So if I create that key in WM2003 will memory allocation FINALLY do what I tell it to do?
:roll:
Yes, this added key will allow a user to move the memory slider to almost any position and have it 'stick.' Yesterday I added it to my WM2003SE Toshiba e800, then soft reset, then moved the memory slider to 77MB Program, 14MB Storage. Though it seemed to stick at just 9MB Storage, this was smaller than I'd want. After about 2 hours of use and several soft resets, the position of the slider has not moved.
Obviously one must keep on top of things like the Pocket IE cache... but this is a level of control is something I have wanted, badly, for almost 6 years. I am angry that Microsoft's arrogance has prevented users from disabling their 'dynamic memory allocation' nonsense for so long. I have complained about this many times in forums which I know are being monitored by people on the mobile devices development team, but this solution has never been offered. They knew, but did not offer help. In fact I have twice seen different Microsoft representatives state plainly that this 'feature' was not possible to disable, that it was hard-wired into the OS. What a load of crap. They should be ashamed of their bad behavior, not of the silly name of the key.
Now, what about a hack for disabling the auto-closure of 'excess' application windows? I have several times lost data thanks to that utter foolishness, as windows started shutting down even with over 40MB of free RAM. I've had this happen on an iPAQ 3835, a Dell X5, and on this e800 - though the latter has always at least 70MB of free RAM. This is unacceptable!
So, is there a 'NeverDorkWindowCount' key tweak? Anyone with an inside line to Mike Calligaro or other MS reps able to get an answer? I'm sure thousands would like to know.
Thanks for the explanation. Personally, I am going to try HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Shell\NeverDorkTheUninstallProcess on my WM5 device and see if that helps with the "unable to uninstall" errors. :?
I wonder if HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Shell\PutInADorkingClosebutton will help? :wink:
This thread has been really humorous but also very helpful. It fixed one of my major annoyances with PPC's in general. Yeah, there are others, and I wish some of the suggestions made in this thread would work :wink:
Obviously one must keep on top of things like the Pocket IE cache... but this is a level of control is something I have wanted, badly, for almost 6 years. I am angry that Microsoft's arrogance has prevented users from disabling their 'dynamic memory allocation' nonsense for so long. I have complained about this many times in forums which I know are being monitored by people on the mobile devices development team, but this solution has never been offered. They knew, but did not offer help. In fact I have twice seen different Microsoft representatives state plainly that this 'feature' was not possible to disable, that it was hard-wired into the OS. What a load of crap. They should be ashamed of their bad behavior, not of the silly name of the key.
Strange not even they did know about how really the slider works (see my just-linked article). Essentially, you could have a staticably settable slider before publishing this "dork" stuff if you didn't exceed the 5/6 vs. 1/6 ratio. Strange MS hasn't ever old about this anyone - probably only some of their programmers knew of it (and I when I found it out and, then, published).
Quote:
Now, what about a hack for disabling the auto-closure of 'excess' application windows? I have several times lost data thanks to that utter foolishness, as windows started shutting down even with over 40MB of free RAM. I've had this happen on an iPAQ 3835, a Dell X5, and on this e800 - though the latter has always at least 70MB of free RAM. This is unacceptable!
That's because of the 32-process restriction of Windows Mobile, independent of the size of the free RAM.
I wonder what NeverDorkSwapFile would do on desktops?
Various XP speed tip documents I've found point to the swapfile as being a major source of fragmentation of the hard drive. They all agree that the simplest solution is this: set the initial and maximum pagefile values to match, at a high enough value that the system will be unlikely ever to need a greater maximum. This is done like this:
Quote:
Select System icon from the Control Panel - Performance and
Maintenance, select Advanced Tab, select Performance areas, and click
on Settings Under virtual Memory click Change. The Initial and
Maximum size should be equal otherwise Windows will keep resizing the
file. The optimal memory setting for users with 128 MB+ is
approximately 1.5-2 times the RAM size, users with 64 MB should use a 2 times multiple.
I've found minimal fragmentation owring to normal use of video encoders and other high-intensity applications, on an ancient PIII running a stripped down version of WinXP, a 6GB hard drive, and 192MB of RAM. I use Power Defragmenter about once a month, which takes less than an hour to complete.
