Hi all,
As Magician has always been having memory problems and I have loaded several applications, I thought about loading Windows (all files from device) to the Storage Card and then installing a Boot swapper that makes the device boot from the Storage Card.
By doing this, all 32 MB Memory can be dedicated as RAM and the device will work fastest giving best performance and will allow users to open several applications at a time.
Does any one have a .CAB file or something that swaps the booting location to Storage Card.
Related
I have always used the main storage for loading programs/applications, but recently I have been adding more applications as I become more affluent with using my PPC Phone.
I did load the Scary Bear Check Notifications in the Extended ROM, but the device won't let me load any other programs there, so I suppose I'm out of room.
I have read that I can store programs on the storage card. I have tried this a while ago and my device either would not let me or when the program was loaded there I could not run it.
How do you successfully install programs on the SD storage card? Is there a limit to application type or other factors that will only allow some programs to work there? Can I copy and paste programs to my storage card that are already installed?
Any tips on storage card application use would be appreciated.
I have dove deeper into this issue, and I see where I was having some difficulty. I'm now able to install programs to the storage card. Some programs, however, still do not want to be installed there. I have not tried moving programs, but felt it was safer to delete on the main memory and then install on the card.
Do products like Pocket Mechanic provide better or mor complete use of storage cards?
Hey
My phone is saying I have 2.79MB of storage left but 16.51MB of Program space. Yet it wont let me install any new programs because of a lack of space! :-( Anyway to get this to work?
I would suggest you do some searches on memory and Windows Mobile 5 to learn more about how the different kinds of memory are used.
In a nutshell--storage space (or a memory card) is where you install programs and is analogous to a desktop computers hard drive. Program memory is the equivalent of the RAM in a desktop computer and is used by programs as they are running. You cannot use the program memory for installation of programs.
Have you purchased a mini-SD card for use with your Wizard? If you have a memory card inserted when you install software, you will be given the option of installing to the memory card. (Don't install things like Today screen add-ins and software that will need to run at startup on memory cards.)
Good luck.
Geoffrey
Ah right I see. For some reason its not allowing me to install tomtom on my memory card, Ill just have to swap things about I think.
Thanks for your help
Hello community,
Have anyone experienced problems installing the TomTom Navigator 6 to the mini SD card?
The option to install the application to internal memory or storage card is shown when installing via usb but then fails to install on the storage card.
There are already installed applications on the mini SD card and additional free space.
The application installs on the internal memory without problems but no free space (this was confirmed by removing applications from the internal memory).
Update: I've installed the application on the internal memory and move the folder and its contents manually to the storage card. I launch the app directly from the card and it worked. However, I haven’t yet tested it for a signal or synchronization with TomTom home, but the app starts. Updated the program shortcut link to point to the new directory and deleted the old (internal memory).
I had a look at the setup xml before stored in the .cab file and found that it explicitly installs to the internal memory. There weren't any use of variables for choice for the installation directory.
Did the developers intentionally leave that out? Or was it an oversight?
What version of TomTom are you talking about? My version (TomTom 6) installs fine onto the memory card. I am installing it from a cab file on the memory card.
Everytime I install new program to HD2 it asks me if I want to install into main memory or SD card. My PC windows experience says that it is advisable to install programs to main drive (C: usually). Does the same logic apply to WM devices? Or is it safe to install apps into SD card (which would leave more space on actual device)
It's really up to you where you install them. The only things to bear in mind are that the internal storage cannot be expanded, and you can remove the storage card.
The way I do this is to install anything that I think I'll really want to always have at hand on the device (essential apps like coreplayer, nitrogen etc..) That way, if I remove the storage card then my device still has my most favoured apps on it. Anything that I'm not too fussed about (games in my case) goes on the storage card.
It's your call completely, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with installing things on the storage card. In fact, I'd recommend doing it when you're installing non-essential apps so that you save internal storage for things that you don't have a choice with (MarketPlace apps, for example, or tweaks and mods).
Hope this helps mate.
ok, thanks for detailed reply. I will try to install apps to SD card, if that option becomes available during installation process. I am not switching SD cards, so it should be fine then.
one more question that is related to the first one... If I install application on SD card, then if I take the memory card out, put new ROM into phone and insert SD card back. Will applications run as before installing new ROM? Are all program files saved to SD card when installing or does it do some registry entries or save some files onto maine phone memory???
In my old JasJam I found that programs loaded faster when stored on the device storage as opposed to the SD card.
Is this the same on the HD2?
If you upgrade ROM then you will need to do a backup first then restore afterwards otherwise you will lose everything including the links to the programs on the SD Card (although the programs will still be there).
I use SPB backup to do this. It works well. I used it yesterday after I upgraded my O2 V1.43 ROM to HTC 1.66. The restore worked great
All Micro D cards aren't the same I paid a bit more and got a Class 6(fastest) 16GB card. Class 2 is the slowest.
I hope this helps?
Things to remember
SD card usage eats battery.
SD card usage is slower than phone mem.
SD card usage can cause conflicts and freezes.
SD card usage creates app associations that really should not be carried over to new ROM flashes.
Installation to phone mem gives smoother and more stable operation of phone.
You have plenty of on phone storage space so why not use it?
Links to apps gone
i have loads of applications on my SD card for my HD2 but when i reset it i lost all the links to them so now the only way to get to them is to go to the file explorer but i dont have any icons anywhere else on my phone, any suggestions?
Either reinstall the apps, or simply browse to the executables, copy, and paste as shortcut in \windows\start menu.
Clear your doubts guys!!!
Ok, so here's the deal, in a very longwinded way that should hopefully explain everything and answer ALL questions.
