Make your iPAQ hx4700 Windows Mobile 5 upgrade work great – brand new tweaks! [Archive]

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Menneisyys

05-20-2006, 10:21 AM

IMPORTANT UPDATE (21:44 CET, 05/22/2006): in the meantime, an even better and easier tweak has been documented to further reduce the CPU load caused by services.exe. Therefore, instead of section 1.2 ("This is what you should do") please read this blog post (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=830&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1). Sorry, I don’t have the time right now to almost rewrite the entire article for the changes to be included and references to the older method eliminated. Will definitely do it when I publish an all-in-one article on all these tweaks as soon as my Compact Flash bugfix utility (of which see this blog entry (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=829&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1)) is ready.

Also note that there’re a LOT of user feedback and comments at the following Pocket PC sites: PPCT (forum) (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=403409), PPCT (frontpage) (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=403446), BrightHand (http://discussion.brighthand.com/showthread.php?t=222190) and MobilitySite (http://www.mobilitysite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=29885).

Please also note that if the filesys.exe throttler application doesn’t work (not even after a few resets or starting by hand), read this blog entry (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&title=hp_ipaq_hx4700_wm5_upgrade_prolonged&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1) on finding the Process ID of filesys.exe so that I can create a customized version of the throttler for your particular device.

Finally, you will also want to read this thread (http://discussion.brighthand.com/showthread.php?t=219960) on increasing the maximal Bluetooth Dial-Up Networking (DUN) speed of the WM5 upgrade.

Now follows the original article (again, note that section 1.2 is deprecated – you should, as has already been pointed out, follow the tutorial here (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=830&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1) instead):

Thanks to Hal Goldstein at the Smartphone & Pocket PC magazine, I’ve become a proud owner of an HP iPAQ hx4700 and, therefore, am able to invent great hacks and tweaks for the hx4700 community too, which, so far, has been impossible for me because of the lack of constant access to the device.

Of course, the first thing I’ve done after receiving the device was installing the WM5 upgrade.

My first impression of the upgrade was awful. After installing a handful of applications and games, it became really-really slow, irresponsible and consumed a lot of battery power (I’ve measured the latter with acbPowerMeter (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&title=extend_your_battery_life_never_before_pu&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1)) compared to other WM5 devices (I have several other WM5 devices so I can directly compare the different operating system implementations). Furthermore, anything requiring smooth animation (an e-book reader with auto-scroll capabilities or any game) was useless because of the constant stuttering problem, which makes scrolling or even video watching an awful experience. The situation wasn’t at all changed by the so far published cache tweaks (see Chapter 3 on them) – the device remained as useless for anything that requires smooth scrolling (for example, games – give a try to, say, the VGA version of the great multiplayer-capable puzzle game Quartz 2 (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/menneisyys/102005MPPPCGames.asp) to see how bad and stuttering the animation is!).

Then comes the problem of filesys.exe – the subject of the second part of this article.

Note that these hacks and tweaks have been found/developed by me. See the advantages of reading/following my articles/posts? ;) (For example, following / subscribing to the RSS feed of the Smartphone & Pocket PC magazine blogs (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/), my home blog – it contains a LOT of useful, genuine, unique stuff like these tweaks).

1. Rename the Games folder!

1.1 How did I find this all out?

(This section sheds some light on the inherent bug of Synaptics NavPoint and the way I’ve found it out. Reading / understanding it is NOT needed for applying the patch and is, therefore, only recommended for Pocket PC gurus/geeks or people that want to know more about the inner secrets of the hx4700 implementation of WM5. That is, you can safely skip this section and move straight to section 1.2.)

Realizing some process is taking up CPU resources all the time, I started to play with the processes to find out what is causing the stutters every about half a second and to also find out what the high battery load is caused by.

