Installing programs on Storage Card

[humayunl]

I just wanted to ask about what there is to know about installing programs on a storage card. (SD in my case).

I know its slower if a program is installed on a Storage Card. How about installation/uninstallation? Anything special to know there?

My main question is: if I have a program installed on a Storage Card, and I do a hard reset, what happens to the program on the card? Should i erase and reinstall? or can i just create a shortcut to it again?

Reason I'm asknig is, there are some programs (dictionary, pocket earth) that i use infrequently, but i'd like to have them available. And I can tolerate slight delays in loading for these. So I am thinking I should install them on a storage card.

Any other info would be appreciated.

[Jorgen]

To install on a storage card: During installation, the installation program will ask if you want to install at the default destination. Say no and you will be guided.

I don't know what will happen after a hard reset. Your program will of course still exist on the SD card.

Jorgen

[Menneisyys]

I know its slower if a program is installed on a Storage Card. How about installation/uninstallation? Anything special to know there?


Actually, you'll notice dramatic speed problems with very few programs. The only program I've ever encountered to become very sluggish is SimpleSMS. All the other non-Today plug-ins I'e tested worked OK off storage media, as long as speed is concerned.


My main question is: if I have a program installed on a Storage Card, and I do a hard reset, what happens to the program on the card? Should i erase and reinstall? or can i just create a shortcut to it again?


It'll remain there. However, as only very few programs don't touch the Registry upon installation (I speak of programs that come as an EXE that shuld be deployed right on the PDA, without any install. AltTab, PDAMill Picture Viewer, some simple SMS handlers are examples of these), the registry data they create upon installation will be lost, and the programs, therefore, won't really run without the Registry contents. So, yu'll need to completely reinstall all apps.

A very good cure for this is regularly backing up your registry (and, for that matter, \Windows, because some programs also install shared DLL's there; also, all .unload files are put there. In subdirectories, in addition, the starting links are also put upon installation, so you'll save yourself the need for re-creating links too.), but not your card. This way, creating backups will be done very fast (becaus ethe main memory remains pretty clean if you only install stuff on strage media) and will occupy little space.

[humayunl]

So basically its similar to installing programs in windows XP.. i.e. the standard MS 'unclean' style of management where nothing is isolated no matter how organized and isolated i want my installations to be.

But the speed information was new. i havent tried this myself but from people's posts i was expecting all programs to become niticeably slow.

Cool.. this is just what i wanted to know. Thanks a lot guys.

[Menneisyys]

i havent tried this myself but from people's posts i was expecting all programs to become niticeably slow.

On recent hardware, you won't encounter noticable slowdowns. All recent PDA's are capable of reading SD cards at at least 500-600 kbytes/s and at most 1.7 Mbytes/s (depending on the SD and PDA type). Long gone are the times of the iPAQ 38xx with its dog-slow 1-bit SD bus. THEN, it was indeed advisable not to install anything on an SD card. But not anymore.

[MTHall47]

I noticed one responder said with recent hardware no real slow down.
Is the X5 too old to putt apps on a SD card instead of main memory?
Mine has the 400mhZ processor.

I always wondered why so many companies kept warning not to put the app anywhere other than main memory -- or at least not to put it on a memory card.

[Menneisyys]

I noticed one responder said with recent hardware no real slow down.
Is the X5 too old to putt apps on a SD card instead of main memory?
Mine has the 400mhZ processor.

Dunno, haven't benchmarked it myself. Install an often-used, large app in your main memory and then on your SD and if you seem some perceivable speed difference (or, even critical slowdown, as with SimpleSMS), stick with the main memory.

I always wondered why so many companies kept warning not to put the app anywhere other than main memory -- or at least not to put it on a memory card.

Because they aren't really up-to-date. It's not the only thing they do not know much about. For example, all PDA manufacturers still recommend a 10+ hours first charging with Li-Ion batteries. That's not needed at all, either.

[MTHall47]

Just wanted to see if anyone feels it is risky to keep all major apps in main memory and store all data on CF or SD cards. My main memory is fairly limited.

Thanks.

I have found consistantly that the people on this site are the fastest answering, most helpful, if any site I have been on.

[Menneisyys]

Just wanted to see if anyone feels it is risky to keep all major apps in main memory and store all data on CF or SD cards.

In some cases, it is a must to store custom databases (and their corresponding programs) on storage media. E.g., SMS databases. I used to store my SMS handlers in main memory (by deleting them from the phone memory at once so that the communication between the PDA and the phone can remain fast), and - because I didn't back them up each day and I/my wife are always receiving SMS'es from friends/relatives - I had two hard resets because of faulty HardCE batteries for the iPAQ 2210. A lot of our SMS' have been destroyed by this, irreperably.

[Ripper014]

As mentioned it is a luxury for most people to keep applications in main memory. All applications would gain by being in main memory... especially in speed... But because your ram is limited... for most people less than 64mb... they are forced to place their applications normally on a storage card.

Some items need to be in main memory... plug-ins... are one. PIM's such as Agenda Fusion and Pocket Informant are better located on main memory as well... also it is a good idea to load larger intense applications such as Textmaker in main memory... as you can see... this can quickly eat up your ram... now who said that 64mb was enough...

I personally keep all my data on the storage cards... with some files in my file store. I do regular backups to protect my data... a good idea for anyone... I think you will agree after your first catastrophic failure. My basic strategy is to put my applications and data on my SD Card... with some files in my files store... I keep all my mass media storage on my CF Card... It seems to work for me...

