeze or exit. I tried total commander, but with the same results. Very strange. Is this due to the problems with the color depth of the icons? What tools did you use to change this? Are you able to change the icons as well?

You can probably get cmonex to put up the files on his site.

The problem you were having is due to the icon depth, apparently, HPC2000 chokes when handling icons > 8 bit depth. the tools i used. well i can't remember them, they were all in the first page when i googled for a resource editor. as i told you, the strange thing is that even though i put low res icons in place of the hi res ones, the exe seems to have no icon.

I'll put it in my site as soon as i can... and BTW, when referring to cmonex's site, it's "her site"

and no, i haven't tried DRM'd ebooks, as i don't have such kind of books (i haven't even installed MS Reader for the PC). I don't like ".lit" format very much, i only hacked it for the benefit of other potential users, not for my own needs. as i've told you, i'd rather use other formats (isilo anyone).

Hope this helps

Well, with a name like Cmonex, who could tell? My nick leaves little room for doubt...
One of the nicest aspects to communication online is that it hides gender/race and anything else you don't choose to reveal.

I would love a icon editor for Win CE, particularly one that could run on device.

Could you please post the name of whatever programs you used and some detailed instructions as to how to modify the files? Either that, or could you post the files themselves? I would love an English version if it isn't too much trouble.

hahaha
oh btw i just found your blog with the help of programsynth
edit: erm... you have it in your profile as well!


matrixcore.. so you sent me the spanish version? lol..

I ain't got nothing to hide!

To see posts on my blog related to my Jornada 720, click on

http://deliverator.silverfir.net/index.php?cat=16

Excellent blog, Rocketman...

mhmm yeah the blog is nice! ive read all the jorn posts and a few others.

Yes, your info is organized good and it is put plainly: An Excellent Site

There's one called Pike that's supposed to be pretty good. It's on several WinCE/Pocket PC software Web sites.

Thanks for the info about PIKE. It looks good, although it seems you have to have a runtime installed to run the editor and a loader program to ensure that your altered icon is loaded instead of the one built into the program's exe.

So, has anyone else besides Matrixcore gotten this new version of MS Reader working? He/she said he would upload the altered files, but his/her site www.matrixcore.net appears to be down atm. As you can see, I am not making any assumptions with my pronouns

well matrixcore should use a decent hosting service. so should i, too
we could concentrate our efforts on one site!... for example i have all acrobat reader 2.0 versions and netfront versions and the fake dlls on my site, and he has minimo and ms reader... etc.. my site has a lot of unwanted ads and his is always down.. so ...

Lol, very nice the pronoum thingie. just FYI, i'm a boy

And i know i haven't gotten the MS Reader binaries up in my main site, because i haven't been at my server facilities in two days (aparently some of my employees pulled the plug of the server/router).

Meanwhile, you can use this address. In the main page, go to Handheld PCs section, there you'll find both versions (english and spanish)

Edited by matrixcore 2005-11-27 5:54 PM