It seems that the most expected operating system for Pocket PC owners has been finally pirated. Windows Mobile 6.0 aka Crossbow, the intermediate OS that will make the link to the possibly Windows Mobile 'Photon' operating system was hacked for good.

Anyway, what we got here is a modified source code of the Windows Mobile 6.0, launched by Microsoft at the 3GSM in Barcelona 2 weeks ago. The credit of the work goes to one of the moderators of the well known forum XDA-Developers, by the name of kyphur. In truth, all the work, as he declares has been done by numerous contributors and to just quote him: "Remember that my head is in the clouds on this one only because I'm standing on the shoulders' of giants. This project owes it's very existence to many other contributers here and they deserve as much if not more of the cudos than I do. This is a team effort ...".

For those of you who would like to try it bear in mind that the operating system has been adjusted only for the HTC Hermes also known as: HTC TyTN, XDA trion, MDA Vario II, VPA Compact III, SPV M3100, Dopod CHT 9000, Dopod 838 Pro. This is fortunate enough because HTC's Hermes is the most widely spread Pocket PC at the moment.

The newly pirated operating system, also known as Windows Mobile "XDA Live" is NOT an AKU 3.3 Rom and has been „stripped" by all carrier customisations and identifying info that could lead back to the source (person) which leaked the code to kyphur. The OS is clean and seems to be working faster and as some of the members of the forum stated it is more reliable. Specifically the Windows Mobile "XDA Live" integrates a handful of 'must have' applications that won't load up your memory such as: Dictionary Editor, HTweakC v2.1, MS Hearts for PPC, PHM Registry Editor, SMS Backup, StartClean, VJCandelaLite (Flashlight), Windows Mobile Remote Display (CERDISP). Of course, it needs some fixes, but the working team seems to be resolving them pretty quick and we should even expect a new version (0.20) on 5th March that will contain fixes and addons.