Memory Card Rant

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://stevenf.com/mt/archives/000206.php' target='_blank'>http://stevenf.com/mt/archives/000206.php</a><br /><br /></div>"All recently-made PDAs ship with some horribly anemic amount of built-in RAM that's used for application storage (and in some really confusing cases, also for application heap at runtime). They then include some sort of memory expansion slot to address this shortcoming. However, you must obey the first commandment of PDA memory expansion: Thou shalt not install applications on the memory card. This has failed dismally on every modern PDA I've used, regardless of platform.<br /><br />...On the PocketPC: Not so much a problem installing apps to the memory card, but some would just fail on launch. Again, you're never quite sure whether it will work or not. I'm told, although this wasn't a problem on my e740, that some PocketPC models which include both Compact Flash and SD expansion slots would name both of them "Storage Card". Thus, the app would store a bunch of references to, say, "Storage Card" the Compact Flash, and then go looking for its files on "Storage Card" the SD card and fail the next time you launched it."<br /><br />The above rant is found on stevenf.com, an unlikely site for a well-considered rant on the issue of storage cards and PDAs. For the most part, I'd have to agree with his conclusion. I find that most of my apps work when installed on a storage card, but not all do, and it's hard to know which ones will work before you install them. And let's not forget the "internal memory card": the Flash ROM. That's even worse! Some of my favourite programs don't function when installed to Flash ROM, which is frustrating. I never owned a Newton, but the idea of having a program be a single file is quite appealing.<br /><br />I wonder why it's still so difficult to have programs work consistently from storage cards? Part of the fault lies with the developers, but also with Microsoft - the storage card naming issue is something they should mandate in a consistent way.

[Rirath]

Actually I'd hate having my programs a single file. I love my pocket pc because it is a pocket pc. I like that it works pretty much like a regular pc works. Hmm, I've never had a problem running anything out of memory cards or ROM... but I mostly install only games to memory cards and all apps to memory.

I think just about every app I've saw that shouldn't be put on a memory card warns of such in the manual and install setup. Obviously any that do not have such warnings, should.

By the way, why does the link go to pricegrabber on a printer? :?

[jizmo]

I've never quite understood this whole installer concept. On the good ol' Amiga, all you had to do was to extract the program to a directory and run in, no installing was necessary. Same thing applied when deleting a program, just remove the folder and there are no traces of the program on your system.

With all these (uncompatible) installer systems on pc, I often find myself with very crippled install / unstall in control panel. The list, which contains only about 40 programs takes ages to load for some reason and some of them have become uninstallable. One cannot just quickly try out one single program by extracting and running it, oh no, we have to a program that takes ages to install with several different confirmation boxes, manyally specified locations, program icons everywhere, on desktop, startup menu, tray, favorites..etc etc .. And on the top of that, the nice process of uninstalling one single program takes a lot more time than it would take just deleting a directory.

PPC even makes this worse for my windows, not only is my start menu too full as it is and I have to clean it up all the time, but now even the PPC programs add their own folder there. Why? I cannot run the PPC programs on my desktop computer. *sigh* :roll:

Ok, I feel a little better now .. :D

/jizmo

[MPSmith]

By the way, why does the link go to pricegrabber on a printer? :?

I have to admit, the I950 Photo Printer (4800x1200 DPI, Color) is an awesome machine, but a bit off topic, er I mean off-rant :wink:

[Robert Levy]

Interestingly enough, things are the exact opposite on Smartphone devices. The typical user keeps a large SD card in their phone at all times and installs all apps to the card. The one good thing about MS's logo requirements is that we are guaranteed that any app distributed through Mobile2Market will properly install/run/uninstall from memory cards.

[Rirath]

I've never quite understood this whole installer concept. On the good ol' Amiga, all you had to do was to extract the program to a directory and run in, no installing was necessary. Same thing applied when deleting a program, just remove the folder and there are no traces of the program on your system.

It all comes down to registery settings, setting up the files in the right locations, etc. Small time programs are just as simple as copy and pasting them over to the right folder. But for anything larger, it needs to be able to correctly set itself up in the users machine. Aside from that, many users still don't correctly know how to copy and paste files to the devices. Removing a program usually as simple as using the Remove Program tool and a few softresets at worse.

