Windows Mobile 6.5 upgrade available for Samsung Jack

The Samsung Jack.

(Credit: Samsung)

Fans of the Samsung Jack, I have some good news for you.

Samsung announced Wednesday that its Windows Mobile 6.5 upgrade is now available for the smartphone. The upgrade includes Windows Phone 6.5 Standard Edition and a handful of software enhancements. Major improvements include:

• Windows Marketplace for Mobile: Provides access to secure shopping. You can download the application instantly to the phone.
• Internet Explorer Mobile 6: It delivers the same Web-browsing capability as Internet Explorer for a desktop computer, including support for multimedia-rich content like Flash animation, YouTube, and social-networking sites like Facebook and MySpace.
• AT&T Wi-Fi integration: Samsung Jack users can now easily access more than 20,000 AT&T Wi-Fi hot spots in the U.S.
• Vlingo for Windows Phone: This voice-command feature lets you send text or e-mail messages, call friends, search the Web, open native applications, etc., just by speaking into the phone.

The upgrade requires a 32-bit Windows computer running either Windows Mobile Device Center 6.1 (for Windows Vista, 7) or ActiveSync 4.5 (for Windows XP). According to Samsung, the upgrade process takes between 5 and 10 minutes. Make sure you back up your phone data and sync your contacts with your computer before upgrading. The new firmware is available for free and can be downloaded from Samsung's Web site.

[IanBro]

It doesn't install at all... The Log... remains empty and port says None.. Can you try making a video of it?

[slickuser]

did you reboot? did you modify that HKLM registry? did you scan for virus? no? What a friendly, cool OS!!!<br /><br />Call BALLmer, you should be able to help you....

[numbersgame]

I've got the same issue. I press the "next button" to start up the sync and then a little box pops up that just stays there without doing anything. Screen on jack looks like it is going to boot mode for a moment and lists some text, then goes black. In Device Manager, after the boot screen on the jack starts, i loose the connection to the jack and instead DM lists it as some sort of Qualcom device that it can't find a driver for. <br /><br />@slickuser--get a life...

[aMUSICsite]

Sounds like a lot of trouble to go through just to get IE6 on a mobile phone ;)

[frate2]

Try this:<br />To all those who want to upgrade, but it seems like the upgrade is dying:<br />1. Make sure you have the correct drivers installed.<br />2. You may want to just plug into another USB port.

[lazycat202]

slickuser:<br />he doesn't need to call no body. Lots of folks in here who have skills will help him out. Luckily, he didn't take to Apple store. Otherwise, he would end up loosing tons of $$$ ;)<br />get a life and rest in peace!

[IanBro]

So I guess i'll have to wait a few weeks again for 6.5 upgrade and it seems like Samsung didn't really test this much since i tried it few times and it all failed.

[frate2]

To all those who want to upgrade, but it seems like the upgrade is dying:<br />1. Make sure you have the correct drivers installed.<br />2. You may want to just plug into another USB port.

[krosafcheg]

FYI - the message about pressing the J key means to hold the power and J key until it starts shutting down. Release the power key, and it will put it in emergency mode. This is how I got my computer to recognize it as a new device and install the correct drivers. You'll need to take the battery out and put it back in to get the phone to start up.

[krosafcheg]

Oops... You'll need to be in the update program, and on the screen where the com port is currently saying "none". Then, shut down while holding j + power button - once it starts shutting down, let go of the power button, but keep holding the J key until the com port shows up in the update program.

[numbersgame]

where in the world are the correct drivers found? my phone syncs fine with device center, and i installed everything from the installation cd...still same problem...

[rockn_1234567]

So does this enable WIFI on the samsung blackjack or is this a newer model that already had wifi?

[IanBro]

krosafcheg, I tried doing your suggestion a few times but the port isn't updating or anything. Just continues to say None.

[krosafcheg]

Hmm.. Well, I'll walk through what I did again. Maybe I missed a step in my instructions.<br /><br />1. Make sure your phone is turned on and connected to the computer directly via USB.<br />2. Go through the Activesync/WMDC sync process<br />3. Once the phone is synced, start the update software.<br />4. When you reach the page that shows the port in the bottom left corner (which should say "none"), push the "Power (on the side of the phone)" and "J" keys on your phone and hold them until the phone starts to power down.<br />5. Keep holding the "J" key, but release the "Power" key. Let the phone completely shut down.<br />6. Wait. It took about 20-30 seconds for the program to detect my phone after the screen on the phone went dark.<br /><br />Hopefully at this point the program will recognize the phone and allow you to go forward with the update.<br /><br />By the way, I updated my phone on XP - it's possible that Vista and 7 may handle this differently.