As for Menneisyys' claim that his writing of the 1/6th rule is the first anywhere... well, pat yourself on the back M, as always. You do some nice work, are a very diligent enthusiast around PPC problems and finding their solutions. In this case, many forum members found and published this particular finding as early as the winter of 2000/2001, but you go right ahead and take credit for it. Most of those forums have long-since vanished anyway... with PocketPCPassion disappearing not once but twice, and Brighthand's archives now being buried and/or lost due to mismanagement of the date during the ownership swap, PDAbuzz being something of a joke, etc.. Remember when JimmyDoom came out? That's about the time we started needing to know how far the RAM slider could go and stick, without bouncing back. Lots of people tested it, lots reported on it, far too many to remember. But you put it into a formal document and re-stated it over and over again, so it's yours, keep it. </sarcasm>
Truly, I am happy to see your untiring (do you actually have time for anything like a life, or work?) efforts on behalf of the entire community. The value you add is tremendous. But the ego.... it sometimes grates. As in the current case; your 1/6th solution is not the same thing as the NeverDorkMemory fix. Having moved that slider to the left not hundreds, but thousands of times since the year 2000, I can tell you with perfect confidence that even without writing large files to RAM the slider does, eventually, jump to a mddle value all by itself. That's because of memory leaks, leftover consumed RAM even when completely closing applications (using GigaBar, or more recently WisBar Advance, or ZapIt, or whatever else I've used for that job), and just the general sloppiness of the various PPC OS versions. Sooner or later, usually sooner, the slider would jump back, even on the Toshiba e800 I'm using now.
So the NeverDorkMemory key was a godsend, for me. I've set the slider at 20MB of Storage Memory a couple of months ago, and though I've checked several times, and soft reset hundreds of times since, I've not yet seen it move. The value was even preserved through two hard reset/restore cycles using Sprite backups. I don't write large files to RAM. That's what my SD card is for. (And counter to your statements elsewhere about downloading in Pocket IE to an SD being slow, I've never seen that, nor with Netfront, nor with WinMobile Torrent, nor with any FTP client.) I have over 75MB of free Program Memory after every soft reset. It's great. Never could have that before, using just cautious movements of the memory applet's slider.
Still, yours is a good tip. One every beginner should know. Thanks for publishing it. And thanks especially to the HTC Hacks guys who figured out, and embarrassed Mike Calligaro into admitting to, the NeverDorkMemory hack, which is plainly more reliable.
And counter to your statements elsewhere about downloading in Pocket IE to an SD being slow, I've never seen that, nor with Netfront, nor with WinMobile Torrent, nor with any FTP client.)
Compared to downloading to RAM, it can be pretty slow if you download more than a few hundred kilobytes over a fast connection, particularly with some FTP clients, not only with PIE. In all the benchmarks I've made (with several different PPC's and severeal, in general, heavily optimized cards) this turned out to be the case.
This is why I recommend downloading into RAM whenever possible if download speed is of extreme importance (because, for example, you need to move out of a Wi-Fi zone as soon as possible and/or don't want to spend much time downloading / want to have the files as soon as possible).
Have you also made some benchmarks (downloading at non-GPRS/phone line analogue modem speeds)? Did RAM download prove to be no faster than storage card-based download?
Checking a 3MB download (3 JPG files) using Resco's FTP plugin, I find RAM exactly 3 times faster than to a PNY 1GB SD card, formatted in FAT16, with 16KB clusters. Yes, RAM is faster. Still, 87 seconds (Wk-Fi, DSL, Symbol CF card, D-Link AP, about 3metres range with a bed and a floor between)) for 3MB doesn't seem excessively slow. In your articles and forum postings you've made it seem that downloading to SD cards was intolerably slow. I just downloaded a 24MB MOV file (video of a robotic glass-climbing gecko developed at Harvard) in PIE, to that SD. I was also doing email stuff, and reading some forum postings, with no noticeable slowdowns. The download took a little over 7 minutes. I'm never in a bigger hurry than that. Dialup would have taken hours.
Checking a 3MB download (3 JPG files) using Resco's FTP plugin, I find RAM exactly 3 times faster than to a PNY 1GB SD card, formatted in FAT16, with 16KB clusters. Yes, RAM is faster. Still, 87 seconds (Wk-Fi, DSL, Symbol CF card, D-Link AP, about 3metres range with a bed and a floor between)) for 3MB doesn't seem excessively slow. In your articles and forum postings you've made it seem that downloading to SD cards was intolerably slow.
Well, I've pointed out in a lot of forum posts (just like above) that there may be cases when download speed does count (the fastest/quickest transfer as possible), but, in general, you aren't forced to RAM only if the (slightly, or, with some clients, radically) decreased speed isn't a problem. It all boils down to personal preferences/ the current circumstances.
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