how about a database for the netbooks

Hi to everybody and greetings from Greece.
I am one of the many i believe that want to get a small cheapish netbook but the "reports" are rather frustrating to say the least.
While almost all the netbooks sold on ebay are based on the same hardware there some small "tweaks" that some are usefull and some are causing a lot of troubles.
I believe that it would help a lot a kind of database for all these netbooks...a simple Excel would be fine....i know some have no labels or anything but i believe the Ebay'seller name is almost the same(probably some of them have bot netbooks by the hundreds and if they are trouble free why risk)
I am afraid i don't know what is needed and what is not so i leave the details to the most experienced.
Hopefully me and a lot of others will choose whats best and also give a positive boost to this market.

Many of the CE6 netbooks will run PlanMaker or SpreadCE or PTabSpreadsheet just fine...those are all Excel clones...

Rich, I believe that masteripper is referring to some sort of comparative reference for these netbooks available on this site. We have something close to that already in the Devices & Specifications section. You can select a device and then other similar devices to compare the specifics. What we need is for people to submit the name and specifications of any Windows CE device they purchase that is not already listed in that section. (If you cannot locate a brand name anywhere on the device, post the specs here and we'll see if they match others already posted and/or discussed in these forums.)

As for comparing where tweaks work and where they don't, we're all learning that here from trial and error. However, when a tweak is discovered and provided to us, it's posted as a CESD tutorial under Support & Tutorials. If you see a tweak there for a device similar to yours, and you find that it works on your device, then notify us which tutorial it is and what other device you've shown it to work on, and we can update the tutorial. (Of course, tweak and test at your own risk. Backing up first and/or having a flashable ROM image - along with knowledge of the reflash procedure - for your device is always recommended beforehand in case you end up having to hard reset or reflash the device.)

What we may want to add, though, is some description of file and database retention after reboot of these CE 5 and 6 netbooks, which do not have a suspend feature and have persistent registries. As we've seen, retention varies from device to device, even within the same OS version.

This is what is thinking about... a list of "good" netbooks and bad "netbooks"...and the "tweaks" i am referring maybe i should call them "minor features" is all these things i have read about permanent registry,suspend and so on.

Persistent registry seems to be a common feature among all CE 5 and 6 devices. I've yet to see any CE 5 or 6 device that didn't have one. What may vary is what changes may be saved during shutdown (and thus return when the device is booted again). For this reason and others, I'd like to see more detailed discussion here about how persistent registry works, by users who are very familiar with the details.

The only CE 5 device I've seen that has a suspend feature is not a netbook, but rather a tablet: the ViewSonic V212. (The WebDT 366, another CE 5 tablet, may have suspend as well, but not having one, I can't confirm this. The user guide doesn't specify, possibly because this device, which has an AMD processor using the x86 architecture, is also capable of running Windows XP Embedded or full Windows XP as well as Windows CE 5.)

As for "good" versus "bad" netbooks, since that's subjective based on each individual's needs, it's best left to discussion in these forums (which we can certainly do regarding CE 6 netbooks in this thread). What can be charted and compared are specific measures like boot time, shutdown time, or video benchmarks (using, eg, TCPMP; this is already charted when made available in each device's specifications here), or built-in features like pre-installed software (already being done in Devices & Specifications) or synchronizability with a PC (via ActiveSync) or other device.

On my CE6 minibook, registry changes stick after a reset (does that mean I do or do not have a persistent registry?). However, changes to the desktop and start menu do not stick after a reset, or rather didn't until I edited the shellfolder registry settings to put those things on the flash drive instead of the default locations.

Mine doesn't have a commanded "suspend" feature but the suspend.exe in RTFM's programs zipfile works... most of the time. Occasionally it locks up the machine, requiring me to power it down. It does, however, automatically go into suspend after a user settable time.

Persistent registry simply means that the registry is held in a .hv file in a \Documents and Settings folder that survives power down or loss of power. Some or all changes to the registry can be saved to this file, which means those changes return after a cold reboot. The changes are normally saved to the .hv file on suspendable devices when those devices are put in suspend mode. How they can be retained on non-suspendable devices is not clear to me.

Sounds like your device is not the same as mine. Mine retains file changes made in RAM. Also, on mine the PHM suspend.exe shuts down the device immediately rather than suspending it. Pressing the power button restarts the device. (BTW, this is also the case on my RazorBook and Konaki Netbook Wonder. Haven't tested it on my eGo yet.)

Interesting, my .hv files are stored in the \Windows directory, but they retain their information. I wonder if the system is selective about what files it restores from ROM after a reset? Oddly, even though I've moved the desktop location via the shellfolders registry settings, the position of icons on the desktop isn't remembered...

-Dana

That's normal. explorer.exe seems to place the icons in alphabetical order by default when it's opened during reboot.

So it would seem... pity it's not like desktop Windows where they stay where you put them even after reboot.

-Dana

replying to CE Geek
Under Devices & Specifications I found
the database section for devices (HPC's, Mini-Netbooks, internet tablets etc.) running WinCE5

1)__can you add in it an entry slot for whether the device has "instant-on" or not?

2)__Could you start/add a new database section for those devices
running WinCE6? that would be very useful to a lot of people!

In the meantime, could users who have or know devices running WinCE6 simply list their specs on this thread, in a clearly discernible way, each device in a separate paragraph? Each listing should include the brand name, full official model#, CPU type and speed, RAM, whether it has instant-on and touchscreen, and a few other specs (Ports, etc.)
That would be greatly appreciated!

Edited by Jacobi 2010-04-16 8:26 AM

Good ideas. We'll see what our esteemed Administrator thinks of them.

RE: NETBOOK DATABASE
and one more tweak... in the database, could the devices list sort-order be reversed, showing he most current WinCE version at top?

While we wait for the official WinCE 6 devices list, I hope readers will contribute their own devices info right into this thread ... many thanks!

The explorer.exe shell in CE 4.1 and earlier remembers the desktop icon positions just fine. For some reason this was (intentionally?) broken starting with the CE 4.2 shell and it hasn't been fixed ever since. I guess you could run the 4.1 explorer but that is probably very unwise on a 6.0 kernel. I'm still not sure if this is a bug or a "feature". Who knows.

What about the H/PC 2000 explorer.exe that Geared2003 packaged a couple of years ago, TFGBD? Could one put it in \Windows renamed as, eg, explore2.exe, and edit HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/init to call the renamed explorer.exe on startup?