As for the desktop, most programs have their own uninstaller and most programs work fine with the control panel. Poorly programmed apps that don't have this probably have many other worse off problems. Computing (PPC and Desktop) wouldn't be as good as we know it today if it was as simple as deleting a directory and all traces of the app was wiped out.

[Will T Smith]

Unlike a traditional computer where exectuables are loaded INTO memory and then run from THERE. PocketPC devices run applications DIRECTLY from storage.

That is, storage RAM doubles as primary RAM. The ramification of this is the device doesn't LOAD an application from a storage card into main memory, it runs it DIRECTLY from the storage card.

A nasty side effect of this is your executing your program from an unfixed source. A nasty side effect occurs when the following happens:

First, run your app from the expansion slot. Second, turn off the device and remove the memory card. Third, turn the device back on and try to use your app. Whoila, it's not their anymore !!!!

The ramifications of data missing isn't nearly as bad as executable code simply dissapearing. However, your stack and heap ARE executed in the device main memory. How do you clean that up when you suddenly yank the program out of the device and leave the stack and heap resident in memory.

Don't like that model. Well, try implementing your PocketPC with traditional RAM and a microdrive. Have fun waiting for it to boot every time you want to check some data :-)

[johncruise]

not to criticize or anything here but....
... I never did seen that problem ever since I own a pocket pc. certain pocket pc's tend to change the expansion storage name from time to time (storage card, storage card 1....etc) and that may explain alot why shortcuts from the memory located at the expansion slot fails to work. I could have sworn that toshiba's storage card naming convention uses "CF Card" and/or "SD Card" instead of the usual "Storage Card" like from those Casio ppc's... but I guess I'm wrong.

[Jason Dunn]

By the way, why does the link go to pricegrabber on a printer? :?

Uh, because I'm an idiot. :oops: Fixed!

[dean_shan]

I never owned a Newton, but the idea of having a program be a single file is quite appealing.

The Palms also work this way. I like have the programs in multiple files better. It makes it a true computer.

[ctmagnus]

This is why apps like Pocketwarrior (http://www.pocketwarrior.org/) are so beautiful. Just one file. You can stick it in Start Menu -> Programs or in Program Files and create a shortcut to it. No registry entries, .ini files, preinstallation of .Net runtime needed.

[hdsalinas]

I have an Ipaq 3650 (upgraded to PPC2002). I install all my applications on the internal memory and keep games on my 250 CF card. I would install a lot of big programs like wmp and acrobat on the CF card but I prefer to leave them on the ipaq itself. The reason for this is that I don't always carry my CF jacket with me. I want to be able to use all of my programs without depending on the stupid and big CF jacket.

Before I bought my ipaq, I used to have a jornada 540. I used to store big documents like my bible, games, programs, avantgo channels etc on the CF card leaving me more free ram for running applications. The integrated CF slot on my HP proved to be priceless. I could use my CF card as my "hard drive" and the sistem memory as "ram" (it was like having a small PC with 133mhz, 16MB ram and a 250MB HDD) And since I only had one CF card there was no point in taking it out of my PPC (except for transfering files). My programs were always with me and I could not tell if they were install on the PPC itself or running from memory. (speed wise)

I am planning to get a new PPC. Most likely a 400mhz Dell. I am going to store programs like acrobat and my Bible file (about 1MB) on the user accessible ROM. Then install everything else on the SD card (games, themes, documents, stuff and other applications) and leave my music and movies on the CF card. That would leave me 64MB of free ram on my device! Best of all it will always be with me... i will never forget to bring my bulky CF jacket.

Now if you think about this setup, I can see how a device with "little memory" like the h1910 (48MB is still more than what was available when I first got my HP) could still be very attractive. You could get a large SD card and install everything in there. I am even tempted to get this device instead of a Dell. The only thing keeping me from doing it is the lack of SDIO. ( I need wifi)

With memoty prices right now one could have a 1GB cf card on their PPC easily. When I got my first 32MB CF card it was $99, recently I bought a 250 CF card for less than that! So for me using add on memory for installing applications makes sense.


