Change and Set Different Input Method (Letter or Block Recognizer) as Windows Mobile Default After Soft Reset

Windows Mobile portable device has multiple type of input methods selectable to type and write text and numbers on screen. By default, Windows Mobile has some built-in input methods such as Keyboard, Block Recognizer and Letter Recognizer. Keyboard is the default input method on most installation of Windows Mobile 2003, 5 or 6.x, which means whenever user soft-reset or restart the mobile phone, the input method will be reset to use Keyboard again.

Some people may prefer to use other input method, such as Block Recognizer or Letter Recognizer, especially users who switch from the Palm OS handheld device. The problem with Windows Mobile (WM) Pocket PC (PPC) device is that whenever user soft-reset the device, the input method get changed back to the original default, which is Keyboard. Thus, user has to manually select his or her prefer input method again and again after reset the mobile device.

Changing the other input method is inconvenient especially when one is in the rush. Windows Mobile allows user to set different input method as the default selected IME whenever the mobile device is rebooted (soft reset). The trick is a registry hack, thus require a registry editor, such as the free PHM Registry Editor (see guide to install PHM Registry Editor on WM5/6) or CeRegEditor to edit mobile device registry from desktop computer.

1. Run registry editor on the Windows Mobile device.
2. Navigate to the following registry key:

   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ControlPanel\Sip
3. Locate a registry entry named DefaultIM. Change the string value data for DefaultIM to the following CLSID according to your preference of input method.

   To make Letter Recognizer as default input method
   {42429690-ae04-11d0-a4f8-00aa00a749b9}

   To make Block Recognizer as default input method
   {42429691-ae04-11d0-a4f8-00aa00a749b9}

4. Soft reset the device after change to make the new default input method effective.
5. To revert and change back to the default original Keyboard input method, the value data of DefaultIm for keyboard is {42429667-ae04-11d0-a4f8-00aa00a749b9}.

If you have other input method, most of its CLSID is stored at HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID registry key branch. Locate the full complete CLSID for the input method, and change the “DefaultIM” value data accordingly to set different input method as default to use and activate in Windows Mobile device.