After firing up a decent task manager (I may not name/link it now because it’s a closed beta product and I’ve agreed to an NDA - if you need one, check out for example Super tasks (http://www.pocketgear.com/software_detail.asp?id=14661)), I saw that while the dreaded (search the Pocket PC forums for it to see what others say about it!) "filesys.exe" consumes (in the majority of the time) almost (&lt;0.1%) no CPU, "services.exe" does – as opposed to other WM5 Pocket PC’s. When I started, the hx4700 packed with games and apps, investigating the problem, it took a constant ~20% CPU time, which become gradually worse after every new installed game – even if I’ve installed them, as recommended (see the links in Chapter 3) for hx4700 WM5 users, on an SD card.

Therefore, I’ve given a try to uninstalling these applications/games. As I had thought, it has indeed resulted in a subtle performance increase.

I knew at once that the problem is related to either files present in the main storage memory or the program installation information in the Registry (at least under the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SOFTWARE\Apps brach (note that, in order for Registry information to be well-formatted, I've added spaces after (some) backslashes in them), if there are no application-specific entries under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ Software or HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ Software).

First, before starting to delete the above-listed Registry entries, I scrutinized the files in the main memory. I’ve deleted the contents of \Windows\AppMgr (they can be freely deleted if you don’t want to uninstall these apps - see this article (http://discussion.brighthand.com/showthread.php?t=215534) (alternatives: MobilitySite (http://www.ipaqhq.com/forums/showthread.php?p=101534), AximSite (http://www.aximsite.com/boards/showthread.php?p=775972), PPC Magazine (http://pocketpcmag.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=17260), FirstLoox (http://www.firstloox.org/forums/showthread.php?p=35331), PPCT (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=357766)) for more information on this). It resulted in no performance increase (that is, decreased CPU usage of services.exe).

Then, I deleted the HTML help and related image include files from \Windows (also see my tutorials linked from the previously linked-in article on this) to see whether it’s additional files in \Windows that cause the problems. Again, no success.

Last, I’ve deleted the .lnk link files from \Windows\Start Menu - the last occurrence of application-related files installed to the main storage, common to all third-party apps/games. That did it! After deleting all the links of the additional programs and games I’ve installed, the CPU usage of services.exe fell back to 5.2% (the value after a clean reset – note that, under WM5, there’s a difference between a "clean" and a "hard" reset. It’s only clean resets that delete everything off the file system, traditional hard resets don’t. The latter only delete the non-file/registry-based flags. Please see this thread (http://www.mobilitysite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=28200) for more information on this.)

The immense success of getting rid of the link files made me think. Why did this happen? Why would the iPAQ constantly monitor the .lnk files under \Windows\Start Menu? Then, I remembered the Game Manager (the Gaming tab) (http://www.winmobiletech.com/052006iPAQhx4700WM5/hx4700Gamemanager.bmp.png) in Settings/System/Synaptics NavPoint and immediately knew the answer – yes, NavPoint constantly monitors \Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Games (that is, the Games folder in the Programs section of the Start menu) to see whether there’re new game links in there.

I immediately restored my .lnk files, except for the ones in \Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Games. I turned out to be right – the CPU usage of services.exe didn’t increase at all.

Interestingly, if I deleted the two predefined lnk files (Bubble Breaker.lnk and Solitaire.lnk) and the icon file in \Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Games , the CPU usage of services.exe dropped to around 0.5% - which is an order of magnitude better than the default ~5.4%. This means you should follow the following, Section 1.2 of this tutorial even if you don’t install a single game on your WM5 hx4700 – the two games contained in the ROM will always result in an additional 5.4% CPU usage and the PDA becoming unbearably bad at anything needing smooth scrolling, including playing videos!

1.2 This is what you should do

Start File Explorer on the PDA, go to \Windows\Start Menu\Programs\ and long-tap the Games directory so that the context menu comes up. Choose Rename as can be seen in this screenshot (http://www.winmobiletech.com/052006iPAQhx4700WM5/hx4700FE-Games-Rename1.bmp.png).

