MobilePro 900c and Laridian PocketBible

Hey there everybody - I've recently acquired a 900c and I've honestly been kind-of frustrated with it! It seems that anything I try to install gets refused by the ActiveSync installer! Basically "this installer doesn't recognize the currently connected device..." blah, blah, blah...

I would really like to be able to install Laridian Pocket Bible (along with other things), but of course, the installer won't work.

I've heard of other people being able to run Laridian on the 900c by copying several older dll's to the device and by importing a registry file...well...I've done all that and I still can't install Laridian Pocket Bible!

My guess is that I'm supposed to copy something over to the device manually and not use the Laridian installer...but I haven't seen that info anywhere online.

So...long story short...can anyone help me get Pocket Bible installed?

BTW - I'm trying to use v3.039...but I have access to versions of PB all the way back to v1.019.

Thanks tons!

Aaron

If you really want to install it manually, it is pretty easy. First download the PocketBible Demo for HPC 2000 from the Laridian website and run it on your desktop. It will then extract the cab files to a temporary folder on your hard drive. The two cab files you want are the 300HD_ARM.CAB file and the bible cab file of your choice. If you use the demo file provided with the demo, the cab file is named KJV NT.CAB. They are normally copied to the c:\DOCUMENTS AND SETTINGS\YOURCOMPUTERNAME\LOCAL SETTINGS\TEMP folder.

Anyway, find those two files (might be easier to just search for them using the Windows search program and then drag them to your 900C. Tap on them to install them after copying them over. If you installed the other drivers needed to run Laridian, such as the htmlview.dll and the webview.dll and did the registry import, then you should be up and running fine.

I'm thinking that maybe you downloaded the wrong version because the HPC 2000 version installs fine without errors.

Rich

Rich,

Thanks for your quick reply. You may be right...I have what I think is the Pocket PC version and not the version for HPC 2000.

I will try to find the HPC 2000 version and install it the way you mentioned.

***Note - I just looked on Laridian's web site and the only demo they have available is for Pocket PC. So...any idea on where I can find the one for HPC 2k? ***

Right now, it seems that all the .cab files that I copy over to my device are not accessible! I get an error message "Cannot find 'file name' (or one of its components). Make sure the path and filename are correct and that all the required libraries are available."

Aaron


Edited by arog73 2007-03-20 3:14 PM

You'll get that when you install Pocket PC software on an H/PC. It may still work with a DLL file or two added - in particular, aygshell.dll. Download Executability Check from cmonex' site, unzip the downloaded ZIP file on your PC, and copy the .exe file from it onto your H/PC. Then use it to check the PocketBible application file. It should tell you what you need. (We can guide you further at that point.)

Rich, if you have a link to the trial of the H/PC version, maybe you could post it here.

Edited by CE Geek 2007-03-20 3:25 PM

I will try the Executability Check program. Thanks!

Aaron

Ok...so I found the Executability Check program and I copied it to my device.

The problem is...I can't run it against a .cab file! Is there any way to extract the Pocket Bible executable from the .cab file? I have the PocketBiblePktPC.ARM.CAB in my device's My Documents folder, but since I can't launch it due to the aforementioned error messages, I can't extract anything out of it!

I would imagine that there are tools out there to extract and explode the contents of a .cab...right?

Either that...or perhaps someone could just email me the PocketBible executable?

Aaron

Actually, you can use MSCEInf to extract the individual files from a cab file. You can find it here: http://www.freewareppc.com/utilities/msceinf.shtml or even better yet, if you've never used it, download Win CE Cab Manager from OCP found here: http://ocpsoftware.com/download.php

There is no demo for the HPC version, but it works great, and here is a great review on it: http://www.hpcfactor.com/reviews/software/laridian/pocketbible-2-021/

Rich

From the "Can't find . . ." error message you mentioned above, arog73, it looked like you already installed the program by tapping on the CAB file. Have you gotten that far, or am I misunderstanding?

Rich – I noticed that Pocket Bible isn’t listed in your 900c compatible software list….is this just an over site?

As per my personal experience, I've been able to load Pocket Bible (the HPC version) on my 900c, but it is incomplete because the FILE menu is missing from the Tool Bar!

See

http://www.hpcfactor.com/forums/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=8041&start=1

Yep, oversite...need to download it and try it again and take a few screenshots.

Rich

The MSCEInf program worked great. I was able to extract the contents of the cab file and copy those contents to the 900c.

I then was able to run Executable Check against the PB application. The output of Executable Check is below:

\Program Files\Laridian\PocketBible\mfcce300.dll doesn't export a function ordinary 2761
\Program Files\Laridian\PocketBible\mfcce300.dll doesn't export a function ordinary 2755
\Program Files\Laridian\PocketBible\mfcce300.dll doesn't export a function ordinary 2765
\Program Files\Laridian\PocketBible\mfcce300.dll doesn't export a function "?messageMap@CCeCommandBar@@1UAFX_MSGMAP@@B"
\Program Files\Laridian\PocketBible\mfcce300.dll doesn't export a function ordinary 2785
\Program Files\Laridian\PocketBible\mfcce300.dll doesn't export a function ordinary 2731

you need the ppc version of mfcce300, get it from my site (ppc mfc redist). also put in a doclist.dll with mfcce as that's its dependency.

Well...I sure appreciate everyone's help...thank you!

But...I think I am going to give up! Nothing is working...although, I think if I was trying the HPC 2000 version instead of the PPC version of PocketBible on my 900c I may have better luck. Unfortunately, the HPC 2000 of PB seems to no longer be available. Oh well...not a big deal.

I'm a really big fan of the Mobilepro. I always have been. I've owned a 770, currently own a 780, have owned an 880 (and loved it), and also currently own a 900c.

My thought was that the 900c would really kick 'A'. So far, it has been more frustrating than anything because of the lack of application support.

For all of you out there that have figured out how to run various programs on your 900/900c's...more power to you...you seem to be smarter than me. I wish there was an "authoratative resource" or ONE PLACE TO GO for this type of information...but there really isn't!

The people on these forums are really smart and really helpful...but forums are exactly that...a forum...not a single point of reference.

Have any of you thought about writing a book about this issue? I mean...a once and for all guide to how to use the Mobilepro 900/900c. NEC certainly didn't do it. Is there a big enough market for it? Perhaps not in wide distribution, but certainly there is a potential "digital" or "online" market audience...like me for instance.

Or...maybe there is such a reference somewhere and I just need to be told about it. I don't know. Heck, this whole thing was sure much easier back in the CE 3.0 days with H/PC Pro's. I mean apps were specifically written for that platform!

Ok...I'm rambling now...I'll stop...!

Anyone have something to add or any nasty rebukes for me?

Aaron

Cmonex...thank you for your advice! I tried exactly what you recommended and was still not able to run the app. The error message was that PocketBible is not a valid Windows CE application.

I know everyone here has lives...I don't expect you Cmonex (or anyone else for that matter...) to stop everything until my little problem is solved!

So...if ya'll are stumped...so am I...and I can call it quits and maybe just go back to my trusty old Mobilepro 780 and forget about trying to make the 900c run the stuff I want to run!

Aaron

Uh, Rich, maybe you have a suggestion?