[Menneisyys]

BTW, I recommend my new post in http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=36376 - I've just finished conducting a large series of PIE cache benchmarks. Very interesting results, as far as storage speed is concerned!

[humayunl]

BTW, I recommend my new post in http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=36376 - I've just finished conducting a large series of PIE cache benchmarks. Very interesting results, as far as storage speed is concerned!

That was a really helpful article. It answered questions I didn't even know how to ask.

I think its time for a hard reset and re-installation of all my apps... the right way this time!

Thanks!

[humayunl]

Menneisyys, upon reading the article again, I have a question..

You ran the performance degredation tests after installing some apps and some plugins etc.. but you left out some of the most commonly used plugins in your test. namely Pocket Breeze, Wisbar Advance and misc. weather plugins for the today screen.

AFAIK, these plugins are very commonly used and also are extremely useful. I have always been curious about their exact affect on the performance of my PPC. I do know that it does affect it because my PPC's today screen is slower than that of my friends who have pretty much "virgin" PPCs. But I don't know exactly how bad the affect is and whether its bad enough to not have them... not that I can live without them, but at last I can be better informed.

Any comments on this based on your tests and/or observations?

[Menneisyys]

Menneisyys, upon reading the article again, I have a question..

You ran the performance degredation tests after installing some apps and some plugins etc.. but you left out some of the most commonly used plugins in your test. namely Pocket Breeze, Wisbar Advance and misc. weather plugins for the today screen.

AFAIK, these plugins are very commonly used and also are extremely useful. I have always been curious about their exact affect on the performance of my PPC. I do know that it does affect it because my PPC's today screen is slower than that of my friends who have pretty much "virgin" PPCs. But I don't know exactly how bad the affect is and whether its bad enough to not have them... not that I can live without them, but at last I can be better informed.

Any comments on this based on your tests and/or observations?

I will most definitely benchmark them too some time.

[humayunl]

One question about SD cards. I was looking online yesterady to buy an SD card and saw there are newer supposedly faster SD cars... e.g. Sandisk had these 23X SD and Lexar has Ultra II SD which are supposed to be faster.

I have not kept up with the latest on SD so i dont know what these new standards are and what they mean especially to soneone who will be using them for the purposes identified in this thread (rather than fast digital photography etc.)

Needless to say, the newer carsd a bit more expensive. So what is the difference between the first gen SD cards and these new ones? is there a speed difference? is lexar better tna Sandisk? and most imporantly does my device (Imate/XDA II) need to support it ?

[Menneisyys]

One question about SD cards. I was looking online yesterady to buy an SD card and saw there are newer supposedly faster SD cars... e.g. Sandisk had these 23X SD and Lexar has Ultra II SD which are supposed to be faster.

I have not kept up with the latest on SD so i dont know what these new standards are and what they mean especially to soneone who will be using them for the purposes identified in this thread (rather than fast digital photography etc.)

Needless to say, the newer carsd a bit more expensive. So what is the difference between the first gen SD cards and these new ones? is there a speed difference? is lexar better tna Sandisk? and most imporantly does my device (Imate/XDA II) need to support it ?

There will/need not be explicit hi speed support in the PDA to make use of the new card.

There aren't big differences between cards in transfer rate in-PDA: the slowest cards are around 500 kbytes/s, while the fastest around 1700 kbytes/s. File creation / deletion time, however, is a very different question. This is why Lexar cqards are generally faring much better in a PDA, if you actively use it to e.g. create your documents on it. Also, moving your PIE / NetFront cache to a "plain" SD card is no good, unlike to a fast (in the current PDA parlance, much less file creation/deletion time) card.

[Menneisyys]

I've just read the CF/SD write speed section of the Canon EOS-1D Mark II review over at DPReview ( http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos1dmkii/page12.asp ). The camera writes to hi-speed SD cards much faster than to CF cards. The given link is really worth checking out, it's pretty instructive!

[humayunl]

Ok, This is for all you guys/gals with experience in using storage cards.
I have bought a 1 gig SD card and am planning to do a hard reset and reinstall everything... and move all apps (that can go to SD) to SD. Based on discussions, I know not to put today plugins (Spb Plus, Pocket Breeze, Wisbar and Weather Panel) and PIM apps (pocket informant) in SD so they will remain in Main Memory.

Now I have some more questions. Please bear with me, I'mnot a new PPC user but I'm new at relying so heavily on the storage card.

- Are there any special strategies for deciding what goes where (what kind of programs not to put on the SD? PIM databases? ListPro, Flexwallet etc. Any best practises?

- Spb Pocket Plus will be in main memory but I am also using Spb GPRS Mnitor, Spb Finance and Spb Weather. If I plan to integrate these apps int the Spb Plus today plugin via the new tabs featuer. Do I have to install all these apps into Main Memory as well? Because I was planning to put these onto SD as well.

- I use a finance application (Spb Finance , MS Money or Pocket Quicken, havent decided which one) very ferquently on my PPC. Should I put this app in SD or main mem. Does it make a difference? It has its own DB with financial info and as I understand read/write speeds might be an issue in SD?

- How does synchronization work with most of the Apps and Data on the SD? say PIM information (notes, tasks etc.) or Flexwallet wallet or Listpro database or finanace application DB etc?

- How do I back up the SD card? Active Sync doesnt do it. I havent checked if Sprite back up does it. Is there a special category of apps that do this or will sprite or activesync do? Does a backup just consist of copying over the contents of the SD to a folder on the desktop or is there more to it? Any special strategies here?

