Programs to Storage Card?

[Lindquist]

I've been installing a lot of programs recently and just realized that my memory is getting low. Is it possible to install programs to run off the storage card?

[Ratel10mm]

Hi Lindquist

Yes, it is possible. I've set up most of the programs that I've added to be stored on & run from the SD card. When you load a new program into your PPC, a dialog box pops up at the ready satge, asking you if you want to install to the default directory. If you want to put it on your memory card, click the arrow to open the drop down menu and select memory card. A shortcut will be placed in the program (or the game) file on your PPC. There are some programs that this won't work with, but everything I've tried so far (admittedly mostly games) is fine. THe serious guys here will tell you that it slows down your program, but to be honest, although I've noticed it with a couple of them, it's not a big enough issue to worry about if you need more RAM.
I have had mixed results with moving programs about using device explorer via ActiveSync. Mostly it worked, but sometimes I had a REAL mess on my hands! :wink:

Good luck.

[cml]

Lindquist,
Most programs generally work from a storage card, but there are a couple of things to watch for. Try to install any programs that run on your Today screen in main memory. Also things that you use a lot (for example Pocket Informant or Agenda Fusion) you'll want to load into main memory for perforamance's sake. There are a few other programs that only work from main memory, but they are few and far between. Ratel10mm has already given you a good description of how to install them. Good luck!

[Menneisyys]

THe serious guys here will tell you that it slows down your program, but to be honest, although I've noticed it with a couple of them, it's not a big enough issue to worry about if you need more RAM.

Very few programs do load /work (far) slower than from main memory. Reading from an SD card is done in current machines (present- and previous-generation, decent, 400+ MHz PDA's; for example, the PL720 and the iPAQ 2210, respectively), at about 600-900 kbytes/s (with the Belkin eFilm Pro card, it's 1.7 Mbytes/s - the current maximum I know of).

I've always testing the new programs, sometimes first from main memory, then from a card / built-in ROM. I've so far only found one program that was almst useless because of speed when run from ROM: Simple SMS. All the others loaded/worked almost as fast as from the main memory.

You should always try to put everything into storage cards (except for Today plug-ins) because the more files in the main memory, the slower WinCE works (see e.g. http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=36376 on this subject.)


I have had mixed results with moving programs about using device explorer via ActiveSync. Mostly it worked, but sometimes I had a REAL mess on my hands! :wink:

Good luck.

You should always try to 'hack' your programs that otherwise put shared DLL's into main memory. You can also relocate your additional, custom fonts to storage cards. I've put some linkson this subject in http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=36584 - it's certainly worth checking out.