Finding the appropriate ROM - translating ROM names to something legible

Question

The Shipped ROMs site has a bunch of ROMs listed, but I can never make out which one is the one I am looking for. Using the baseband version is straightforward, but even then there are often a couple ROMs that fit.

Please excuse me if I should not be doing this, but I'll give you a concrete example: In my case, I am looking for the stock ROM for the unlocked HTC Desire I bought in The Netherlands (I'm Belgian myself, but this makes little difference). So I looked at the Bravo page: http://www.shipped-roms.com/index.php?category=android&model=Bravo

The baseband version is 32.49.00.32U_5.11.05.27 so that gives me a list of 8 ROMs

RUU_Bravo_Froyo_HTC_WWE_2.29.405.2_Radio_32.49.00.32U_5.11.05.27_release_151783_signed.exe   Binary File    
RUU_Bravo_Froyo_TELUS_WWE_2.25.661.2_Radio_32.49.00.32U_5.11.05.27_release_151557_signed.exe     Binary File    
PB99IMG_Bravo_Froyo_HTC_WWE_2.29.405.2_Radio_32.49.00.32U_5.11.05.27_release_151783_signed.zip   Archived File  
RUU_Bravo_Froyo_Vodafone_UK_2.33.161.2_Radio_32.49.00.32U_5.11.05.27_release_157522_signed.exe   Binary File    
RUU_Bravo_Froyo_HTC_ARA_2.32.415.3_Radio_32.49.00.32U_5.11.05.27_release_157343_signed.exe   Binary File    
RUU_Bravo_Froyo_HTC__ARA_2.32.415.3_Radio_32.49.00.32U_5.11.05.27_release_157343_signed.exe  Binary File    
RUU_Bravo_Froyo_HTC_WWE_2.29.405.5_Radio_32.49.00.32U_5.11.05.27_release_159811_signed.exe   Binary File    
PB99IMG_2.29.405.5_Radio_32.49.00.32U_5.11.05.27_release_159811_signed.zip   Archived File  

In this list, there are a couple abbreviations I do not know or understand, such as: WWE, ARA, RUU.

Any help, general or specific to my case, is much appreciated. I believe I know I will need a bin and not an exe file, and I can probably rule out Telus and Vodafone ones.

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

I'm pretty sure that:

• "WWE" stands for "World Wide English"

• "RUU" is "Rom Update Utility"

• "ARA" means "Arabic" (which apparently is for "middle eastern devices")

  "ARA" may mean "Aramean" and since it is in the same spot that "WWE" is I would guess that it refers to the localization or language like "WWE" does, so "Aramean" makes sense to me.

As you can see the RUU is an executable. You will run on your computer while your device is connected through USB. The zip is usually installed via a recovery - however that is my experience with my HTC EVO and Hero.

Answer 2

If you only want .zip files, there's only 2 choices. 2.29.405.5 is newer than 2.29.405.2, so that's the one you should get.