- Since I have space now, i plan to put lots of music and some video clips on my SD card. I remember reading once that if you copy a file over a certain size via file explorer to the SD in the PPC, you can get errors and its better to get a card reader. What kind of file sizes are we talking about? is it only related to file sizes or the number of files transferred is also affected? How critical is it for me to buy a card reader?

Any helpful advice/experiences will be greatly appreciated.

[Menneisyys]

- Spb Pocket Plus will be in main memory but I am also using Spb GPRS Mnitor, Spb Finance and Spb Weather. If I plan to integrate these apps int the Spb Plus today plugin via the new tabs featuer. Do I have to install all these apps into Main Memory as well? Because I was planning to put these onto SD as well.

While Spb GPRS Monitor is started at the start of the PPC, you can freely remove it from Windows\Startup (that way, you'll need to run it by hand) if you want to put it on a storage card and/or don't want it to run all the time, because it incurs some performance penalties to the PPC, as opposed to the battery plug-in of Spb Pocket Plus. This penalty is pretty low (1..2%), but you may still opt for avoiding it completely whenever possible (you won't need the GPRS Monitor icon at all if you aren't online and its battery meter capabilities are certainly inferior to those of Spb Pocket Plus). (see http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=36376 on this)

So, a certain degree of manual 'hacking' is possible and/or recommended even with plug-ins.

[Menneisyys]

I remember reading once that if you copy a file over a certain size via file explorer to the SD in the PPC, you can get errors and its better to get a card reader. What kind of file sizes are we talking about? is it only related to file sizes or the number of files transferred is also affected? How critical is it for me to buy a card reader?


With recent PDA's, you won't really have problems with transferring files via ActiveSync, except for its being quite slow - between 70 and 180 kbytes/s, depending on the model. It's the reflective, ppc2k/ppc2k2 PDA generation that had problems with transferring big files. The progress bar when you transfer files with Windows Explorer (invokable with the Explore button on ActiveSync) indeed shows pretty strange results (it always restarts drawing the bar before reaching half of its full way), but it has nothing to do with the actual file transfer - it'll arrive without problems. Also, the Total Commander WinCE plug-in will work OK.

You should, however, get a desktop reader if you want to transfer several tens or even hundreds of Megabytes as soon as possible. Some average read/write speeds with current, non-hi-speed, as compared to the 70...180 kbytes/s of AS:

USB1.1 (old) card reader in any host: about 400 kbytes/s
USB2 card reader in a USB1.1 host: about 800 kbytes/s
USB2 card reader in a USB2 host: about 2000 kbytes/s

[Menneisyys]

- I use a finance application (Spb Finance , MS Money or Pocket Quicken, havent decided which one) very ferquently on my PPC. Should I put this app in SD or main mem. Does it make a difference? It has its own DB with financial info and as I understand read/write speeds might be an issue in SD?


I can only give you a generic answer: you either won't see any speed difference, or you will. Can't be surely said without testing the apps.

An example is SimpleSMS, my favourite SMS handler app. It runs OK in main memory, but is awfully slow on any kind of flash-based storage media. (It may be creating tons of temp files in the background - e.g., a temp file for each message, and this is why it's so darn slow.)

In general, you won't see speed difference with MOST apps. Still, if you see a given app is pretty slow when running from any kind of storage media, try reinstalling it in main memory to see whether this results in a speed increase.

[humayunl]

Thanks Menneisyys, you're a lot of help as always :)

[coolabah]

A very good cure for this is regularly backing up your registry (and, for that matter, \Windows, because some programs also install shared DLL's there; also, all .unload files are put there. In subdirectories, in addition, the starting links are also put upon installation, so you'll save yourself the need for re-creating links too.), ....snip.

This is an interesting thread ! A question about .unload files- I take it they are run by the relevant program when you close it or some such? Is it possible to move these to storege card somehow ?? I have a heap of programs and some of the .unload files are large, and all seem to be in main memory !
I am a bit wary of experimenting on my PPC as it is a "work" machine for me but was wondering if making a shortcut to the .unload file would work.....

[Menneisyys]

A very good cure for this is regularly backing up your registry (and, for that matter, \Windows, because some programs also install shared DLL's there; also, all .unload files are put there. In subdirectories, in addition, the starting links are also put upon installation, so you'll save yourself the need for re-creating links too.), ....snip.

This is an interesting thread ! A question about .unload files- I take it they are run by the relevant program when you close it or some such? Is it possible to move these to storege card somehow ?? I have a heap of programs and some of the .unload files are large, and all seem to be in main memory !
I am a bit wary of experimenting on my PPC as it is a "work" machine for me but was wondering if making a shortcut to the .unload file would work.....

Large .unload files? An app must install hundreds or thousands of files (which is very bad practivce under WinCE because the op. system crawls to halt if you put that many files in the main memory - see the benchmark results at http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=36376 on this) for an .unload file to excess the size of 10 kbytes.

There're indeed one .unload file for every installed app, but they will only cause problems if you install hundreds of apps on your PDA (the op. system slows down).

It's only Remove Programs that accesses these files, so you may freely move them to a storage card / ZIP them up. You'll only need them when you want to remove the given app because it's in these files that WinCE stores the info about every file the app installs. So, you'll only need to put a given file back to \Windows if you want to uninstall a specific app.

[coolabah]

[quote]


Large .unload files? An app must install hundreds or thousands of files (which is very bad practivce under WinCE because the op. system crawls to halt if you put that many files in the main memory - see the benchmark results at http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=36376 on this) for an .unload file to excess the size of 10 kbytes.