You have an SD card in your phone and, a bit like normal PC Hard Drives, you can "partition" them (split them into two or more sections of different filesystems). Normally, your SD card is just one big FAT32 partition, which is fine for storing your pics, messages, emails, etc.
Now, other then your Phone's SD card, your phone will have its own internal flash memory (or "NAND") storage. Tradditionally with Android, you could only install applications to this NAND storage, you cannot install them onto your SD card. So if you have an empty 32GB SD card, but only 5Mb of internal phone storage, you still wont be able to install many apps, if any at all.
This was done to protect the apps from things like piracy - it's not easy to access the location where apps are installed on your phone's internal storage (normally impossible without root), so you can't for example buy an app, copy it, refund it, then install it again.
Still, this is no good for those of us who like to install lots and lots of apps, legitimately, as we run out of internal storage very quickly.
So Google came up with a way to install apps to the SD card. A folder is created called something like .android_secure and this stores (I believe) encrypted versions of applications, but there's a few catches:
1) Apps aren't automatically stored here, you have to manually "move" them
2) Not all apps are capable of being moved, in fact most apps aren't, the developer needs to update their app and allow it. Some apps aren't and wont be updated and some developers may not want to allow it for whatever reason.
3) Not all app data is moved, most of it is but some data is left on your phone so many people still run out of internal storage quickly.
4) You can force ALL apps to be moved to this area by default, but it breaks incompatible ones - such as Widgets, which are unable to load due to the SD card not being "prepared".
So that's Froyo's version. Before Froyo existed, some very clever people came up with a thing called "Apps2SD". Remember I said that your SD card normally is one big FAT32 partition? Well, Apps2SD works by having your SD card patitioned into TWO filesystems. A normal FAT32 partition for your usual stuff and a secondary "EXT" partition. EXT is just a filesystem, like FAT32 or NTFS, but it's the filesystem used by Android internally. The SD card is normally FAT32 because it's a "universal" filesystem, that just about any machine will be able to read, whereas EXT filesystems are generally Linux only, but I digress.
EXT has several different versions. The most common one you'll see is ext3. The main difference between ext2 and ext3 is "journaling", which is just a fancy way of saying that should an operation (such as copying, writing or reading) be interrupted unexpectedly (say, by you turning your phone off), then no data should be lost or corrupted. You know how when you turn your phone on, it says "preparing SD card"? It takes a few minutes, but what it's actually doing is checking that the FAT32 partition hasn't been damaged, because FAT does NOT have journaling. If you used a computer back in the Windows 98 days, you may remember that lovely blue "Scandisk" screen that had to run every time you didn't shut your computer down correctly - that's the same thing. But then Windows 2000/XP came along with NTFS, which also has journaling, meaning you had less chance of loosing data. But I digress once more.
So you have your SD card partitioned into EXT and FAT32. Generally it doesn't matter if it's ext3 or ext4, but you don't get any real advantage with ext4 over ext3 in this instance. Apps2SD then runs a special script on your phone which "symbolically links" the folder from your phone's internal storage where your apps are normally stored, to the ext partition on your SD card. A symbolic link is a bit like a shortcut for folders, except it's transparent to the OS: In other words, Android doesn't know that when it's installing it's apps to the internal phone storage, it's actually being stored on the SD card. This effectively boosts your internal phone memory from the previous 5mb that you had in my example above, up to whatever size you made the ext partition on your SD card (often 512Mb or 1Gb, but it depends on how many apps you install).
Plus, because it's "journaled", it doesn't need to be "prepared", meaning it's ready to go as soon as the phone starts - so your widgets and apps work immediately (unlike "forced" Froyo Apps2SD, where widgets disappear).
The catch with Apps2SD is that whatever space the ext partition takes up is taken away from the SD card. So if you have a 4Gb card (with something like 3.5Gb of actual storage) and you make a 512Mb ext partition, your SD card will "shrink" to 3Gb. The space isn't actually lost, it's just being used by the ext partition. If you reformat your card, you'll get it back.
Finally, there's a difference between "Apps2SD" and "Apps2SD+". Remember I said that your apps are stored on a special folder inside your Phone's NAND storage? Well, that was a bit of a lie. It's actually stored in TWO places. There's a second area which is called the Davlik Cache. You don't really need to worry about what this is for (Hint: IT's to do with the Java runetime your phone uses to run apps), all you need to know is that apps use it to store data, which also eats up internal phone memory. Apps2SD+ moves davlik cache to the ext partition on your SD card as well, freeing up even more space. Some people believe that this may come at the cost of performance, as the internal NAND memory should be faster than your SD card (Which is why you also get people arguing over which "class" SD card is better for Apps2SD - the logic being that a faster SD card means less impact from this move), but the truth of the matter is that your applications will be running from your Phone's RAM anyway, so performance isn't really impacted at all. Since most apps are only a few hundred Kb's in size, or a couple of MB at the most, it's a non-issue.
Finally, any recent version of Apps2SD/Apps2SD+ should work with an SD card that is or isn't formatted with an ext partition. It'll check for this partition when your phone first boots and if it's not there, just use internal phone storage.
Having an ext partition WITHOUT Apps2SD+ shouldn't cause any issues, either, so you can format your SD card whenever you're ready.
So in summary:
Apps2SD "fakes" your phone's internal memory and puts it all on a hidden section of your SD card.
Apps2SD+ pushes even more content to the SD card, freeing up even more space on the phone itself.
"Froyo" Apps2SD has various limitations that "old" apps2SD does not, but is much easier to handle as it doesn't involve any kind of "partitioning".