HDSalinas
San PedroSula, Honduras

[jimski]

"
For the most part, I'd have to agree with his conclusion. I find that most of my apps work when installed on a storage card, but not all do, and it's hard to know which ones will work before you install them. And let's not forget the "internal memory card": the Flash ROM. That's even worse! Some of my favourite programs don't function when installed to Flash ROM, which is frustrating.

I only use my storage card to load huge programs like; Adobe Acrobat Reader (4700K) and Citrix Client ( 2640K), which I would otherwise just pass up. They seem to work OK.

And I agree with the Flash ROM comment. With the large 21.7MB file store on my 5450 I thought I was doing the right thing by trying to load programs into this space (what else do I use all this available memory for), but to my surprise, while most programs create a directory in File Store, it is left empty while all the exe and dll files wind up somewhere else in RAM. Other applications will simple not run from ROM (iPAQ Micro and Portable keyboard for sure) and I wind up needing to uninstall/reinstall.

I now track all of my applications along with their saved location in an Access database which I promptly print out after a hard reset to determine where everything belongs.

[Pony99CA]

Hmm, I've never had a problem running anything out of memory cards or ROM... but I mostly install only games to memory cards and all apps to memory.

Microsoft Money doesn't work in a memory card. Spb's Xonix does work from a memory card, but their Pocket High Scores system can't find scores if it's installed there. (I sent them a comment about that, but haven't heard back.)


I think just about every app I've saw that shouldn't be put on a memory card warns of such in the manual and install setup. Obviously any that do not have such warnings, should.

That's true, but they should go further. If an application can't work from a storage card, there should be a way to disable that setting in ActiveSync's Add/Remove programs list.

I also wish you could install a program to a directory that you chose. I seem to recall that I could do that on my Handheld PC. For example, I'd like programs installed on a storage card to be in a Program Files folder, not a folder installed in the root of the storage card.

Steve

[gorkon280]

could have sworn that toshiba's storage card naming convention uses "CF Card" and/or "SD Card" instead of the usual "Storage Card" like from those Casio ppc's... but I guess I'm wrong.


Well, you can MAKE it say that via a registry hack, but it does call one storage card 1 and storage card 2 by default. What's worse is the included backup app will fail if you use the hack as it's hard coded to look for the factory default names. EVEN worse is that the backup program can not backup to a network drive. Also the next thing is that you need programs ike NetRunner. Why don't they ASSUME you want to be able to do things you;d be able to do on a network? Cut and paste? Excuse me? Anyway, 64 MB holds all of my apps. Most of my data goes to the SD card.

[Pony99CA]

I've never quite understood this whole installer concept. On the good ol' Amiga, all you had to do was to extract the program to a directory and run in, no installing was necessary. Same thing applied when deleting a program, just remove the folder and there are no traces of the program on your system.

As Rirath said, the installer will typically set up registry settings, but it will also create shortcuts in the Programs (or Games) folder and possibly the Start menu.

You can avoid most of the pain of installation if you can get a CAB file and copy it to your Pocket PC directly, but you may have to create your shortcuts yourself.


PPC even makes this worse for my windows, not only is my start menu too full as it is and I have to clean it up all the time, but now even the PPC programs add their own folder there. Why? I cannot run the PPC programs on my desktop computer. *sigh* :roll:

I always wondered why installing Pocket PC programs put items in my host PC's Start Menu, too. I think it's a reminder for you, and provides a place for the Uninstall action.

If you ever checked your PC's Program Files directory after installing a Pocket PC program, you'll usually find either a directory there for the program or a directory under Program Files\Microsoft ActiveSync. That directory contains the files needed by ActiveSync's Add/Remove programs feature to restore applications after a hard reset, for example. If you keep your installation programs on another hard drive (like I do), you can probably delete most Pocket PC program directories on your PC, but it will make restoring your system more difficult if you need to do a hard reset.