There're indeed one .unload file for every installed app, but they will only cause problems if you install hundreds of apps on your PDA (the op. system slows down).

It's only Remove Programs that accesses these files, so you may freely move them to a storage card / ZIP them up. You'll only need them when you want to remove the given app because it's in these files that WinCE stores the info about every file the app installs. So, you'll only need to put a given file back to \Windows if you want to uninstall a specific app.


err...yes.. "large unload files" was an exageration. :oops:
Thanks for your explanation I'll move my "not so really large if I think about it" unload files to my SD card with confidence now ! - just because I can !!! :mrgreen:

[humayunl]

This thread is becoming more and more informative with every post.

After the latest pieces of information, i was going through my entire directory structure and i have a couple of questions about some stuff:

- In ~/windows there are 6 or 7 files which also happen to the largest files in that directory (2.71MB each). Here are their names.
* MsgQueueDataFileMicrosoft Broadcast Message SMS Protocol (Receive Only)
* MsgQueueDataFileMicrosoft Notification SMS Protocol (Receive Only)
* MsgQueueDataFileMicrosoft Raw SMS Protocol (Receive Only)
* MsgQueueDataFileMicrosoft Status Message SMS Protocol (Receive Only)
* MsgQueueDataFileMicrosoft Text SMS Protocol
* MsgQueueDataFileMicrosoft WCMP SMS Protocol
* MsgQueueDataFileMicrosoft WDP SMS Protocol

Do you know what these are and why they are so big?

- In my storage folder, there's this folder called PerSaveBackup with a whole bunch of empty files. Can i delete this folder? There's also a file called 'history'?

- Another question related to the storage. When should i install something in to storage vs normal main memory? Like today plugins etc.?

[shawnc]

- Another question related to the storage. When should i install something in to storage vs normal main memory? Like today plugins etc.?

Since I kind of hi-jacked your other thread, I'll give this one a shot. It's the least I can do :wink: .

Others may disagree, but I've found NO performance problems from any of my programs that are installed to the storage card. The only one that caused an issue was when I had Textmaker (which I have since uninstalled and discarded). Games, dictionaries, utilities, etc. all work fine on my storage card. There may be a difference but it is imperceptible to me. Now today plug-ins are a different story. I've got two or three of them and I ALWAYS install them to the main storage. I don't know if it's necessary, but I thought I read a while ago that many of them only work from main storage and with me not being very technical, I didn't want to have to think about which plug-ins I should be installing where.

So to summarize, programs, your call. Today plug-ins, main memory.

[Menneisyys]

This thread is becoming more and more informative with every post.

After the latest pieces of information, i was going through my entire directory structure and i have a couple of questions about some stuff:

- In ~/windows there are 6 or 7 files which also happen to the largest files in that directory (2.71MB each). Here are their names.
* MsgQueueDataFileMicrosoft Broadcast Message SMS Protocol (Receive Only)
* MsgQueueDataFileMicrosoft Notification SMS Protocol (Receive Only)
* MsgQueueDataFileMicrosoft Raw SMS Protocol (Receive Only)
* MsgQueueDataFileMicrosoft Status Message SMS Protocol (Receive Only)
* MsgQueueDataFileMicrosoft Text SMS Protocol
* MsgQueueDataFileMicrosoft WCMP SMS Protocol
* MsgQueueDataFileMicrosoft WDP SMS Protocol

Are they in ROM or in RAM? (the latter is highly unlikely). Unfortunately, I can't check itout mself - of the 20+ WinCE-based handheld devices I have none is an I-Mate. If they're all in ROM, then, they shouldn't be paid much attention to. They're indeed way too big - I think there most be a misunderstanding or a wrong file size. An SMS DLL can't be more than 50-100 kbytes big (the SMS protocol is so simple).

- In my storage folder, there's this folder called PerSaveBackup with a whole bunch of empty files. Can i delete this folder? There's also a file called 'history'?

Storage folder? What folder do you exactly mean? \Storage Card?

- Another question related to the storage. When should i install something in to storage vs normal main memory? Like today plugins etc.?

Today plug-ins and stuff that gets executed during the op. system loading are most likely to prefer being stored in the main memory. The reason for this is simple: when WinCE(.NET) loads after a reset, it only initializes storage cards after running \Windows\Startup and sending a wakeup signal to subscribed applications at DB_notify_events.

There're some other programs that put some/all their files in he main memory. These DLL's / files can in a lot of cases hacked to a storage card / deleted. See, for example, http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=35581 on this. If you speak Hungarian, I've described how, for example, Pocket Presence's Running Voice can be moved to a storage card (and, thus, free up 3.5 Mbytes of main memory) at http://www.pdamania.hu/content/1840 . So, it's always worth trying to hack a program - in most cases, it'll work.

I also recommend the following threads:

http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=36584 (I've put some links on DLL hacking in it)

http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=36622 - almost same subject as that of this thread

[shawnc]

Menneisyys,

Guys like you and Sven (and a few others that I can't think of right now) are very helpful. You guys always seem to extend yourself and provide thorough, detailed explanations (NEVER the dreaded "Do a search"). I've gotten to the point that when I see your name as the last post I will read a thread that I otherwise would not have an interest in just for the knowledge.

Nice job. We always give credit to Jason and his staff for such a great site but its also folks like you that make this a worthwhile community.

