As promised in my previous article, I’ve taken a deep look at the latest Windows Mobile 6.1 upgrades for the Dell Axim x51v, HP iPAQ hx4700, HTC Universal and HTC Wizard. All the reviewed ROM versions are based on Windows Mobile 5.2.19209 (Build 19209.1.0.2). I run some VERY thorough SDHC conformance tests because, unfortunately, most (as far as the reviewed models are concerned, all – note that, in this regard, I haven’t tested the Universal) plain WM5 / WM6 devices can NOT be easily made SDHC-compliant. This means you MUST upgrade these devices to some of the newer ROMs (including the ones I’ve reviewed) in order to gain SDHC support. Note that I’ve devoted a separate section (at the end) to my test results showing the results of my trying to “hack” the non-WM6.1 ROM-based devices to accept SDHC cards with the latest hacks available.

(Note that if you’ve never heard of ignore_my_docs, you can safely skip this article. It’s only meant for users of previous Windows Mobile operating systems that would like to know whether ignore_my_docs is still in effect.)

There is still a lot of confusion caused by ignore_my_docs explained for example in THIS (this is the most important article!), THIS and THIS threads / articles.

The great folks at the great Windows Mobile site AximSite have posted an announcement to help pick up the winners of the "Win a Copy of Vista Ultimate or Office Ultimate 2007" Contest. You may well be interested in the new FAQ's / tutorials one can vote for in these contests.

http://tony72.googlepages.com/ppc_frag

UPDATE (04/04/2007): some bad news for WM5 / WM6 users: while the driver memory shortage is indeed much less prevalent in WM5+ operating systems, it certainly exists.
(End of update.)

You may have already heard about the difference between driver memory (don’t confuse it with the ‘static’ storage memory!) and dynamic memory. The two have nothing to do with each other. That is, you can have even 100 Mbytes of free dynamic (program) memory while having no driver memory at all.

The shortage of the driver memory is very well known for many WM2003SE device users; for example, those of the Pocket Loox 720. On the Loox, upon (re)enabling Bluetooth, you often run into this error message complaining about the lack of the driver memory. Other, mostly WM2003SE (and, to a much lesser degree, WM2003) users have also run into this problem.

Some programs use more and some less driver memory. For example, the Widcomm Bluetooth stack in the Pocket Loox 720 and in the WM2003SE HP iPAQ hx2xxx series uses quite a lot of driver memory. Other applications that consume a lot of driver memory are, for example, Qmail, the great alternative E-mail application, the beta (past) versions of Opera Mobile, the best Web browser for the Pocket PC (the final, trial/commercial version released late May has much less driver memory usage), the also nice Web browser NetFront 3.2/3.3, Adobe Acrobat Reader 2.0, TextMaker and PlanMaker by Softmaker.

If you happen to have a Pocket PC with built-in storage (it's called iPAQ File Store, LOOXstore, Built-in Storage depending on your particular Pocket PC brand; in this article, I only use File Store - FS for short - when referring to it) on your (pre-Windows Mobile 5) Pocket PC, you may want to regularly defragment it, particularly if you often write to it.

Why is this needed, you may ask. It's pretty easy to explain: if you often write/copy files to your FS or install applications there that do this automatically, the file system easily becomes fragmented, which results in tremedous slowdowns, particularly as far as writing operations are concerned.

As has already been pointed out, there can be many cases when you don't even know that writing to FS is taking place. For example, the great alternative Web browser NetFront (see this blog entry for information on the latest version) has a local cache. Being local means the following: if you install NetFront in the FS, then, it'll also keep its cache in the FS, resulting in even hundreds of new, written (and old, deleted) files in a Web browsing session. The list continues – for example, a lot of mobile phone handler applications (see this article on them) do the same, as with alternative mailer clients like WebIS Mail.

An example of what problems this can cause: I haven't ever defragmented my LOOXstore (the name for the built-in FS in Fujitsu-Siemens Pocket Loox devices) since I've bought my Pocket Loox 720 (some 14-15 months ago) and, when I started making some explicit tests to see how fast it is, I was really frightened to see it was about 30 (thirty) times slower to write to than after a defragmentation. Indeed it's worth defragmenting the FS in order to gain back the lost speed!

http://forum.xda-developers.com/viewtopic.php?t=40533

http://www.smartphonemag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&title=how_do_i_install_all_my_applications_on

http://web.axelero.hu/miki8125/cf.JPG

http://www.aximsite.com/boards/showthread.php?t=104592