potter
Member
Registered: Feb 2000
Location: SW Virginia
Posts: 290 |
quote:
Originally posted by VoxDei:
I know that it's wise to clean house on a harddrive every year or two by formatting and reinstalling the OS and data. Does the same hold true for a Visor? I've used my extensively for about five months and have installed/uninstalled apps countless times. I've noticed things running a bit sluggish and wondered whether a hard reset and reinstall might help.
I don't think this will make a big difference. The reason the format and reinstall helps on desktops is two fold: things being left behind and space fragmentation.
Space fragmentation on PalmOS 3.x is not a problem for it has a good memory heap manager which will relocate things as needed. Earlier versions did have problems with this though.
Now for things being left behind: This can be a space problem (though typically minor), in general would not impact performance. All PalmOS programs have a unique CreatorID. All files and preferences made by the program are supposed to be flagged with this CreatorID. When one deletes a program, all files and preferences with that CreatorID are also delete.
Some programs will make files with difference CreatorIDs. Some of them, I don't know why the do this. Others it is so they will be compatible with some other program (example DOC readers). When this happens, one will see the other files in the delete list. So you can see them and delete them.
Then there are the preferences. They are stored in two separate database, called "Saved Preferences" and "Unsaved Preferences". You may see the Saved_Preference.prc file in your backup directory and the Unsaved_Preference.prc if us use something like BackUp Buddy to backup everything. I've seen some programs use different CreatorIDs by mistake (example: QwkL instead of Qwkl) and some as a means of enforcing shareware usage limitations. In general, stuff left behind in these files will be quite small, and could not be effecting performance. I have seen some utilities that can be used to browse these files to help identify orphaned preferences. One note: Backing up everything, hard reset and then restore, using backup buddy or the backup module will not take care of the waist in these files since they will simply restore all the records stored within. One could restore all except these file, you would then have to go through and set all your preferences again in all your apps.
The most common culprit for sluggishness I've seen on PalmOS devices has been Hacks or other programs that hook into the operating system. To test if this is the case: If you are running Hackmaster (or the other Hack manager, which I can't think of its name at the moment. Eve something or other) disable all the Hacks and see if that makes a difference. To disable all programs that hook the PalmOS, reset your Palm while holding the up arrow key. Normally all apps get an event after a normal reset. Apps that want to hook the OS will use that event as an opportunity to re-hook themselves in. By holding the up arrow key down, you prevent the apps from seeing the event. (Note: this also means OS patches will not be installed (e.g. v.3.1.1)) Hackmaster will also not reinstall the hacks, though its status screen will seam as if they are. Anyways, if performance is better then you know that this is the cause. Do normal reset to get things back to the way they should be. Finding which Hack isn't too bad, but if it�s an App, it may take some time.
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05-18-2000 03:51 PM
). If you're going to go this route, just be sure you have a full backup of the apps and data you want re-installed. This whole process is made easier with programs like BackupBuddy.
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