[humayunl]

Thanks shawn for your ransom (for hijacking my thread) help :) Everyone's welcome to hijack (my) threads as long as it leads to everyone learning a thing or two we didnt know before.



humayunl wrote:
This thread is becoming more and more informative with every post.

After the latest pieces of information, i was going through my entire directory structure and i have a couple of questions about some stuff:

- In ~/windows there are 6 or 7 files which also happen to the largest files in that directory (2.71MB each). Here are their names.
* MsgQueueDataFileMicrosoft Broadcast Message SMS Protocol (Receive Only)
* MsgQueueDataFileMicrosoft Notification SMS Protocol (Receive Only)
* MsgQueueDataFileMicrosoft Raw SMS Protocol (Receive Only)
* MsgQueueDataFileMicrosoft Status Message SMS Protocol (Receive Only)
* MsgQueueDataFileMicrosoft Text SMS Protocol
* MsgQueueDataFileMicrosoft WCMP SMS Protocol
* MsgQueueDataFileMicrosoft WDP SMS Protocol


Are they in ROM or in RAM? (the latter is highly unlikely). Unfortunately, I can't check itout mself - of the 20+ WinCE-based handheld devices I have none is an I-Mate. If they're all in ROM, then, they shouldn't be paid much attention to. They're indeed way too big - I think there most be a misunderstanding or a wrong file size. An SMS DLL can't be more than 50-100 kbytes big (the SMS protocol is so simple).



Are they in ROM or RAM? Hmmmm well they are in the default /Windows directory so I guess that makes it RAM. Unless I don't understand ROM and RAM and what's what (which is also quite likely) and I'm hoping you would change that. But you said RAM is unlikely. Why ?

How do you differentiate between ROM and RAM in the device anyway?

All I know is that my device has 128 MB memory... and its divided between program memory and storage memory... program memory is where the programs get installed... and storage memory is where my user documents and stuff is stored right? so how does ROM and RAM come into this picture?

Anyway, back to the original question. These files (i rechecked) are in the /windows folder. They are each 2.78MB each. Thats like almost 20MB. WAY too much! THey dont have a known extension so no application associations.

And like shawn, let me thank you again for the enormous amounts of useful information you are providing.

[humayunl]

humayunl wrote:
- In my storage folder, there's this folder called PerSaveBackup with a whole bunch of empty files. Can i delete this folder? There's also a file called 'history'?


Storage folder? What folder do you exactly mean? \Storage Card?




No, I refer to the storage card specifically as a Storage Card. Other than the storage card my device has 2 types of storage. The 'regular' memory (which i guess after today has been further subdiveded into RAM and ROM ) and the File Store (like the IPaq file store).

This File Store is located under ~/Storage and this is where the PerSaveBackup folder is located with like about 7 files inside it. The files are called AppointmentsProtectKey, ContactsProtectKey, TasksProtectKey and ConnectionsProtectKey. Each file is 1kb and i cant delete them cause it says they are locked by some program that is using them. The last time the files seem to have been touched is 2004. They are small so i'm not bothered about size. I just dont like not knowing what things are for.
[/quote]

[humayunl]

humayunl wrote:
- Another question related to the storage. When should i install something in to storage vs normal main memory? Like today plugins etc.?


Today plug-ins and stuff that gets executed during the op. system loading are most likely to prefer being stored in the main memory. The reason for this is simple: when WinCE(.NET) loads after a reset, it only initializes storage cards after running \Windows\Startup and sending a wakeup signal to subscribed applications at DB_notify_events.

There're some other programs that put some/all their files in he main memory. These DLL's / files can in a lot of cases hacked to a storage card / deleted. See, for example, http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/for...pic.php?t=35581 on this. If you speak Hungarian, I've described how, for example, Pocket Presence's Running Voice can be moved to a storage card (and, thus, free up 3.5 Mbytes of main memory) at http://www.pdamania.hu/content/1840 . So, it's always worth trying to hack a program - in most cases, it'll work.

I also recommend the following threads:

http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/for...pic.php?t=36584 (I've put some links on DLL hacking in it)

http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/for...pic.php?t=36622 - almost same subject as that of this thread



I think there was some misunderstanding because I didnt specify which memory I was talking about. So in this original question i was asking that If I have decided that a certain program should not be installed on a storage card but on the device itself, then after making that decision, what factors do i need to consider to decide if that program (say a today plugin etc.) should go to the MAIN memory VS the Device File Store.

[Menneisyys]

Are they in ROM or RAM? Hmmmm well they are in the default /Windows directory so I guess that makes it RAM.

By default, most stuff in \Windows are in ROM. Everything your apps put there upon their installation (DLL's mostly, or, at least with all the apps, the above-mentioned .unload files), however, gets in RAM, sometimes even "shadowing" the file with the same name in the ROM (in this case, the one in RAM gets executed/read, and the original, ROM version will only be visible/executable/readable again if something/one deletes the shadowing RAM file).

You can very easily see what's in ROM and what's in RAM: get the desktop version of Total Commander (TC) from http://ghisler.com/download.htm and get the WinE plugin for it ( http://ghisler.fileburst.com/fsplugins/wincefs.zip ). Install the former, run it and then, go to the latter file from inside. Press Enter, and the plug-in will be installed. Now, when your PDA is docked, you'll be able to browse its directory structure with TC: press Alt-F1 or Alt-F2, press End (so that you're on Network Neighbourhood, press Enter 2 times (inside, on WinCE device too) and you see what's stored in your PDA.

Go to \Windows in your PDA from inside TC. Everything that has an exclamation mark before it is in ROM; other files are in RAM.

