Is PPC software compatible with ALL PPC devices?

[Guest Steve101]

I just bought Route 66 Navigate 7 UK/IRL. The Route 66 box says 'For Pocket PC'. I have a Mitac Mio 168 PPC. I thought, surely this will work? By the looks of it, I was wrong.

I'm just curious if PPC devices differ from each other in any way. My software will not run after it's installed on the PPC. It does install. It just says that some files are missing, and I need to re-install.

I did a hard reset of the PPC device, format the SD card, and installed as per the instructions. I still get an error.

I am waiting for a reply from the Route 66 customer support by email. But in the meantime, I just wanted to know if certain software although it says is compatible with PPC, isn't.

[Guest Pondrew]

Well, having just looked up your Mitac I see it's a Windows Mobile 2003 device. I've checked Route 66 Navigator 7's minimum spec and it does say it should work on Windows Mobile 2003 and above. Can you give us more info on the problem?

What message is displayed?

[Guest Steve101]

I will just explain from the beginning as to what I did.

First thing was a hard reset of the PPC device. Then I wiped the SD card in the card reader attached to my PC. I loaded up the CD with the Navigate 7 software and it then formatted the SD card and proceeded to install the Navigate 7 software onto the newly formatted SD card.

I moved the switch on the back of the PPC where the hard reset is done and turned the PPC on. Did the usual screen calibration and then put the SD card into the slot.

After about 5 seconds the Route 66 logo appeared and the program installed itself in the usual way. About 2 seconds after the progress bar reaches the 100% mark, a new screen appears.

On this new screen, an error message says (more or less) "Some files are missing, please re-install your product"

That's all that happens.

To be honest, on the Route 66 website, there was a list of compatible devices. I pressumed that as most of these have names like, O2, Orange or T-Mobile, it was something to do with the fact that the Navigate 7 software can access a bluetooth phone and dial the phone number of the Point of Interest you are looking at.

I see no real problem with the hardware I have and it should work. I have tried everything I can think of. Still no avail. I have been told elsewhere that the software may be CPU specific?

I did a bit of research and found that one of the compatible PPCs listed on Route 66s website has the same processor as my Mitac Mio 168. Its a 300mhz Xscale.

So im thinking it might not be anything to do with the processor.

Im not really up with the ways of PPCs. So if you could shed any light on this, it would be a great help.

[Guest barry2251]

Hi I also have attempted to install the navigate 7 upgrade on my mio 168, and have had the same message. The response I got from the Route 66 Help desk was to re-install the software.

This I did and got to the same point on the installation.

The second response was to :

"Try to copy the content of all ROUTE 66 CDs in the same folder on your

hard-disk and install the application from there to your SD card." - This did not work either - can anybody help!

[Guest shanedean]

I know this is of no help but, I have been trying to put PPC software on a bSquare Power handheld deice that runs Windows CE 4.1.

I saw one for sale on ebay and it said it had TomTom5 installed!!!

I emailed the seller who told me it was Version 5 and that it worked fine... :?:

But it gets too a similar stage as described above with Route 66 ie. it seems to install...but doesn't

Are the two OSs that dissimilar?!

[Guest Steve101]

In a way I'm sort of glad that my problem isn't soley related to my GPS device. It's obviously a programming error. I did notice that when some programs are installed on a PPC, a file or two seems to disappear. I'd imagine that once the program has installed, there is no need to keep some of the installation files.

I think that either the installation script itself isn't correct and some files are being deleted before they should, or the files are missing off the CD anyway.

Whatever the cause of the problem, I would class this a a BIG bug in the program. Minor bugs will usually get a patch to sort them out when enough people moan about it. But, this is a BIG bug.

I would pressume that the software development team should get this one sorted immediately and not put it on the back burner. If they do, their new product will find itself being returned in the post by the truckload. That, and their software support team will have thousands of emails, complaining that the product people have purchased isnt working.

As this is a new product, there are bound to be bugs. One of this magnitude should not have slipped through the net. I will personally give the company a week to sort out the problem, and then request a refund, unless I am informed a patch will definitely be available within the next 2 weeks or so. I can't be doing with waiting for months on end for a patch that never materialises.

I also had Copilot 5. There was only 1 patch released for this package in a year. Although the product worked, there was still only 1 patch in a full 12 months. I hope I don't get put on the long finger as Navigate 7 doesn't work at all.

Im just keeping my fingers crossed as Navigate 7 adds another 60% of the country to my GPS. Otherwise I will have to wait until Nov/Dec 2006 for Copilot 7 to hit the market.