Steve

[TypeMRT]

I've never quite understood this whole installer concept. On the good ol' Amiga, all you had to do was to extract the program to a directory and run in, no installing was necessary. Same thing applied when deleting a program, just remove the folder and there are no traces of the program on your system.
/jizmo

That's one of the perks of using a Mac, just drop the one file where you want to run it from. That's how I think PDA's should be. You got your app and you got your data. Leave registry settings and installers for desktop and laptop machines. Handhelds made for the masses (read: not PPC Thoughts/Slashdot/etc readers) should be simple & reliable. Most people just want to check a phone number or play a quick game of solitare. Let techies get souped-up handheld computers for remote sysadmin work, because they actually know how to tweak registry settings and make sure an app uninstalls completely.

[Rirath]

That's one of the perks of using a Mac, just drop the one file where you want to run it from. That's how I think PDA's should be. You got your app and you got your data. Leave registry settings and installers for desktop and laptop machines. Handhelds made for the masses (read: not PPC Thoughts/Slashdot/etc readers) should be simple & reliable. Most people just want to check a phone number or play a quick game of solitare. Let techies get souped-up handheld computers for remote sysadmin work, because they actually know how to tweak registry settings and make sure an app uninstalls completely.

Personally I really hope PPCs don't take this route, less they become more like Palms and less like handheld computers. It sounds to me you'd be quite happy with a Palm. (And I don't mean that in an offensive way.) PocketMac anyone? ;)

[jizmo]

As Rirath said, the installer will typically set up registry settings, but it will also create shortcuts in the Programs (or Games) folder and possibly the Start menu.

You can avoid most of the pain of installation if you can get a CAB file and copy it to your Pocket PC directly, but you may have to create your shortcuts yourself.

Actually I'm aware of what the installers *do*, but not quite clear why does it have to be done in such a hard and thorough way. For a bigger programs it's very understandable, but nowadays even the tiniest one-purpose application has to be installed. I just love the programs that are one-filed or can be run just by extracting them to a directory.

Also, I always prefer to copy the cab files directly to PPC since the installation is much faster that way and there are no modifications made to the register of my desktop computer.

I always wondered why installing Pocket PC programs put items in my host PC's Start Menu, too. I think it's a reminder for you, and provides a place for the Uninstall action.

Yeah, and this way one has to uninstall the program via desktop computer, which I never do since it's much easier to do it with the handheld. PPC utilities in Start menu are completely useless, they could atleast go under one directory on start menu (PocketPC, for example).

PPC is a handheld computer which should generally run on its own, without the constant need of a desktop computer and its installers. Not only are they generally a pain in the ass, in speed and size-wise, but after a hard-reset (which are a part of PPC's life) PPC is empty but the registration settings, start menu items, uninstall information etc etc are still on my desktop computer. Removing the already futile start-menu entries is a additional manual labour. It seems to me there's lot of room for improvement here..

/jizmo

[bmhome1]

As a Mac user, I'm glad I didn't read this post before diving into PPC's, I would have been scared away.

Really Guys, I find the PPC VERY simple to manage, I taught myself cold (learned more than ever about PC's in general in the process) a few months ago and my 3955 is LOADED now with HackMaster, NetFront (figured out how to split apart the larger portions of it's huge 6MB app to run from SD), NoteM, Palm Reader, Photogenics (3MB on SD), Pocket Artist (3MB on SD), Pocket TV (SD), Pocket MVP (SD), PQView, Pocketloupe, Pixfer, Voyager, with MP3, Remote Desktop, GigaBar, Wisbar, wimr, Pocket Explorer, Storage Tools, Rhinostats, Battery 2003, animated themes...well, you get the picture.

All rock-steady (never hard lockup yet) and I STILL only have 15.5MB RAM in use. AND all this via XP in VPC on a Mac, too.

I find the PPC easier to manage than my Palm, Activesync less flakey than Hotsync, .exe installs brain-dead easy and the PPC Windows-like file structure logical and far easier to fine-tune than Palm's wacked-out directory design.

BTW, OSX has dismantled that old famous "simplicity" and is VERY XP-like. I get my hands dirty in both now.