How do you differentiate between ROM and RAM in the device anyway?

ROM means Read-Only Memory. Actually, it's not ROM but Flash ROM, meaning you can rewrite their contents, but the system area (holding, for example, the operating system and, therefore, very sensible area) can be rewritten by special programs (op. system upgrades/patches) and not by the user (this is why no individual ROM files can't be deleted from, say, \Windows). The remaining ROM area is the storage area you can use as a simple disk. It's much slower than the built-in RAM, however, and this is why there's RAM at all in a PDA, and flash ROM isn't used as the only storage/runtime media exclusively.

RAM is the "traditional" Random Access Memory. On the PPC platform (and unlike in the desktop op. system), it is both used to actually run apps (the traditional approach) and to store programs/files too (this is unlike with desktop op. systems, which store all their files/prgrams on hard disks or other, non-RAM memory media). It is much, about 2 orders of magnitude faster than ROM media, and this is why – as was pointed out above – it is used so widely, despite its price and other disadvantages (the need to power them, for example).


All I know is that my device has 128 MB memory... and its divided between program memory and storage memory... program memory is where the programs get installed... and storage memory is where my user documents and stuff is stored right? so how does ROM and RAM come into this picture?

Storage memory means the area where your visible files are stored

1, your programs you install to main memory
2, your (for example, document) files you create by hand

So, it's very similar to your hard disk in your desktop machine.

Program memory, on the other hand, is the RAM in your desktop machine – it is only used to store invisible stuff during a given program's execution: its stack, the heap, and the parts of the operating system that must be, for example, decompressed from their ROM (compressed) image. Also, the system stack & heap is stored in Program memory as well.


Unless I don't understand ROM and RAM and what's what (which is also quite likely) and I'm hoping you would change that. But you said RAM is unlikely. Why ?

...

Anyway, back to the original question. These files (i rechecked) are in the /windows folder. They are each 2.78MB each. Thats like almost 20MB. WAY too much! THey dont have a known extension so no application associations.

With TC, check if they're in RAM or ROM. Again, I don't think the developers of your device weren't trying to shove off bits from everywhere – there must be a misunderstanding somewhere. It's highly unlikely they're there by default.

And like shawn, let me thank you again for the enormous amounts of useful information you are providing.

Thanks to the both of you :)

[Menneisyys]

This File Store is located under ~/Storage and this is where the PerSaveBackup folder is located with like about 7 files inside it. The files are called AppointmentsProtectKey, ContactsProtectKey, TasksProtectKey and ConnectionsProtectKey. Each file is 1kb and i cant delete them cause it says they are locked by some program that is using them. The last time the files seem to have been touched is 2004. They are small so i'm not bothered about size. I just dont like not knowing what things are for.

Now I understand. It's just your PIM databases, seemingly protected by some passkey. You may have

1, opted for storage-based mirroring of your PIM databases

OR

2, have, once upon a time, backed them up to the storage media some time.

As they're locked, it seems that they're still mirroring your RAM WinCE databases. (1)

Go for your Start Menu / Settings, look for an icon like 'Security' or 'PIM', and look for something like 'Persistent PIM'. It must be checked, and this is why these files are existing and locked.

[humayunl]

This is great.. I've learned more today than months of playing around on my own. Let me get TC and check all this stuff out. Thanks a lot! Really appreciate it all.

[Menneisyys]

There is also some cool info on the subject of the thread at http://discussion.brighthand.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=112785

[laugher]

After the latest pieces of information, i was going through my entire directory structure and i have a couple of questions about some stuff:

- In ~/windows there are 6 or 7 files which also happen to the largest files in that directory (2.71MB each). Here are their names.
* MsgQueueDataFileMicrosoft Broadcast Message SMS Protocol (Receive Only)
* MsgQueueDataFileMicrosoft Notification SMS Protocol (Receive Only)
* MsgQueueDataFileMicrosoft Raw SMS Protocol (Receive Only)
* MsgQueueDataFileMicrosoft Status Message SMS Protocol (Receive Only)
* MsgQueueDataFileMicrosoft Text SMS Protocol
* MsgQueueDataFileMicrosoft WCMP SMS Protocol
* MsgQueueDataFileMicrosoft WDP SMS Protocol

Do you know what these are and why they are so big?
These also appear in my XDA II Mini. They are definitely not in ROM as they are updated every day (their last modified attribute).

I would be interested if anyone knew what these files were and if we could actually move them (or delete them).

While we are on the topic of moving applications - does anyone know where the PATH environment variable is stored? If I can get to that, I can insert the SD card as a possible path to DLLs and move some of those DLLs off the \Windows directory and into the \Storage Card directories.

[Menneisyys]

While we are on the topic of moving applications - does anyone know where the PATH environment variable is stored? If I can get to that, I can insert the SD card as a possible path to DLLs and move some of those DLLs off the \Windows directory and into the \Storage Card directories.

First, welcome to the board :)

There is no PATH at all in the 'traditional' desktop meaning on Pocket PC's. DLL's copied to \Windows are mostly referred to by the Registry, so if you relocate them, you need to change their path accordingly in registry. This is what some tools do (with varying success, I'd add: a tool I've tested some weeks ago, for example, relocated Resco File Explorer's DLL's too, but didn't update the registry and rendered, therefore, Resco useless. I think it was Memmaid but I'm not sure.)

Also, local program directories are also scanned for DLL's. So, if you relocate an app to a storage card, then, the app will still find its DLL's if they are stored in the same directory as the executable EXE file.