Change the name of the directory to anything else; for example, MyGames as can be seen in this screenshot (http://www.winmobiletech.com/052006iPAQhx4700WM5/hx4700FE-MyGames.bmp.png). Tap the Enter key on the on-screen-keyboard (or just click anywhere else on the screen); the name of the directory will be changed (as can also be seen in this screenshot (http://www.winmobiletech.com/052006iPAQhx4700WM5/hx4700RenamedGamesFolder.bmp.png), taken of the "traditional" Programs dialog of the Start menu). Now recreate the Games folder - just choose Menu/New Folder as can be seen in here (http://www.winmobiletech.com/052006iPAQhx4700WM5/hx4700FE-Games-RenameNewGamesFolder.bmp.png). (Do not forget this second step; otherwise, if there is abolutely no Games folder under \Windows\Start Menu\Programs\, the CPU usage of services.exe will be around 1.5%, which is slightly higher than with the case of a completely empty Games folder.)

Now, you can freely reset the Pocket PC; after the reset, services.exe will only take about 0.5% CPU time, eliminating all stuttering in scrolling, making reading with auto-scroller e-book readers, watching videos, plain games etc. much-much more pleasuring than before – again, even if you don’t install any additional games.

Please note that you will need to move all .lnk files automatically added to \Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Games directory after every game install. It’s very easy: you just go to the Games directory, (mass-) select (you can always mass-select links by clicking Ctl, and, then, A on the on-screen keyboard) the new link files, tap-and-hold the selection and choose Cut from the context menu as can be seen in here (http://www.winmobiletech.com/052006iPAQhx4700WM5/hx4700FE-MyGames-CutPostInstalledGames-1.bmp.png). Now, go to your new game directory (in the tutorial above, \Windows\Start Menu\Programs\MyGames), scroll down the list to the bottom and tap-and-hold an empty area there. Choose Paste in the context menu as can be seen in here (http://www.winmobiletech.com/052006iPAQhx4700WM5/hx4700FE-MyGames-CutPostInstalledGames-2.bmp.png). (Alternatively, you can bring up the on-screen keyboard, click Ctl as can be seen in here (http://www.winmobiletech.com/052006iPAQhx4700WM5/hx4700FE-MyGames-CutPostInstalledGames-3.bmp.png) and, then, click V). After this, the .lnk files (in this case, the Spb AirIslands ones) will appear at the end of the list as can be seen in here (http://www.winmobiletech.com/052006iPAQhx4700WM5/hx4700FE-MyGames-CutPostInstalledGames-4.bmp.png).

Remember to always do this after you install any additional game resulting in the new link files added to the Games directory! This is an one-time (non-recurring) task; therefore, you won’t end up having to do it often.

Note that hx4700's with localized WM5 versions where the Games folder is called something else (for example, Spiele in the German version), you will need to accordingly change the tutorial above and use that folder name instead of Games.

Congratulations! Now, you have a much more usable device!

Another thing is still to be done, though – radically decreasing the filesys.exe CPU usage. It’ll be even easier than the tweak above.

2. filesys.exe

2.1 Background

(This section sheds some light on what filesys.exe is all about and why it’s behaving so. Reading it is NOT needed for applying the patch and is, therefore, only recommended for Pocket PC gurus/geeks or people that want to know more about the inner secrets of how Pocket PC’s work. That is, you can safely skip it and move straight to section 2.2.)

Non-native WM5 devices that, initially, came with the WM2003SE operating system later upgraded to WM5 have a system process filesys.exe, which does some important tasks involving the compaction of the built-in storage. (Please read this article (http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsmobile/archive/2006/03/16/552996.aspx) for more information on all the theoretical stuff – I won’t delve in it more because it's not needed for the tweak to work.)

filesys.exe behaves in a very user-unfriendly way. When it kicks in (it activates about twice every hour when the PDA is switched on, also depending on the amount of new files in the main Flash ROM storage memory to be packed – this means it will almost immediately ‘kick in’ after installing, say, an application into the main storage), it takes almost the entire CPU, leaving the user almost no CPU cycles. This means the PDA becomes almost useless during the time (in general, some to several minutes, depending on the amount of files to be compacted). For example, registering a simple screen click will take the PDA sometimes dozens of seconds.