[jizmo]

Oh no no no no no ...

I should always remember that there are some newcomers reading this forum also, so I rephrase: Installation is dead simple and all the programs I've installed on both main memory and my SD card work like charm, so there are no problems in this category, atleast to me.

It's just the whole installing and uninstalling process that could be a little faster etc better. It works as it is now, but there's always a little room for improvement, don't you agree? :wink:

/jizmo

[guilmon]

Well, I don't know what this guy is smoking here, because I install every app. for my e310 on my 128mb Sd card, and all of them work perfectly. Of course, when you have two expansion cards, it may get confused on which one you plugged in first, and therefore, may be trying to look for something on the wrong card.

[WindWalker]

Let me give an example of what the gentleman speaks of....

I used to use an Audiovox Maestro. I downloaded withMP3 and installed it to my SD card. Looked like everything ran just fine, and after messing around with it for a while, I turned the 'Vox off.

Next time I turned it on, the 'Vox froze up. I did a soft reset, and everything was fine. Of course, until the next time I turned it on, when the same thing happened. I struggled through trying to figure out what was happening, culminating in a hard reset.......and I installed withMP3 again, to the SD card. Of coure the same things happened again...

I began to check out what was going on by starting the 'Vox with the CF, then the SD pulled out. It was then I saw that withMP3 was attempting to initialize something at startup, and because of the delay in initialization of the SD card, the app was locking the system. Uninstall from SD, resintall to main memory, problem solved.

The problem may not be as all-pervasive as the author seemed to make it, but it does exist. The 'Vox was victim to the changing Flash card name issue, and required a reg hack to fix. It is something that should be looked at in future revs.

And I would say that there is nothing less computer-like about putting all the files an app needs into a single directory. Scattering things all over the system doesn't seem like a very efficient way of doing things. Why CAN'T they refer to all of the information they need within their own install folder? I don't necessarily advocate the single file theory, but wouldn't the "own folder" idea prevent us from, say, stomping all over DLLs that happen to be named the same?

[lmtuxinc]

I have a Dell Axim and I have installed almost everything on to my 256MB SD Card with only a few minor problems. :)
Dell was smart enough to name the Card slots SD Card and CF Card on a system level, so that I can install things to the SD Card. 8)

:x What i dont like is that when you install something to internal memory, it puts it in the program files folder, but when you install it to a card it dosent put it in the program files folder, it creates folders at the root level and then I have to move everything and edit the registry.

Alan

[rob_ocelot]

PPC even makes this worse for my windows, not only is my start menu too full as it is and I have to clean it up all the time, but now even the PPC programs add their own folder there. Why? I cannot run the PPC programs on my desktop computer. *sigh* :roll:

/jizmo

An even greater faux pas that some installers do is write the program into the actual start menu directory, so you get a mix of shortcuts and programs -- ICQ does this, check out your /Windows/Start Menu directory sometime.

There are inconsistencies in installers that put the main files in /Program Files as well: Resco File Explorer creates a directory called "Resco" which never gets used, and writes the files into another directory. :evil: I shouldn't have to pick up the mess after an installer has it's way with my machine.

Also, is there ever any reason nowadays to overwrite gapi (gx.dll) for games when installing? Rather annoying to get a popup asking if you want to overwrite the gapi in your machine with one that has a date of October 2000 or somesuch. Should be a no-brainer to have the installer program compare the dates and use the most recent build. (granted, this is a problem on the PPC's end and not the installer running from the desktop)

Regards,
Rob S.

[Evee Ev]

what benefit is there to install all the applications on the storage card and leave the ppc basically empty? are there speed gains or something?

[Deslock]

I never owned a Newton, but the idea of having a program be a single file is quite appealing.

