A subtle difference between WM6 and previous OS versions: no “Extra dial-string modem commands” and no Port Settings tab any mo

Anyone having read my previous articles on the Connectivity Framework of Windows Mobile knows (for example this or this) knows it might be pretty important to be able to

1. pass (for example APN) parameters to the (either cellular or landline) modem you use from your Windows Mobile device (this is what the “Extra dial-string modem commands” is for)
2. issue pre and/or post-dial commands

This isn’t really an issue on Windows Mobile Pocket PC phones because, most of the time, you’ll want to use their internal GPRS / EDGE etc. modem to connect to the Net and not an external one. However, there may be cases, even with Phone Edition models, when you MUST use external modems to connect to the Net:

1. you need to use a 56k landline modem (for example, at a hotel) as opposed to cellular ones (via either infrared or Bluetooth). You might end up having to pass additional initialization parameters to the modem in order to make it work.
2. the built-in modem is just too slow for you. For example, you only have a GPRS-capable Windows Mobile phone. The external modem (any other, recent, non-low-end (smart)phone) you’d like to use, on the other hand, is capable of both much higher speeds (EDGE, UMTS or even HS(D)PA) and either Bluetooth or IrDA connectivity. In this case, you’ll also want to prefer using the external modem instead of the internal one because of the much higher speed (at least over Bluetooth – as opposed to standard infrared - , particularly the fast(er) version, Bluetooth 2.0 EDR, which is no slower than current HSDPA downlink speeds).
3. And, of course, I haven’t even mentioned non-Phone Edition Windows Mobile Pocket PC’s, which, now that HP has announced their new Windows Mobile series, particularly the HP 200, a pretty nice WM6 upgrade to the HP iPAQ hx4700, seems to be all the rage again with some power users not necessarily needing a built-in phone. (And I don’t even mention the, otherwise, illegal WM6 upgrades for some previous-generation VGA Pocket PC’s, which also revives some older non-phone devices and makes them a decent alternative to even the latest ones.)

In all these cases, you might end up having to using external modem commands, in addition to supplying the plain (pseudo) dial-in number. So far, you could both enter the extra string:

and ask the system to show you the pre/post-dial terminal window:

(screenshots taken on a WM5 AKU 3.3 HTC Wizard; they would have been exactly the same on all WM2003...WM5 devices, regardless of whether they are Phone Edition or non-phone device.)

Unfortunately, with the latest version of Windows Mobile, WM6, this is no longer possible as can also be seen in the following screenshot (WM6 AKU 0.3.0; the situation is the same with other, newer AKU’s released so far):

(another screenshot of the server tab to show there isn’t there anything of the old checkboxes / the Extra dial string text input field either).

As can clearly be seen, there’s no “Extra dial-string modem commands” text input field any more and the “Port Settings”, along with “General” tab, are also fully eliminated.

Unfortunately, this may cause problems if you have a WM6 Pocket PC and would (still) want to use an external modem to connect to the Net. If your external modem must be passed initialization parameters, then, you’re shot. If it’s a phone (and not, say, a GPRS Compact Flash card), then, at least the APN can, in most cases, be configured on the phone itself so that it doesn’t need to be passed. This, however, doesn’t mean for example the obligatory ^sgauth=1; parameter can be passed to external Siemens mobile phones or that you can send out a modem reset command before connection, which is a must with, say, with the S-E k700i. And, of course, you still won't be able to pass the APN to anything - for example, the above-mentioned GPRS CF cards still widely in use.

Currently, I don’t know a way how this problem can be fixed. I’ll, however, talk to the Microsoft folks on whether they reintroduce this feature. I hope they will see I'm right, particularly now, with HP’s releasing some really kick-ass non-phone, WM6-based models, which does increase the need for using external modems.