It’s not possible to kill or permanently disable filesys.exe. Killing it will crash the entire system. You can’t force it to take much less CPU time with built-in tools either. This is where the filesys.exe throttle patch (originally written by shsmith (http://www.aximsite.com/boards/member.php?u=71944) (also see this strictly Axim x50v-related thread (http://www.aximsite.com/boards/showthread.php?t=112194) if interested), modified for the iPAQ HP hx4700 by me) comes into the picture.

The patch "throttles" down the CPU usage of filesys.exe to 25% when the PDA runs on battery power. This means the PDA remains almost perfectly usable during the compaction, unlike with the case of filesys.exe’s taking up all CPU cycles.

2.2 The filesys.exe throttler

Get this file (http://www.winmobiletech.com/052006iPAQhx4700WM5/patch_filesys-f3.exe) and copy it into \Windows\Startup. Then, after every reset, it will be auto-started (during this, just click the OK button to let it go in the dialog window it shows (http://www.winmobiletech.com/052006iPAQhx4700WM5/hx-filesysKickedIn85Percent-2.bmp.png)). It will make sure filesys.exe can’t use all the CPU cycles for its housekeeping tasks. It doesn’t take up much memory / CPU resources so you can safely auto-start it (that is, as explained, put in the \Windows\Startup directory).

3. Other (already known) hacks

There’re some cache-related registry tweaks explained here (http://www.mobiletopsoft.com/board/388/speed-up-windows-mobile-5-pocket-device.html) and here (http://www.mobilitysite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=28868). As far as the second link is concerned, just following the tips in the first post will suffice – the rest of the thread doesn’t really contain anything else of interest. Note that, despite what some people say, you should not try to modify/remove/rename the registry values HKLM\drivers\ Builtin\ StrataFMD\ CompactionPrio256 and HKLM\drivers\ Builtin\ StrataFMD\ CompactionCritPrio256 – it will have absolutely no effect on anything.

Applying the tweaks in these tutorials will definitely result in some decent, additional performance/usability gain. Note that HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ System\ StorageManager\ FATFS\ EnableCache will most probably be already 1. Also, disabling Error Reporting doesn't necessarily result in any performance gain. Finally, you can also relocate the Internet Explorer Mobile cache (that is, you don't need to completely abandon it) as described in my Pocket PC Thoughts-frontpaged article (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/articles.php?action=expand,42768). The article also contains information on relocating the NetFront 3.3 (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=772&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1) cache (note that the previous version, NetFront 3.2, isn't WM5-compliant as has been pointed out for example here (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&title=wm5_aamp_potential_netfront_users_netfro&more=1)).

4. Acknowledgements

Hal Goldstein at the Smartphone & Pocket PC magazine - thanks again for the hx4700! Without him, you wouldn’t be able to enjoy these new tweaks.

UPDATE (10:10 CET, 05/23/2006): slightly modified Chapter 3; added the DUN patch link.

Menneisyys

05-21-2006, 07:30 PM

Over at BrightHand, MobilitySite and my blog I've received a lot of absolutely positive feedback - my bugfixes work just great.

In the meantime, the "Games" fix has also turned out to be working on the WM2003SE. In addition, I've managed to find out the cause for the Compact Flash bug and am working on a fix!

thomas1973

05-22-2006, 07:47 AM

:mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: THANK YOU!!! :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

This hack works GREAT! I've had several PPC's and now the hx4700. I've been happy with the device, and especially its amazing screen. I was eagerly awaiting the repeatedly postponed WM5. I've been one of the many dissappointed hx4700 users after 'upgrading' to WM5. It's been soooo slow, I've been contemplating re-installing WM2003, but have been waiting for something like this hack to happen. However, I sort of expected (or at least, hoped) it would come from HP, and not an independent programmer... I can't believe we hx4700 users had to actually pay for a badly developed OS adaption like this, and not even get an official fix! This might very well be my last HP Pocket PC.
:bad-words:

BUT thanks to Menneisyys, I can enjoy my hx4700 until the perfect convergence PDA comes out.