The Palms also work this way. I like have the programs in multiple files better. It makes it a true computer.
Palm's are also true computers. Its file system has limitations and it can't multitask, but it is not just an organizer. IMHO, the Windows Registry one of the most horribly implement concepts in computing ever (it ranks right up there with shared DLLs). All applications should simply go into their own directory. I don't oppose having a central database (like the registry) to store certain information (it has advantages over the days of Win3.x), but it should've been designed in a more modular fashion to allow for programs to work independent of the registry. Actually, the Windows file system itself is obsolete and should be updated. Ideally, objects should be of the following types:

1) User Objects (documents)
2) Program Objects
3) Hardware Objects (drivers)
4) Operating System Objects

And there should be multiple levels of security so that users can not mess up their computers.

[Deslock]

Unless I've missed something, Activesync does not let you specify where you want your apps installed, beyond choosing between RAM and memory card(s). If you want to run from memory cards, it installs to the root directory of the card (and uses annoyingly long directory names). The downside to this is that you end up with a huge list of directories to sift through (many application's dialog windows display all directories in the card's root).

My workaround has been to install from the CAB files using <a href=http://www.geocities.com/s_k_s_k_s_kru/util.html>CABINSTL</a>. If the CAB file is not provided, the process goes like this:

1) Run desktop installation program.

2) Cancel when prompted to intall to default location.

3) Look in C:\Program Files\Microsoft ActiveSync\ for the CAB file. If it's not there, use REGEDIT to scan through the entries at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows CE Services\AppMgr\Apps.

4) If more than one CAB file exists and it's not obvious which one is needed, go through a process of trial and error until one of them installs.

5) Sometimes the CAB files are temporarily created and deleted after the setup process. When this happens, skip step 2 until the CAB file is located and copied (searching for all CABs by date has worked for me when this happens).

This is a long, tedious, backwards method for installing apps (though installing with Activesync is not much better... I don't understand how anyone can praise how it handle installing apps). Is there a faster, easier way to install apps to user-specified directories? I'm using Activesync 3.5... perhaps 3.6 addresses this issue (I've been afraid to try it because of horror stories I've read). Or maybe there is actually a way to do it with Activesync 3.5 that I don't know about?

Thanks!

[cludwig]

Well, I don't know what this guy is smoking here, because I install every app. for my e310 on my 128mb Sd card, and all of them work perfectly. Of course, when you have two expansion cards, it may get confused on which one you plugged in first, and therefore, may be trying to look for something on the wrong card.

It is an unfortunate fact that some apps simply don't work properly when installed to a storage card. Here's a recent conversation with the support folks from Vindigo:



Subject
Each time I synchronize, I get an error. Then, when I try to run Vindigo on m...


Discussion Thread


Customer 02/23/2003 05:08 PM
Each time I synchronize, I get an error. Then, when I try to run Vindigo on my PocketPC, I get a screen that says "Updating Vindigo" and just hangs. I've let it run for hours with no luck. If I do a soft reset, then I can run Vindigo fine and my data appears up-to-date, so I guess the sync is failing at the end of transferring the data.

If I choose about, I get Version: 2.40.1.7 Wed Jan 15 13:06:18 2003

I run Vindigo on a storage card on my T-Mobile Phone Edition device (with 64 meg internal upgrade) and have never had any problem before about a week or so ago.


Response (Pat) 02/24/2003 12:41 PM
Thanks for your recent message. Vindigo needs to be stored on the device proper- and not on a storage card. You should reinstall Vindigo onto your device. To reinstall Vindigo, please go to:

https://www.vindigo.com/download/dl_software.jsp

Please be sure, after downloading the file, to double-click it, install it, and follow all remaining steps.

IMPORTANT: You should not create another user account. Simply sign in with your existing username and password on our account creation page.


Customer 02/24/2003 01:18 PM
I'm sorry to hear this. I have always run Vindigo on my Storage Card
without any problems. I guess it finally broke. :-( The developers should
be informed that this is a barrier to acceptance by a large number of
PocketPC users, since some devices (particularly the popular Phone Edition devices) have only a small amount (32MB) of main memory. Since Vindigo by it's nature requires a lot of storage space for offline info, it is
particularly important that it be able to run on a Storage Card. This may
affect my decision to continue using the product. When I first started
using Vindigo on my device over a year ago, I noticed that if it was
installed in the main device memory that it would almost never run without a soft-reset first because it was running out of memory. If I'm forced to go back to that situation, then I'll likely not renew my subscription.