[miranda14529]

Everytime I try downloading 6.5 for my Jack it stops at the same point, when I get to step 9 where it actually does all the software downloading and everything. This is the message I get:<br /><br />Detect COM17 Port<br />This File is not a Phone Image File!!<br />This File is not a Eboot Image File!!<br />This File is not a PDA Image File!!<br />[Channel 0] FLASH UNLOCK<br />[Channel 0] FLASH UNLOCK Success!!!<br />[Channel 0] Send Partition Table<br />[Channel 0] Please select All image and Try again<br /><br /><br />Anyone know how I can fix this?<br />I've tried different USB ports and I believe I have the right drivers and everything, I just don't know how to fix this problem

[clayinaustin]

You need to make sure that your Samsung Jack is connected via the USB cable DIRECTLY to a port on your computer. Do NOT try this with a USB hub. <br /> <br />Good luck! :-)

[RMPearl]

Not sure why everyone is having such issues. I did it last night and went off without a hitch. Now if they would just do the updates for a 64-bit OS so I don't have to keep borrowing other peoples CPUs to do a 10 min update

[random112]

I've tried on a couple win32 machines without success. <br /> <br />I get an error regarding software driver for qualcomm technologies msm. The screen where it attempts to locate the proper port freezes and the mobile device shuts off. I've tried re-loading Windows Mobile Device Center from both disk and online, but neither has resulted in success. <br /> <br />Any known resolution to this issue?

I had the same problem as numbersgame. I just called Samsung tech support and they had me manually install the drivers (which was frate2's suggestion - but s/he didn't explain how). <br /> <br />Their tech sent me the driver at this link: http://www.4shared.com/file/149853232/22edbb08/i637Driver.html <br /> <br />Once you install the drivers there, reboot your machine and phone and then restart Step 4 of the upgrade instructions. (Samsung said they were eventually going to add this driver install to the instructiions - so that might change the step numbers... don't know)

[random112]

I can verify that the comment posted @ November 11, 2009 2:05 PM PST is accurate and works. Once the drivers were installed per the provided link I has able to successfully upgrade my phone using Vista 32-bit. <br /> <br />Thanks,

[noputzhere]

I have to say that I did not have any problems at all upgrading my phone. The instructions on the Samsung site were not totally accurate, but nothing a novice could not work through. What I have now, after using 6.5 for about 2 weeks is a growing feeling that I never should have upgraded. The WiFi, which worked great before, now will never re-sync to known sites (never keeps the key). And usually, you have to try to connect about 8-10 times before it will go. Text messages show up as un-read, even though you just got done looking at them. You continually have to try to re-send e-mails to get them to go.. I am wondering how much else is not working??? All in all, I would not do it again.

[ooshiny]

Got the upgrade to work, finally, thanks to the comments above and the link to the drivers. Having a bit of a problem, though - my apps are being arbitrarily shut down by the system, both the native apps and ones I've installed, seems like about 5-10 minutes after switching to a different application. Makes listening to music and keeping track of Twitter updates at a glance a bit annoying. Anyone else experienced this, and if so, any ideas what's causing it &#38; how to stop it? (I'll admit, though, it's VERY nice finally having full functionality of the Z key on T9!)

[jacksonsmamma]

Upgrade went fine here, except now I am unable to sync my work e-mail (microsoft exchange server) to my Jack. I have checked with IT staff, I have everything set up correctly. I believe I have active sync 4.5 on my computer at home, but still no dice. <br /> <br />Any thoughts? At this point I'm willing to try just about anything to get this thing to work again.

[pip2781]

I just recently got the Samsung Jack and I love it. When I saw that the WM 6.5 was available for it, I went and installed it. The down side is that the phone is "stalling" when opening programs. The biggest problem that I have is while running the WMP. Sometimes when im trying to view a video or look for specific songs, the e-mail options pop up on the screen, so when i am trying to navigate, I end up accidently deleting txt msgs or e-mails. Anyone else having problems?<br />Thanks

[jewelz1231]

If you are running Vista and are having trouble with the install because of drivers, here is a tip:<br /><br />Instead of double clicking on the .exe install file, right click and select "Run as administrator". It will ask for permission to install some drivers, and after that it works perfectly. I was going crazy for a while trying to figure out how to get the qualcom drivers, but if you do it this way, the install program is able to find them!<br /><br />Hope this saves someone all the frustrations I had!