Thanks again for developing the hack, and for making it publicly (and freely) available! Great job!! :werenotworthy:

Thomas.

Menneisyys

05-22-2006, 07:56 AM

Thanks :)

Expect more to come - I'm just working on the fix that, finally, fixes the Compact Flash-related problems.

juni

05-22-2006, 12:41 PM

Great that you got a hx4700 - I'll be expecting more hacks and fixes :).

Thank you :)

I was going to say something about Lordi, knowing where you are from - but no one else would get it :D

ycarter3

05-22-2006, 01:44 PM

Thank you Menneisyys. I love to watch movies on my hx4700 and the new upgrade to WM 5.0 made that impossible. Your tweaks are awesome. Thanks again. I will be checking back to see what you come up with next. Keep up the excellent work, it is greatly appreciated.

Menneisyys

05-22-2006, 02:33 PM

In the meantime, PDAMania.hu forum user pdafun (http://www.pdamania.hu/forum/profile.php3?ki=pdafun&top=8223) has pointed my attention to an alternative, even cleaner solution to the services.exe problem. Get a registry editor (please consult this all-in-one roundup on registry editors (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/menneisyys/UltimateRoundupOfRegistryEditors.asp), go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ Services\ NavPointService and delete it entirely.

To do this, do the following. In this mini-tutorial, I assume you use Resco Registry Editor (my registry editor of choice). Note that, by default, it uses a one-frame only mode as can be seen in here (http://www.winmobiletech.com/052006iPAQhx4700WM5/hx4700ServicesRegHack-Resco1Frame.bmp.png). I recommend going straight to Menu/View and clicking Show Tree View (see screenshot here (http://www.winmobiletech.com/052006iPAQhx4700WM5/hx4700ServicesRegHack-Resco1Frame2.bmp.png)) so that the lower frame is also displayed.

Once the registry editor is installed and started, click the + ( http://www.winmobiletech.com/052006iPAQhx4700WM5/RegEdPlusIcon.png ) icon on the left of HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE; the result will be as can be seen in this screenshot (http://www.winmobiletech.com/052006iPAQhx4700WM5/hx4700ServicesRegHack-2.bmp.png).

Now, scroll down to Services and do the same to it as to ; this will result in the subtree under Services to be seen as can be seen in here (http://www.winmobiletech.com/052006iPAQhx4700WM5/hx4700ServicesRegHack-3.bmp.png).

Now, highlight NavPointService and wait for the context menu to be displayed. Choose Delete in it as can be seen in this screenshot (http://www.winmobiletech.com/052006iPAQhx4700WM5/hx4700NavPointServiceDelete.bmp.png). Choose Delete all (http://www.winmobiletech.com/052006iPAQhx4700WM5/hx4700ServicesRegHack-4.bmp.png) in the dialog that is displayed after this.

Now, suspend / resume the device so that the Registry changes are surely flushed to the storage flash ROM. Reset the PDA.

This hack has three advantages:

* much easier to be initially done than the file system-based hack (that is, if you aren’t afraid of using registry editors – as this modification is really easy, you shouldn’t be)
* after you install additional games, you don’t end up having to move the new link files to the alternative Games directory
* the CPU usage of services.exe is 0% in this case, as opposed to the ~0.5% with an empty Games directory.

I will also publish a new, updated version of all these tips (and everything else that needs to be known about these all – for example, I’ll also elaborate on the well-known Cache tweaks – Chapter 3 in the original article (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=825&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1)) in an “all-in-one WM5 Tweaks for the hx4700” article. It will be published after I release the Compact Flash fix.

kratam

05-22-2006, 03:27 PM

ycarter3

05-22-2006, 03:31 PM

Menneisyys

05-22-2006, 03:49 PM

Hello again Menneisyys,

I copied the 'patch_filesys-f3.exe' file as instructed and received the following error message after resetting: "Sorry, cannot find filesys:msflash thread!" Any thoughts?

