If you have a newer model of a Windows Mobile device you might have had problems with the backlight being dimmed when you’re typing in your password/PIN. (You do have Power-On-Password enabled don’t you?) As long as you’re indoors it’s not a problem, but try seeing anything at all on the screen when you are outdoors.
Sometimes I have no idea what they are thinking when they decide what to make a default setting. (Especially when they don’t provide with a way to change the setting through the GUI.)
If you are affected by this try changing the following registry key:
HKCU\ControlPanel\BackLight\Locklevel\ (DWORD) LockLevel
0 = disable dimmer, 1-10 enable dimmer (varying levels of brightness). Not all devices support all values.
On the HTC Touch Pro I spotted another setting (which is available through the GUI as well), possibly present on other newer HTC models as well. The setting dims the backlight, but turns the brightness up when you touch the screen (which has a nice feeling to it).
HKCU\ControlPanel\BackLight\ (DWORD) DimBKLinUnlockScreen
0 = disabled, 1 = enabled (As in “Disabled = good thing”)
Great info, but where did you go to find out about the registry key’s purpose?
Note that this key is also tied to a phantom resetting of the time before the backlight turns off, too. If the value is set to = 1, which is the default on the iPAQ 900c, then if you change the backlight to not go off for 2 minutes, when you cycle power, your backlight delay will be reset to the factory default, in the case of the iPAQ, 10 seconds.
Nice to know at least what this key is supposed to be for.
Thanks!
You can learn a lot just by browsing the registry on a device and just testing what the keys do
When doing things like this I usually have some specific problem I need to solve, (I don’t test a lot of different keys merely for the fun of it), and possibly an idea where to start looking.
Always remember to do a proper soft-reset when applying settings like this. (Proper = turn off with button not ripping out battery, push stylus in reset hole, etc).
I haven’t tested on the iPAQ - the tricky thing about the whole backlight feature is that HTC/HP/Samsung all do different things in their implementations…