The Microsoft MN-700 was a great router, but crippled by the buggy firmware that Microsoft abandoned support for relatively quickly.  With the stock firmware, the router crashes frequently and has issues with features like port forwarding.  Microsoft was too lazy to design their own circuit board for the MN-700, and so they designed a new case for the Asus WL500G router, and put their own Windows CE operating system on it. One update was released, fixing the port forwarding issue, but the router still frequently crashed, and its feature set was definitely lacking.  

Fortunately for those with lots of time, but little money, it is possible to replace the firmware on these routers with a different one.  Many of these alternative firmwares are not only more stable, but enable more advanced features like QoS and VPN support.  These firmware updates can bring these routers back from the dead, my router crashed every few hours before the firmware update, making it useless.

My personal favorite firmware is DD-WRT.  However, many other alternative firmwares exist, including Open-WRT, tomato, and even the stock Asus firmware, which is superior to the Microsoft one, yet still simple and easy to use.  Any firmware that supports the WL500G router should work with the MN-700, however, DD-WRT offers a special version especially for the MN-700 that fixes a few minor annoyances (like the switching of the status and power lights) that plague some firmwares intended only for the Asus WL500G. 

This project is not for the complete hacking newbie.  It involves some soldering on the router's circuit board.  This is not surface mount soldering, but it does require a bit of experience with a soldering iron.  Potential hackers should also be familiar enough with Windows that they can navigate the control panel and command prompt (DOS box) with some confidence.  Linux will be used very briefly, but I am mostly a Linux newb, and I survived. 

I did not pioneer any of these techniques, nor did I write any of this software. I simply collected everything together into one easy to use tutorial (something that many hacking geniuses are not so good at). The following people deserve the credit for most of the information here:

  • Liam M - Liam M wrote a comprehensive tutorial on flashing, which has great pictures, but leaves out some steps which might not be obvious to a computer newb. Many of the software links are dead.
  • DD-WRT Wiki - This wiki contains a lot of good general information on the MN-700, and how to use alternative firmware.
  • Will iam - Provided invaluable feedback, and several of the photos in the tutorial.

This tutorial is broken into six parts, for the sake of clarity. The parts are as follows:

  • Part I - Disassembling the router
  • Part 2 - The JTAG Cable
  • Part 3 - Create a new CFE
  • Part 4 - Flashing the CFE onto your router
  • Part 5 - Writing a new operating system to your router
  • Part 6 - Reassemble the router

This tutorial took an enourmous amount of time to put together. I would very much appreciate any donations, which can be made by clicking the paypal button below.