Thank you,
ycarter

Try another reset. If it doesn't help, follow the instuctions at http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&title=hp_ipaq_hx4700_wm5_upgrade_prolonged&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1 so that I can create a trottler tailored for your particular device.

Menneisyys

05-22-2006, 03:52 PM

just got the update for WM5 for my HX4700. I have followed all the instructions for the installation, clicked on the hpRUU.exe Rom update utility 2.2.14.0, tick the "I understand the warning indictated above and have reviewed the readme" then clicked "next." After i click next i get a blue screen on my PC and my computer restarts. I three machines at home i have tried it all of them and get the same error on all of them.
I have version 1.10 on my HX4700.

Any help on this matter would be greatfull.

That's because you're not connecting the cradle of your iPAQ directly to the computer but thourgh a USB hub (or a loooong USB cable extender). I also had this problem once (because of a 3 meter USB extender) - it's the hub that is causing it.

Menneisyys

05-24-2006, 01:09 PM

I was going to say something about Lordi, knowing where you are from - but no one else would get it :D

Tiedä sit, olisko tullu voittoa ilman maskeja.. ;)

http://www.student.oulu.fi/~arautioa/Lordi_ilman_maskeja.jpg

Menneisyys

05-30-2006, 11:32 PM

The CF fix is available. Please see http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&title=the_hp_ipaq_hx4700_wm5_compact_flash_pat&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1 for mor einfo.

Sorry for not copying the article here - it's full of user comments, which are very important to read so that you can have a background of what this patch is about.

Edgar_

05-31-2006, 12:00 AM

Menneisyys

05-31-2006, 05:16 AM

Werner

How about a single place that gives us scaredy cats still on WM03SE all the patches/tweaks and incantations we need to upgrade to WM5 reliably vs jumping around to some really long threads and inconsistent information. the threads ar over 8 pages long with links to other places etc. It would be grand to have a nice step by step in one place.

Perhaps Darius or one of the other Ed's could make it a sticky in this forum.

Thanks

-Edgar

I think it's a bit early for collecting everything and writing an all-in-one article/tutorial as much hasn't been arranged yet. If I write an article today, I will need to rewrite it almost entirely tomorrow (as new ways of tweaking are found), wasting me hours of work...

Edgar_

05-31-2006, 07:49 AM

Oh well, I guess I'll wait for HP to fix it then or simply stay on WM03SE

I'm not one to hunt around and try to figure out which tweaks have been tested and good - and which ones are just trials or actually bad. So many threads across the boards talking about this or that hack or change - but no guidance on what worked and what didn't. I have read all or most of them and some just end with no statement on whether it is something that should be done or not.

I wasn't looking for pages, I was looking for a simple consolidation of what worked and where to find it. Maybe two paragraphs pointing at the true, real tweaks, and perhaps the best order to do them in.

Menneisyys

05-31-2006, 07:52 AM

I wasn't looking for pages, I was looking for a simple consolidation of what worked and where to find it. Maybe two paragraphs pointing at the true, real tweaks, and perhaps the best order to do them in.

OK, I'll try to come up with a short version of the tutorial soon.

Edgar_

05-31-2006, 08:00 AM

That wuld be greatly appreciated. You rock Werner.

My 4700 is a key part of my job and my everyday production. I may just buy a second VGA PDA to try Wm5. Funny how there is no VGA device that is natively VGA - they are all upgraded devices.

*sigh*

I will be going to Eastern Europe (Kiev) for work in late June - perhaps there are PDA or Smartphones not available in the US I should buy while there. I'll be back in August then again in September as well.

-Edgar

Menneisyys

05-31-2006, 08:02 AM

Funny how there is no VGA device that is natively VGA - they are all upgraded devices.

You mean WM5? There are: x51v, C550, N560, HTC Universal. (Albeit I wouldn't get the latter.)

Edgar_

05-31-2006, 08:09 AM

Oops, right, VGA device native WM5 vs upgraded Wm03. And of course, I meant USA market, sorry.