Response (Pat) 02/24/2003 03:03 PM
Thanks for your feedback. We appreciate your feedback and suggestions. We are in the process of evaluating and planning for future versions of our application and welcome your comments. We will keep you up-to-date about changes and enhancements to the Vindigo application via our website and our newsletter.

[disconnected]

I had the same problem with Vindigo, although after several re-installs it seems to be working ok from the storage card, at least for now. It does take some time to open; I don't know if it would be faster in main memory and I don't remember anything in the instructions that said not to install to a storage card.

It isn't what I'd call a simple install; the PC and PPC parts are installed kind of at the same time while sending you back and forth from the website to fill out forms while it's installing, and I've been unable to install to my laptop to use while travelling because it won't finish the install on the laptop without trying to install on the PPC and getting confused because it's already there.

I also have Zagat, and its instructions say that it must be in main memory. Every time I go to a different city I've had to reinstall (and it, too, is not a straightforward install); the directions say you can just add a city, but I've never managed to do it. I'd like to keep the guides for several cities installed but they take up way to much room in main memory.

[cludwig]

I had the same problem with Vindigo, although after several re-installs it seems to be working ok from the storage card, at least for now. It does take some time to open; I don't know if it would be faster in main memory and I don't remember anything in the instructions that said not to install to a storage card.
...stuff deleted...


Yeah, it's a shame. It worked great for me for almost a year, but they've been making minor patches lately (last one was Jan. 15) and one of those broke it... now it'll hang forever the first time I run it after a sync, saying "Updating Vindigo..." After I soft reset, it works fine, but the conduit always complains that it didn't finish sync'ing because it's expecting some reply after the updating process. There's NO WAY I'm moving it back to main memory... it's such a hog because of all the data it stores offline... I live in Philly and travel to NYC a lot, and between those two cities there's _A LOT_ of data.

[ctmagnus]

...withMP3 was attempting to initialize something at startup...

Piece of cake...

Open \Windows\StartUp and delete the offending shortcut.

[Idruna]

The problem from a developer's point of view is that there is no way of finding out where the program is located when it's running, and that the Pocket PC has no concept of the "current directory", which means you can't use relative file names. Normally you could keep your data files in the same location as the program, and just open them by saying something like open "file". Doesn't work on a Pocket PC, you need the full path "/Program Files/Program/file". The installer adds a key with the installation path to the registry, and the program must read this key to find out where it's data files are located. This is a real pain when trying to develop a fault tolerant system that can survive a dead battery, just installing a program to the file store is not enough, you either have to store a cab file there too so that you can reinstall (except that even if the .cab file is read only, the system still deletes it during the install process, even if the install is not completed!), leaving the only solution the iPAQ backup, which does not restore shortcuts in the start menu either.

The next problem is that some iPAQs (most noticably the 5450) just plain crash if a program installed to flash or the iPAQ file store tries to blit an image stored as a resource to the screen. Looks like a driver issue to me, perhaps because the image must first be paged into memory before it can be blitted, the driver starves and crashes.

[WindWalker]

...withMP3 was attempting to initialize something at startup...

Piece of cake...

Open \Windows\StartUp and delete the offending shortcut.

True enough, but the question still stands....

You and I and most of the other well informed folks on this board and others cand figure these things out.....but we are not a representative population, considering the number of people that are starting to pile on the PDA bandwagon. They should not NEED to have to figure this out.

So it goes. We'll get there one day :)

[ctmagnus]

You and I and most of the other well informed folks on this board and others cand figure these things out.....but we are not a representative population, considering the number of people that are starting to pile on the PDA bandwagon. They should not NEED to have to figure this out.

Good point. I just had an eerie flashback: Having to do a hard-reset and restore the previous backup after something I installed went in there.

ALso, NoteM (http://www.geocities.com/zavorine/wince/mp3.htm) sticks something someplace that tries to run every once in a while. I have yet to find it but everytime I've tried to uninstall it, it complains occasionally about not being able to find/run something related to the app, which I had just uninstalled.