Examples of apps like these are Pocket Presence's Running Voice GSM ( http://www.pocketpresence.com/rvgsm.asp ) and SMS Manager ( http://www.pocketpresence.com/smsman200.asp ). They can't initially be installed to any kind of storage media. If, however, you move the contents of \Program Files\Pocket Presence\Running Voice GSM to anywhere else, excluding (!) \Program Files\Pocket Presence\Running Voice GSM\rvgsm.dat and \Program Files\Pocket Presence\Running Voice GSM\skins\default (with the latter app, everything except \Pocket Presence\SMS Manager\SmsManager.dat and \Pocket Presence\SMS Manager\skins), everything will work OK. (BTW, this hack was originally discovered by me and I published it at http://www.pdamania.hu/content/1840 ).

I've also linked above some Brighthand threads on relocating other DLL's to storage cards (and, also, some other DLL relocating hacks I've discovered.) that involve registry editing.[/url]

[laugher]

Thanks Menneisyys. I'll give your suggestions around moving DLLs to the local directory a try.

[permutations]

I remember reading once that if you copy a file over a certain size via file explorer to the SD in the PPC, you can get errors and its better to get a card reader. What kind of file sizes are we talking about? is it only related to file sizes or the number of files transferred is also affected? How critical is it for me to buy a card reader?


With recent PDA's, you won't really have problems with transferring files via ActiveSync, except for its being quite slow - between 70 and 180 kbytes/s, depending on the model. It's the reflective, ppc2k/ppc2k2 PDA generation that had problems with transferring big files. The progress bar when you transfer files with Windows Explorer (invokable with the Explore button on ActiveSync) indeed shows pretty strange results (it always restarts drawing the bar before reaching half of its full way), but it has nothing to do with the actual file transfer - it'll arrive without problems. Also, the Total Commander WinCE plug-in will work OK.

You should, however, get a desktop reader if you want to transfer several tens or even hundreds of Megabytes as soon as possible. Some average read/write speeds with current, non-hi-speed, as compared to the 70...180 kbytes/s of AS:

USB1.1 (old) card reader in any host: about 400 kbytes/s
USB2 card reader in a USB1.1 host: about 800 kbytes/s
USB2 card reader in a USB2 host: about 2000 kbytes/s

I respect Menneisyys's knowledge, but in this case I think he may be wrong. The reason I'm even reading this message is because I was searching for information on what could have caused the SD corruption that recently started occurring on my Loox 720. It started while I was copying map files from my PC's hard disk to the PDA's SD card - it was about 28MB of files - many files averaging 500k-1.5MB. Every time I've tried to copy these map files or other large blocks of data to or from the SD card, I've seen card failure and corruption. I don't doubt for a minute that this is the cause because it fits the pattern of my experience.

I would like to know more about this problem - what causes it, how to prevent it. Can anyone shed any additional light? I'm about to flash the Loox's ROM in hopes the new SDIO driver helps.

[permutations]

- Another question related to the storage. When should i install something in to storage vs normal main memory? Like today plugins etc.?

Since I kind of hi-jacked your other thread, I'll give this one a shot. It's the least I can do :wink: .

Others may disagree, but I've found NO performance problems from any of my programs that are installed to the storage card. The only one that caused an issue was when I had Textmaker (which I have since uninstalled and discarded). Games, dictionaries, utilities, etc. all work fine on my storage card. There may be a difference but it is imperceptible to me. Now today plug-ins are a different story. I've got two or three of them and I ALWAYS install them to the main storage. I don't know if it's necessary, but I thought I read a while ago that many of them only work from main storage and with me not being very technical, I didn't want to have to think about which plug-ins I should be installing where.

So to summarize, programs, your call. Today plug-ins, main memory.

I always install everything I possibly can onto my SD card, so I learned the hard way that Today plug-ins will cause your PDA to hang if installed on a card. They can, however, be safely installed in the ROM area (Looxstore for me), so that's where they all go on my device.

[nowbss]

can any body tell me if and how i can make the sms not appear in the main screen when receives.jsut want to view the sms when i want to view it. and also is there any software that i can lock the sms inbox in my xda o2 mini? can any body hlep me pls?
thanx

[Menneisyys]

can any body tell me if and how i can make the sms not appear in the main screen when receives.jsut want to view the sms when i want to view it. and also is there any software that i can lock the sms inbox in my xda o2 mini? can any body hlep me pls?
thanx

You may want to post your question (probably by opening a new thread) to http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=33

[Menneisyys]

Every time I've tried to copy these map files or other large blocks of data to or from the SD card, I've seen card failure and corruption. I don't doubt for a minute that this is the cause because it fits the pattern of my experience.

I would like to know more about this problem - what causes it, how to prevent it. Can anyone shed any additional light? I'm about to flash the Loox's ROM in hopes the new SDIO driver helps.

Well, let's say it depends. I'd say the vast majority of AS-based minor (not on the hundreds of megabytes scale) file transfers with WM2003+ devices (previous, PPC2k/PPC2k2 devices have suffered too much from disconnection problems) end OK.

I've been using AS-based file transfers with both my iPAQ 2210 and Pocket Loox 720 with a lot of my SD and CF cards (these two models are already fast enough for minor AS-based file transfers; for copying hundreds of Megabytes, I use USB2 card readers) and have never encountered CRC problems.