Wasn't the Dell Wm03SE then re-released as WM5?

C550 is QVGA SP right, not VGA PDA? the Loox isn't available in the US is it - is it a nice device? Because, if it is, I'll look for it in Amsterdam and Kiev next month.

Menneisyys

05-31-2006, 08:11 AM

I will be going to Eastern Europe (Kiev) for work in late June - perhaps there are PDA or Smartphones not available in the US I should buy while there.

Well, I think you could get the N560/C550 in there officially (F-S also sells their stuff in Ukraine) and definitely cheaper than in the States. (In Germany, thiugh, it'd be even cheaper - Ukraine is not part of the EU and, therefore, has additional customs on EU products.)

Edgar_

05-31-2006, 08:15 AM

I have a two hour layover in Amsterdam - perhaps their ' shop-buy-fly ' stores in duty free! :)

Or, re-route my flight through Frankfurt Deutchland!

Thanks again.

Nurhisham Hussein

05-31-2006, 08:32 AM

C550 is QVGA SP right, not VGA PDA?

Nope, it's VGA PDA - link (http://www.firstloox.org/VGAppc.htm).

Menneisyys

05-31-2006, 08:32 AM

I have a two hour layover in Amsterdam - perhaps their ' shop-buy-fly ' stores in duty free! :)

Hope so. Airport shops can be pretty expensive though. Dunno about the situation in Amsterdam (mostly only about Helsinki and London. the latter is very expensive; the former may be a BIT cheaper than casual Finnish shops).

Menneisyys

05-31-2006, 09:22 AM

OK guys, just published the concise tutorial (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&title=the_concise_tutorial_to_making_your_wm5_&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1).

Edgar_

05-31-2006, 02:38 PM

C550 is QVGA SP right, not VGA PDA?

Nope, it's VGA PDA - link (http://www.firstloox.org/VGAppc.htm).

ah, I was thinkng the SPV C550 - god forbid these companies look what's on the market close to their own product and not name them the same - especially with numbers, I think there are a few numbers out there that aren't in use. :)

DavidinCT

06-04-2006, 02:22 PM

I wanted to pass my thoughts here, and see if there is any advice for me.

So you know my knowledge with Windows CE/PocketPC/Windows Mobile. I'm an avid user, over the years; I've had about 8 Pocket Windows versions of hardware. I started out with a NEC Mobile Pro, with Windows CE 1.0, after assorted other models, I got a HP 3650, for it's time it was a unreal PDA with all the features most people could dream of. I went up to a 3800, then a 5450 and about a month an 1/2 ago, I picked up a HP hx4700 (been eyeing them for about 8-9 months).

I also am a power user, I work in IT for a living, and could not live with out one of these devices, I use the Wi-FI, Bluetooth, and pretty much all the m$ applications (outlook, word, excel, etc) on the PDAs, and need them to do my job. Figured I would post this because this is my 2nd or 3rd post, Long time reader here but, finally signed up.

On my 5400 with PocketPC 2003, it's always been solid as a rock. As for rebooting my system, I'd go a 2 weeks to a month sometimes before I would notice a slow down where I would need a reboot (sometimes listening to music for a few hours at a time would make it slow down a little, needing a reboot).

I picked up a 4700 for the point of getting Windows Mobile 5.0 for the new file system and the upgraded applications (never mind the bigger and awesome display). So far, I am big time disappointed. I've gone over every fix that I have found on this site plus looked over sites with WM5 tips and hints (even translated a few over seas sites too). I even found a way to get My Documents moved over to a SD card and sync from there to try to free up space in memory for better system performance (posted in the HP forum, sync'ing has it's major bugs though)

I do notice it to run faster, sure, after using it, I'll put it in standby mode, pick it up an hour later, and it's at 1/2 the speed as before. It's slow and sluggish after a reboot, it's ok for a little while but, it slows back down again. It's painful to use sometimes because of this, and it's hard to get some common tasks done with it. I have been rebooting it 4-5 times a day now.

