I often receive questions (example here) about the possibilities of installing the same application on more than one memory card to be used on the same computer. An example: you’d like to use, say, the excellent Resco Picture Viewer to review all your shots on your (several) memory cards you use in your digital camera but you wouldn’t like to install it in the main storage of your PDA to save memory (or to avoid for example filesys.exe compactions). You can safely install, in this case, Resco Picture Viewer on all your memory cards also used by your digicam. Whenever you insert any memory card that also has the viewer installed on it, you’ll be able to start it right from there.

This was only one, pretty trivial example of the usability of this trick.

In general, you can absolutely safely install your apps to any number of memory cards (assuming they have the same in-PDA name like "SD Card" or "Storage Card" - that is, you can't interchange CF and SD cards because they have different path names.)

To do this, you have two choices:

UPDATE (06/06/2006): In the meantime, .NET Compact Framework Version 2.0 SP1 Beta has been released. It supports installation to storage cards; the main storage usage, then, remains at about 1M.

The standard installer is available at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=6548dd53-a418-42d9-a481-19ba3ceca1a6&displaylang=en . I've made the individual CAB files (so that you don't need to download he entire installation package) available at http://www.winmobiletech.com/sekalaiset/CF2SP1/ .

You should prefer using it to the standard, "old" CF2 so that you can avoid the laborous relocation.

For historical reasons, I still keep the original article, which is as follows:

One of the biggest complaints with Microsoft's Compact Framework 2 (CF2 for short) (and, consequently, with programs relying on it - Hitchhiker, SMS Notifier, Webby, IBE Mail etc.) has always been its storage needs, which, by default, is some 5.4 Mbytes. See for example this thread for users' opinions on the memory consumption on CF2 and their subsequent not wanting to install it.

I've always tried to reduce the main memory load on Pocket PC - with great success. Just search for the word-start "relocat" in the Pocket PC Magazine Expert Blog and on my old homepage for some examples of them. No wonder I've also decided to look into this, so far, unsolved problem to greatly help my fellow Pocket PC users. And, after a day's work and testing, I can present you a 100% working solution, which has been thoroughly tested on four of my WM2003+ PDA's, all with success. This IS a big thing, considering that internal memory is still precious, even with most Windows Mobile 5 (WM5) Pocket PC's. (For example, most WM5 PPC's are shipped with 128M of ROM, of which in general 40-45 Mbytes is free.) The situation is even worse with pre-WM5 Pocket PC's, where the available RAM is very rarely (only with devices shipped with 128 Mbytes of RAM) over 50 Mbytes, from which CF2 takes away 5.4 Mbytes.

Note that this will work on all Pocket PC and Pocket PC Phone Edition devices that are able to run CF2 (that is, all WM2003+ devices, including WM5).

http://smartphonemag.com/blogs/menneisyys/112005SoundRecorderApps.asp

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

http://smartphonemag.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=19017

http://discussion.brighthand.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=120938

The Pocket Streets 2005 (PS) docs states the following:

Installing Pocket Streets on a PC Card Is Not Supported
Installing Pocket Streets for Pocket PC on a PC card is not supported. You must run Pocket Streets from a folder on your mobile device. However, you can store maps on a PC card in the My Documents folder. Panning and zooming operations may be slower with maps stored on a PC card than with maps stored on your device.

This may make many people think "hey! I can't install the app on a memory card?"? Do I have to waste 450k precious RAM? That's not the case.

Upon trying to find an answer to the question here, I've run into Ipaqman - v1.0, a nice freeware game compatible with all my latest Pocket PC's (iPAQ 3660, iPAQ 2210 and Pocket Loox 720). (Make sure you use the stylus to move and not the D-Pad! Also, I haven't tried to make the multiplayer option work.