Of course, they may be exceptions, but they are mainly related to faulty SD cards and/or pre-mature USB disconnection and/or hardware incompatibility (for example, a particular PDA not liking a particular memory card - this is very common with, say, Kingston SD cards). More info on this: http://www.firstloox.org//forums/showthread.php?t=3591

[Menneisyys]

Just posted some additional remarks here (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=16852).

[humayunl]

Just posted some additional remarks here (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=16852).

Thanks for the valuable info Menneisyys.

Lately I have been using Calligrapher on my PPC. Its going through a Beta for ver 8.0 and i'm playing with that. The beta is pretty stable but ever since i've been using it my ppc has had random crashes and its been painfully slow.

I have it installed in Main Mem cause its supposed to load automatically after a soft reset. I just wanted to know if you have had any experience with calligrapher ans its memory handling... can i install it on SD? How will it load on soft-reset by itself then?

Thanks in advance!

[Menneisyys]

Just posted some additional remarks here (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=16852).

Thanks for the valuable info Menneisyys.

Lately I have been using Calligrapher on my PPC. Its going through a Beta for ver 8.0 and i'm playing with that. The beta is pretty stable but ever since i've been using it my ppc has had random crashes and its been painfully slow.

I have it installed in Main Mem cause its supposed to load automatically after a soft reset. I just wanted to know if you have had any experience with calligrapher ans its memory handling... can i install it on SD? How will it load on soft-reset by itself then?

Thanks in advance!

Not yet - will test it today, though.

[humayunl]

Great. I will anxiously wait for your results and recommendations.

[Menneisyys]

Great. I will anxiously wait for your results and recommendations.

Please read http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=353953

[humayunl]

Man I'm glad I asked and even Glad-der that you answered in such thorough detail.

Thanks so much!

I'm planning to make the somewhat scary and dangerous transition to WM2005 this week.... So my next question is, do these memory hacks and needs for these hacks remain the same with WM2k5 or dose the persistent file store eliminate the need for such hacks?

[Menneisyys]

Man I'm glad I asked and even Glad-der that you answered in such thorough detail.

Thanks so much!

I'm planning to make the somewhat scary and dangerous transition to WM2005 this week.... So my next question is, do these memory hacks and needs for these hacks remain the same with WM2k5 or dose the persistent file store eliminate the need for such hacks?

I don't know yet. It seems all files that go into RAM now will go to the File Store / storage cards. I don't know yet whether 'sensible' files like DLL's will only be installed to the File Store (then, we willl have exactly the same problem with filled-up File Stores than with RAM today) or to any storage card. We'll see. if the placement of DLL's like this remain restricted in WM5, then, we may have to stick to manual hacks like this.

[humayunl]

Let me take the plunge and I'll be your little experiment...

The least I can do for all the help you've been providing :)

[Cybrid]

I noticed one responder said with recent hardware no real slow down.
Is the X5 too old to putt apps on a SD card instead of main memory?
Mine has the 400mhZ processor.

I always wondered why so many companies kept warning not to put the app anywhere other than main memory -- or at least not to put it on a memory card.Nope. I ran it that way all the time. It's slightly slower (fraction of a second) but not too bad. Trhe adavntage of having more apps with more free RAM far outweighed it.

[AprilRyan]

Problem: i installed a few programs in my SD card. while my PDA was on, the SD card got dislodged. consequently, all the programs in my SD card could no longer be accessed through SPB+ or through the "Programs" (improper shortcut path etc). when i finally managed to figure out what happened and put my SD card back in place, the programs installed there are not found under "programs". also, SPB+ no longer recognizes them as programs and so i cannot assign shortcuts for them. i've tried soft-resetting but still no good. any suggestions?

[Menneisyys]

Problem: i installed a few programs in my SD card. while my PDA was on, the SD card got dislodged. consequently, all the programs in my SD card could no longer be accessed through SPB+ or through the "Programs" (improper shortcut path etc). when i finally managed to figure out what happened and put my SD card back in place, the programs installed there are not found under "programs". also, SPB+ no longer recognizes them as programs and so i cannot assign shortcuts for them. i've tried soft-resetting but still no good. any suggestions?

A very common explanation of this problem is that most probably Pocket Inbox/Messaging has created a '\SD Card' folder while your card was out because you store your message attachments on the storage card and when Pocket Inbox/Messaging doesn't find the card, it just blindly creates a 'soft' directory with the same name.

Then, your real SD Card will be mounted to \SD Card2 when you insert it in your PDA.

The solution is just deleting the '\SD Card' folder in the root directory of your PDA and just reinserting your card right after this.

I've also discussed this problem here (http://www.firstloox.org//forums/showthread.php?t=3483).

[Nurhisham Hussein]

Examples of apps like these are Pocket Presence's Running Voice GSM ( http://www.pocketpresence.com/rvgsm.asp ) and SMS Manager ( http://www.pocketpresence.com/smsman200.asp ). They can't initially be installed to any kind of storage media. If, however, you move the contents of \Program Files\Pocket Presence\Running Voice GSM to anywhere else, excluding (!) \Program Files\Pocket Presence\Running Voice GSM\rvgsm.dat and \Program Files\Pocket Presence\Running Voice GSM\skins\default (with the latter app, everything except \Pocket Presence\SMS Manager\SmsManager.dat and \Pocket Presence\SMS Manager\skins), everything will work OK. (BTW, this hack was originally discovered by me and I published it at http://www.pdamania.hu/content/1840 ).

Here I've been tearing my hair out trying to figure out how to translate that article, and its all here anyway. Just tried it, worked a treat thanks.