Has HP made any statements that they are working on the issue? Is this the max performance we could see with this 624mhz PDA ? Have I possibly missed something that would make it more stable and solid, so it does not need a reboot every few hours to make it usable?

I want to stick with it and work out the bugs; I do like what I see so far. I have been thinking about going back to 2003se, till these issues are worked out but, really don't want to have to. Does anyone else feel this way?

Thoughts?

Thanks for reading...and sorry for the long post

Menneisyys

06-04-2006, 02:50 PM

DavidinCT

06-05-2006, 01:41 AM

I Have I possibly missed something that would make it more stable and solid, so it does not need a reboot every few hours to make it usable?

These are the symptoms of filesys.exe running at full CPU usage. Use the throttler to make it more friendly.

I am using the throttler, and I do the the message on reboot "click ok to slow it down".(it's one of the 1st fixes I did). Still dealing with this later day performance issues. Any idea ?

stainlesssteele

06-05-2006, 06:14 PM

I spent some support time with HP online and the only answer I could get was to switch back to 2003 version of operating system. I asked if I would get a rebate for buying Windows Mobile 5.0 - was told no.

So, I figured that I'll look for a new Motorola smart phone or something (the Q looks good).

Anyway, I still 'need' my pocketpc in the interim, so I tried the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ Services\ NavPointService deletion method using Resco Registry editor. I needed to figure out what 'suspend' is, but after that ...

Amazing ... I can use my pocketpc again. I haven't done any other edits, but that's just because I don't want to risk the 'speed' that it now works at ...

To the person that found this: " thank you, thank you, thank you"
To HP: "Come on, you couldn't figure this out?"

Menneisyys

06-08-2006, 05:14 PM

Mike Calligaro addresses the compaction problem in non-native Windows Mobile 5 devices

Everyone that has a device (let it be an iPAQ hx or a Dell Axim x50(v)) upgraded to WM5 knows what problems the compaction service (filesys.exe) causes.

The problem has been addressed by Pocket PC gurus/hackers (including me) several times, with varying success. (See for example this article (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=861&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1).)

Now, well-known Windows Mobile Team blogger Mike Calligaro addressed this problem in his blog (http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsmobile/archive/2006/06/07/621132.aspx), with particular attention to the WM5-upgraded HP iPAQ hx4700.

The article is a nice read to anyone that wants to know more about the compaction process. Also, it points the reader to the new, free, much more WM5-friendly (it doesn't writ temporary files back to the main storage) DockWare version (http://www.iliumsoft.com/download.php?prodcode=20120), which is highly recommended for all hx4700 users (go and get it!).

Unfortunately, there are no solutions/hacks provided in the article. However, it still contains some good news: they've sent device manufacturer OEM's the way of speeding up the process. Now, we're in the hand of the manufacturers: hope they do issue some kind of an update. Unfortunately, these hacks can not be implemented by hand (on, for example, the Registry level). With some laborous ROM reverse engineering, recompiling/hexediting and re-flashing the entire device, it can be done, even if HP/Dell don't bother releasing a new ROM version, though. Any Pocket PC guru having the necessary time to do it? ;)

Menneisyys

06-08-2006, 08:36 PM

A visitor has posted some new, interesting tweaks to my hx4700-related blog posts ( http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&cat=96 )

He stated simply modifying HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ init\ BootVars\ DBFlags from 0x10000 to, say, 0x1000 or to 0x2000 (4096/8192) will just surpress filesys.exe.

I haven't found any mention of DBFlags under BootVars anywhere on the Web (I've scrutinized the MSDN docs too), including this forum. Does anyone have any experience with this hack?

I've started some long-time tests to see whether this hack works. I'll let you all know about the results.

Menneisyys

06-12-2006, 06:35 PM

Just posted a lot of benchmarks on HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ System\ StorageManager\ FATFS\ CacheSize. It's certainly worth reading. See http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=903&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1 . Comments are welcome.

Menneisyys

06-12-2006, 06:36 PM