I have shared your frustration. The board's not as active as some others I frequent. At least you have more users of the 900 than the 500!.
The testmode I found works has files dated 6/30/10. they are on bootable (flash, in my case) media, in a zipped folder, along with zipped MITACAP folder, both in the root directory.
I did not lose, nor erase my maps.
My unit runs WinCE; they all do, but continue booting into the applications the factory supplied. Booting from the media, as above, stops the process at CE. I suggest that you learn early, to backup the unit to a minimum 2gB card or such. On the 500, all is accomplished with the software that is showing on the CE desktop, accessed with a stylus. I have used a plastic pen-end and a toothpick. I learned through playing, to calibrate the screen, move files and bring up the keyboard. It took time.
iGo is a factory application, that is the Nav software, if I am not mistaken. There may be new versions available and others will say which works with what version of CE, similarly as the hacks.
For the F500BT, I opted to get the $99 Pioneer update, to 2010 maps and new firmware (4.0). It shows WinCE 5.00 I believe the FW version are numbered differently between F models and possibly also for US versus Europe.
