Windows Mobile GPRS provisioning

[BBAdmin]

I've been playing around with creating cab files to quickly install GPRS settings on to Windows Mobile devices and thought I'd publish my results in here in case anybody wants or needs them.

Chuck the text below in to a notepad document and edit the sections highlighted in bold as per your networks APN settings.

<wap-provisioningdoc>
<characteristic type="CM_GPRSEntries">
<characteristic type="O2">
<parm name="DestId" value="{436EF144-B4FB-4863-A041-8F905A62C572}" />
<parm name="UserName" value="APNusername" />
<parm name="Password" value="APNpassword" />
<parm name="SwCompression" value="1" />
<parm name="IpHeaderCompression" value="0" />
<parm name="SpecificNameServers" value="1" />
<parm name="DnsAddr" value="PrimaryDNS" />
<parm name="AltDnsAddr" value="AlternateDNS" />
<parm name="Domain" value="" />
<characteristic type="DevSpecificCellular">
<parm name="GPRSInfoValid" value="1" />
<parm name="GPRSInfoAccessPointName" value="AccessPointName" />
<parm name="BearerInfoValid" value="1" />
<parm name="GPRSInfoProtocolType" value="2" />
<parm name="GPRSInfoL2ProtocolType" value="PPP" />
<parm name="GPRSInfoAddress" value="" />
<parm name="GPRSInfoDataCompression" value="1" />
<parm name="GPRSInfoHeaderCompression" value="1" />
<parm name="GPRSInfoParameters" value="" />
</characteristic>
</characteristic>
</characteristic>

<characteristic type="Registry">
<characteristic type="HKCU\ControlPanel\PhoneExtendFunction" translation="filesystem">
<parm name="GPRSAuthenticationMethod" datatype="integer" value="1" />

</characteristic>
</characteristic>
</wap-provisioningdoc>

On the forth line of text you'll see the long string: {436EF144-B4FB-4863-A041-8F905A62C572}. This is basically stating what you're provisioning for, and in this example it is for GPRS internet settings. If, for example, you were creating a config file for Wi-Fi this would be different. You can track some of these down in the MSDN blogs and TechNet, but like all things Microsoft, it's an arse to find out.

Once you've entered your settings save the text file as _setup.xml.

Use the makecab.exe command line utility to turn the xml in to a cab file:

makecab.exe "location of _setup.xml" what_you_want_to_call_the_cab.cab

You will then have you cab file which you can drop on to a Windows Mobile device. Once you have transferred the file click on it and the settings will install.

I have tried my file based on the above with O2 UK settings for GPRS and tested it on Windows Mobile 5 and 6 successfully.

Enjoy!!!

[dc/dc]

That's pretty slick! Nice work!

[cnordb01]

I tried the above solution but I must be missing something. Each time I try to install the CAB on a Samsung SGH-i600 running WM6 it fails. Any ideas? I have pasted exactly what I have in my XML file.

<wap-provisioningdoc>
<characteristic type="CM_GPRSEntries">
<characteristic type="Siminn GPRS">
<parm name="DestId" value="{436EF144-B4FB-4863-A041-8F905A62C572}" />
<parm name="UserName" value="" />
<parm name="Password" value="" />
<parm name="SwCompression" value="1" />
<parm name="IpHeaderCompression" value="0" />
<parm name="SpecificNameServers" value="1" />
<parm name="DnsAddr" value="" />
<parm name="AltDnsAddr" value="" />
<parm name="Domain" value="" />
<characteristic type="DevSpecificCellular">
<parm name="GPRSInfoValid" value="1" />
<parm name="GPRSInfoAccessPointName" value="gprs.simi.is" />
<parm name="BearerInfoValid" value="1" />
<parm name="GPRSInfoProtocolType" value="2" />
<parm name="GPRSInfoL2ProtocolType" value="PPP" />
<parm name="GPRSInfoAddress" value="" />
<parm name="GPRSInfoDataCompression" value="1" />
<parm name="GPRSInfoHeaderCompression" value="1" />
<parm name="GPRSInfoParameters" value="" />
</characteristic>
</characteristic>
</characteristic>

<characteristic type="Registry">
<characteristic type="HKCU\ControlPanel\PhoneExtendFunction" translation="filesystem">
<parm name="GPRSAuthenticationMethod" datatype="integer" value="1" />

</characteristic>
</characteristic>
</wap-provisioningdoc>

[BBAdmin]

You have not specified a username and password for the gateway

<parm name="UserName" value="" />
<parm name="Password" value="" />

You don't always need the DNS bit, that depends on your carrier (for example you don't with Vodafone but you do with O2), but you will always need a username and password for your APN (in your case the APN is gprs.simi.is)