RSD CDMA General, an alternative to PST and/or MSU

In this guide I will have you install RSD CDMA General instead of MSU or PST. RSD General will be as nice as MSU and do most everything that PST does, but it does it better. This guide assumes you've already got the USB Drivers for your phone installed and working. Do NOT plug your phone in until told to do so later in this guide.

First, you may aquire RSD CDMA General version 5.1.6 here. After clicking on that link download it to a location on your PC where you will remember where you put it. Then double click on the file and then click the "Install" button. All this action will do is extract the .msi file. Then double click on the RSD_CDMA_General_5.1.6_Installation.msi file and the program will install. The MOST important thing to note is that either during the install or the first run of this program, if your firewall program asks whether or not to 'block' it, click the "Block" button.

Now, go ahead and fire this bad boy up. In the main window, it will ask you to "please power up your phone and plug it in" and the lower window will say, "Failed to parse matrix file, Please contact your system administrator". Don't worry about that message, it is NORMAL with this software. Go ahead and plug your phone in now.

After plugging your phone in, your comp and phone should 'beep' a few times and additional software should automatically be installed (unless you've already used PST). Just like MSU (if you've used MSU), your cursor should change to a little phone and then your ESN and f/w version should be shown in the upper window. In the main window you will see a message in red saying, "If you are upgrading your software or doing a swap operation, this phone is not supported. You may however continue to use the phone provisioning menu", and under it in black a "Please disconnect this phone" message. This is TOTALLY NORMAL! Congrats, you have RSD CDMA General set-up and working properly.

Finally, I post this guide because I had so much trouble with PST which in my book stands for Piece of Shite and Troublesome. RSD General can be used in place of PST/MSU to put your phone in the proper mode for using P2KSeem, P2K Commander; it can be used to backup your phonebook and if you have a 'flashable' phone, it will do all the backups/restores more reliably than PST if you chose to flash.