File System Hacking:
With access to the file system,
you can change many system settings, delete predefined content, change menu
icons and layout, silence the camera, remove operator logo, and many other cool
things.
The techniques below assume you have some understanding of how to access the
internal file system of your phone.
- Remove SMS storage
limitation
You can remove the storage limitation so
that you can store more than 500 sms�s. This trick works by changing the sms
message store to the tpa folder, where the message limitation is not in
force
Copy the file /ifs/settings/messaging/pref_store.txt from the phone to the
computer, make a backup, then edit it to read /tpa instead of /smsdata, then
delete the file from the phone then copy in the new version.
Now you need to create the message store in the /tpa folder. Create the
following folder structure in the /tpa folder:
/tpa/messaging
/tpa/messaging/sms
/tpa/messaging/sms/msg
/tpa/messaging/sms/FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
/tpa/messaging/sms/FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF/pending
/tpa/messaging/sms/FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF/sm
/tpa/messaging/sms/FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF/sr
/tpa/system/messaging/sms
Restart the phone. You can now stored as many messages as you like ;-)
HOWEVER, in practice you can only store about 1000 messages, beyond
and the inbox access becomes painfully slow. In theory you can store 40000
or more.
- Camera
Sounds - Change
The camera sounds depend on the files
camerashutter.3gp and camerafocus.3gp. You can change the camera sounds
by replacing these files with your own versions. The new sound files
must have the same names as the old ones, and be in 3gp format,
preferably audio only.
Delete the existing files from /tpa/preset/system/sound and then copy in
the new versions.
-
Camera Sounds - Silence
Method 1: Disable Camera
Sound completely
The camera sounds come from the files camerashutter.3gp and
camerafocus.3gp. If these files don�t exist, the camera is silenced.
This means the camera makes no sound even if the phone is not in
Silent Mode. You could also delete only camerafocus.3gp for example,
if you only want the shutter sound to be heard.
The camera sound files can be deleted from /tpa/preset/system/sound
Method 2: Enable Silent Mode for camera sounds
This method will enable you to disable the camera sounds by turning
on Silent Mode. When not in silent mode, camera sounds will operate
as normal.
Copy the customize.xml file in /tpa/preset/custom to the computer
and make a backup. Open customize.xml in an editor and change the
following setting from false to true:
<camera>
<suppress-camera-sound>true</suppress-camera-sound>
</camera>
Save the file then delete the existing customize.xml on the phone
and copy in the new version.
Important: You will have to do either a settings or master
reset before this trick will take effect. Once you do, you will be
able to silence the camera on demand, simply by putting the phone
into silent mode.
-
Backup Games and Java Apps
All Java midlets can be backed
up by copying the jar and jad files from the phone to your
computer.
The jar and jad files at can be found here: /tpa/preset/system/ams
To backup your games, simply copy the jar and jad files in this
folder to your computer.
The games will need to be reinstalled if you delete them from
the phone and then later want to reinstall. You can�t just copy
the old files back into the ams folder. But you can use the old
jar and jad files you copied from the phone to reinstall the
game (the same way you would install a game normally)
-
Deleting Pre-Installed Content and Games
You cannot delete the
pre-installed content from the handset itself, but with
access to the internal file system you can delete ANY
pre-installed content you want. Simply browse to the folder
where the preset content is stored and delete it.
Here are the folder locations for the various pre-installed
content:
Games: /tpa/preset/system/ams.
Games: /tpa/preset/default/java
Sounds: /tpa/user/audio
Sounds: /tpa/preset/default/audio
Images: /tpa/user/image
Images: /tpa/preset/default/image
Themes: /tpa/user/theme
Themes: /tpa/preset/default/theme
Video: /tpa/user/video
Frames: /tpa/preset/system/multimedia/pe/frames
Frames: /tpa/preset/system/multimedia/pe/funlayer
Clipart: /tpa/preset/system/multimedia/pe/clipart
Notes on Pre-installed content: Sometimes
pre-installed content has a shortcut in the user folder
pointing to the actual image which is stored in the
/tpa/preset/default folder. For example, the shortcut file
�El Trumpet.mp3.@� in /tpa/user/audio points to the actual
image �El Trumpet.mp3� which is in
/tpa/preset/default/audio. Delete both the shortcut and the
actual image.
-
Change System sounds
The various system
sounds are stored at /tpa/preset/system/sound. If you
replace them with your own versions you can change the
sound the phone makes for a given system sound. For
example you can replace the noisy lowbattery.mid with
something more subtle.
Replacement sounds should have the same name and audio
format (mid, mp3, amr) as the original, and be about the
same length.
To replace a system sound, delete the existing sound
from /tpa/preset/system/sound and copy in your own
version.
-
Change Startup and Shutdown sounds
and Images
Startup and
shutdown images and sounds are located in various
locations. To change, simple delete the existing
file, and copy in your file with the same name. Here
are the various names, file sizes, formats and
locations:
Boot image: SPLASH in
/tpa/preset/system/settings/
This is the 176x220 pixel image displayed at boot
up, called the Splash Screen. Can be in gif, bmp or
png format. Animation not supported.
Startup Image: STARTUP_IMAGE_SEMC in
/tpa/preset/system/settings/
This is the 176x220 pixel image shown after the
Splash screen. This image can be chosen by the user
in settings/display/start-up screen so you don�t
need internal file system access to change this
image.
Shutdown Image: SHUTDOWN_IMAGE_SEMC in
/tpa/preset/system/settings/
This is the 176x220 pixel image that is shown when
the phone is shutting down. Can be in gif, bmp or
png format. Animation is supported, but total number
of frames should be kept low, and gif should not be
set to repeat animation, as this will slow down the
shutdown.
Startup Sound: STARTUP_SOUND_SEMC.mid or
STARTUP_SOUND_SEMC.mp3 in
/tpa/preset/system/settings/
This is the sound that plays when the phone starts
up.
Shutdown Sound: SHUTDOWN_SOUND_SEMC.mid or
SHUTDOWN_SOUND_SEMC.mp3 in
/tpa/preset/system/settings/
This is the sound that plays when the phone is
shutting down.
-
Delete SE Web links in user
folders
Sony Ericsson
or your operator install links at the top of
every folder in your phone�s file system to
websites with their content. These are pretty
useless to most of us, and serve only to clutter
up access to our files. The links are stored in
two locations within the file system.
Firstly, as xml files in folders within
/tpa/preset/system/custmenu. For example the
folder GAMES_HOOK_1 might contain an xml file
pointing to the operator�s game download page,
as well as an image used as the icon.
Secondly, the links are cached in the files
cust_menu_data.dat and
cust_menu_done_unpacking.dat that sit in
/tpa/preset/system/custmenu.
To get rid of an operator link, you need to
delete the folder in custmenu for the relevant
link, then delete the files cust_menu_data.dat
and cust_menu_done_unpacking.dat.