Menneisyys

A lot of people have been using Pocket Informant (PI). As its main memory consumption is quite big (2.44 Mbytes – I’m referring to the latest version (PI 2005)), even if you install it to an alternative media (taking up 539k by default), you may find it beneficial to relocate it to alternative storage.

Please note that ctitanic’s PItoMem utility is doing the relocation quite well. If you don’t install the icon pack, you will find it sufficient. It, however, only relocates DLL’s (see bullet 1 below; it leaves PINewJournal.dll intact, however) and doesn’t touch, for example, the registry to relocate the \My Documents log/settings directory entirely. Therefore, you may want to follow my tutorial, particularly if you install the additional packs in the PI distribution setup package. You may also want to use PItoMem to modify the system path and copy (some of) the DLL’s and do the rest by hand; then, just skip the first bullet below.

1, you can safely move the five PINew*.dll’s (7k each), PIResources.dll (406k) and PITools.dll (1142k) to the so-called “System Path”. Please read this thread on what System Path is and how you can extend it. Note that with PI you won’t need to deregister any DLL’s in order to be able to move them because they are not started as always-running services, unlike with the case of Spb Pocket Plus, the app discussed in the linked article.

2, if you don’t want to read the PI help, you can also free up 261k by deleting \Windows\PocketInformant.htm; you may also want to relocate it so that you can still click it later to read. It doesn’t link images, so, you won’t need to hunt for help images.

3, move \My Documents\WebIS (it contains 372 files (totalling 270k), which isn’t particularly healthy on WindowsCE, speed-wise) to a storage card. This will require two modifications in the Registry. You’ll need to modify both

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\WebIS\PocketInformant\I conPath

(this stores the icons you can choose in, say, Tools/Attach Icon)

and

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\WebIS\PocketInformant\W ebIS_Folder

to point to the new location. Just insert the name of your card/file store name before \My Documents in these values.

After these modifications, both the log/settings files PI creates (ExitLog.txt etc) will be created at the new position and the contents of other directories will be found – for example, those of \ColorSchemes (see the PI icon/Color Schemes menu).

If you need some screenshots on the registry modification, feel free to click these screenshots (not directly included because most of you will already know what to change):

1, 2, 3, 4.

You may also want to read this thread for my quick comparison of the registry editors on the PPC, if you’re unsure about which registry editor to use.

4, if you want to move the 99k \Windows\PITab.exe to the new location, you will also need to modify the link targets in all of the link files in \Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Informant Utils\ link files; all of them, except for Create Alarm Note.lnk.

For example, PICalendar.lnk contains the following initially:

47#"\Windows\PITab.exe" 11?\Windows\PITab.exe,-111

in this, you need to change \Windows to the new path; for example,

99#"\LOOXStore\PI\PITab.exe" 11?\LOOXStore\PI\PITab.exe,-111

(note the new 99 at the beginning; you may want to raise it even to 255 to avoid partly passed parameters, just to be on the safe side.)

If you also want to relocate the 14k \Windows\PIAlarmNoteCreate.exe, edit Create Alarm Note.lnk too to point to the new location.

5, to relocate the 30k-long PISettings.dat (it’s invoked by clicking the PI icon and choosing Settings), you’ll need to hexedit PIControlPanel.dll; the name is stored from position 0xd8ca.

Before:



After:



Please read this thread on using hex editors and for naming tips (you’ll shorten the original name, PISettings.dat; in the example, I’ve renamed it to stngs.dat. It can even have a 1-letter-long name and/or doesn’t even need to be located in a subdirectory (here, PI in the root of my \LOOXStore).

6, you may also want to relocate the .unload file(s) and \Windows\AppMgr\WebIS Pocket Informant 2005.DLL. You may also want to read this thread for more information on this subject.

Congratulations! You’ve freed up 2.44 Mbytes! :D

__________________
MS MVP- Mobile Devices.

Frenchy

Thanks for sharing this, I will give it a try.

Menneisyys

Some important additions:

- I’ve tested this on the latest, 2.1 version of PI2005.

- the relocations/deletions above are completely independent of each other. You may, for example, opt for not relocating \Windows\PITab.exe (bullet 4) or \Windows\PISettings.dat because of the hurdles (regstry/link file editing and hexediting, respectively) involved. Then, you “only” lose 130-140 kbytes.

- MemMaid, probably the best all-in-one memory relocation/cleaning utility, is also able to move most of the DLL’s. However, it doesn’t relocate PINewJournal.dll either, just is the case with ctitanic’s PItoMem. Seemingly, these two applications have been written for a previous version where still there wasn’t PINewJournal.dll. (I couldn’t find any other reason for this because relocating it didn’t result in any misfunction.)

- If you relocate the 99k \Windows\PITab.exe to the new location, you’ll also need to modify the following three registry values:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shell\Rai\:M SCALENDAR\1]

(default value \Windows\PITab.exe 11),

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shell\Rai\:M SCONTACTS\1]

(\Windows\PITab.exe 9) and

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shell\Rai\:M STASKS\1]

(\Windows\PITab.exe 8)

so that both the Today plug-in links and the pre-defined Calendar/Tasks/Contacts link in the Start menu will also live.

__________________
MS MVP- Mobile Devices.

axim_wannabe

wow!!!

and i was actually going to post a question in regards to the other PI files still in main memory (orders of 500KB)

cheers!!!