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Issues With Default Configuration of WinCE On VXA3000

andrewnprice Page Icon Posted 2009-01-06 9:08 AM
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I am new to these forums, and for that matter the wince/plenio scene, but after spending several hours tinkering with my parent's vxa3000 I think I have discovered the root issue to all of our gps related issues. As I am not as familiar with the inner workings of wince I have not been able to devise a solution as of yet, but I thought I would pass the information a long so that the community can address the problem together. I did read through the forums heavily prior to making this post and I am fairly certain that this issues has not been noted before, however if this is not the case do please forgive my ignorance.

Root Issue: Despite the fact that the VXA series of gps' all run on fairly similar ARM hardware the version of wince that comes preinstalled on them is configured for a R4000/Mips system. This includes all executables and every single DLL that comes installed on the device.

Who Is Affected: Confirmed VXA 3000, 4300, 5000: 2100 Highly probable but I am unable to say for certain at this time

Supporting Arguments: I was trying to fix the issues with TTS in OCN8, and really I wanted to get the 8.3.2 release of IGO8 working on the device. I kept having issues with the system so I decided to dump the bin files to analyze the issue with dependency walker. Soon after dumping the files it became readily apparent that the sparadic performance of the VXA3000 with other GPS software was the fault of the coredll, ole32, and oleauto32 dlls being in the wrong mode. I found replacement DLLs and was considering creating a new rom file when I realized that by replacing those files I had degraded the compatability of included system executables. After discovering this fact I extracted the bin files for the 4300 and 5000 to see if I could use some of their files in my testing only to find they were simiarly configured. As I do not have access to a 2100 bin file I cannot verify this to be the case on that device, but I assume that this configuration is standard across the product line.

Additional Info: For anyone looking to verify this or interested in dumping the bin file for other purposes there is a trick to it that I had to figure out. There are a number of garbage hex characters at the start of each file that causes viewbin to encounter an error. Before viewbin can work properly you have to load up the bin file in a hex editor, like notepad++, and remove everything up to the word Baffo. Save the file and now you can viewbin, cvrtbin, and dumprom as usual.

Possible Reasoning: This could possibly be Plenio's version of antipiracy. They lock you into their applications by making the system as a whole more difficult to make changes to. This would also explain the garbage at the front of the hex files, although in reality it may be some sort of issues with the system hardware itself, and they just use that as a method of locking bin files.

Possible Solutions: (These were just ideas that I have been tracking down while trying to find a resolution.)



A) Convert The Whole System Over To ARM

CON: could be difficult and time consuming. (I know it is just a hex switch for DLLs, but I worry about the overall system stability and possibly creating 7" widescreen bricks; but again I am not a wince guy, so I have no real clue how difficult a process that would be.)

CON: there could be some sort of underlying reasoning that we do not understand for the device running in R4000 mode.

CON: would users to load a unauthorized rom image on their device. This could be a possible liability down the road.

PRO: once fixed it would make the vxa platform much simpler to work with.

PRO: It would not require users to modify each program individually or to play roulette with version numbers.



B) Configure Individual Applications To Use Different DLLS

CON: requires each new program to be adjusted for the VXA series of devices.

CON: DLLs are hard to get access to without flashing the rom.

PRO: would not affect the system globally (assuming nobody goes crazy)

PRO: would not affect the functionality of other programs

PRO: less complicated to implement

CON: I have no clue how to accomplish this.

CON: the lack of a keyboard is driving me nuts


There are probably a few other options that I did not come up with, but this will at least open up a dialogue on the subject and get the ball rolling towards a solution. (I would write more but I am exhausted and going to bed.) If you have any specific questions regarding my overall methodology, procedures, or experiences feel free to ask whatever.

I feel I should once again state for the record that I may be totally speaking out of my depth on this subject, and so I trust the few of you that seem to know more than I do to be able to provide some sage advice on the matter. (I.E. don't flame me if I am missing the boat on some well known idiotic detail.)

Sincerely,

Andrew N. Price
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shpitz461 Page Icon Posted 2010-07-10 5:38 AM
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Hi Andrew, have you made any breakthrough?
My VXA-3000 is picking up dust right now since it's useless, can't even get exec-check or any other basic util to work on it
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Alt Bass Page Icon Posted 2010-07-10 11:01 AM
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Quote
andrewnprice - 2009-01-06 12:08 PM
wince that comes preinstalled on them is configured for a R4000/Mips system. This includes all executables and every single DLL that comes installed on the device.

Tell me please, how did you figure that out? How can OS boot and work at all, if it's libraries and executables are compiled for R4000?
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technogeist2k9 Page Icon Posted 2010-07-10 1:39 PM
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The quickest route would be to recompile from source. Using Platform Builder (shared source), but that's only half the problem. You would also need source code for the GPS hardware drivers.
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