Expert: Werner "Menneisyys" Ruotsalainen

This problem is caused by the operating system's need to look up icons from executable/resource files of every single application that is (currently) present in the Start menu – both fixed applications (applications that you configure to be always displayed in the upper part of the Start menu) and the list of the recently used ones.

An example Start Menu is as follows:

Click for screenshot

In this menu, Opera Browser and Resco File Explorer/Registry Editor are custom, manually added applications; their icons are always-present.

Please note that there may be automatically added icons in here too; some applications (like the Thunderhawk browser) put their icons here upon installation, without manual interaction.

The icons/names of File Explorer, nPOP, ProfiMail, WebIS Mail (don't ask why I have so many mailer clients on my PDA - I'm just working on a really kick-butt article on everything mailing-related) and ProfiExplorer, on the other hand, are in the recently used list section.

You can eliminate the problem caused by custom applications in the "fixed" (non-temporary/history) section the following way: try to find the "offending" application by just disabling all custom applications present in the Start menu. If displaying the Start menu becomes much faster after disabling a certain application (and resetting the PDA), you will know that you have found the offending one.

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Hard resetting your Pocket PC may be extremely useful at times, especially when you need to find out whether a particular software is causing some problems and/or you want to completely reinstall everything from scratch.

In a nutshell, the way you hard reset your Pocket PC is manufacturer-dependent. As a rule of thumb, you must hard reset a Pocket PC the same way as other models in the same brand are to be hard reset. That is, if you know how to hard reset, for example, your iPAQ 2210, you can also use the same method to hard reset your, say, iPAQ rx3715.

If you need to hard reset a Fujitsu-Siemens or an Asus device, you only need to keep the Power button pressed and, additionally, soft reset your device.

Hard resetting (newer) iPAQ's

On the other hand, with a (non-h31xx/h36xx/h37xx, that is, a post-37xx device) iPAQ Pocket PC (please note that it's much more thorough than the one in the recommended thread below): Press and hold down the bottom right (iTask) and bottom left buttons (Calendar). While keeping all these two buttons pressed, soft reset your device and make sure you keep the reset button pressed for at least 1-2 seconds. With some older iPAQ's with the "traditional" iPAQ form factor (38xx, 39xx, 54xx – these I'm pretty sure of), you may also need to simultaneously press the Power button, along with the two application buttons.

Upon a successful hard reset, the backlight should automatically turn off and the screen should (but is not guaranteed to!) gradually fade. If that's the case, wait some seconds. Release the buttons/reset. Now, wait some seconds more and press the soft reset button again.

If the above doesn't work (the device just restarts as usual after a simple soft reset), repeat everything right from the beginning. Sometimes you'll need to repeat this several times before it works - especially on later models like the iPAQ 2210.

Automatic Cleaning up the File Store

Please note that the above-explained "traditional" way of hard reset doesn't clean up the File Store (if it exists). To also delete the contents of the built-in File Store, on Fujitsu-Siemens devices, you must also press down application button 1 while hard resetting the device.

With Dell Axim devices, there're also ways of cleaning up the Built-In Storage (BIS).

You may also want to read this thread on hard resetting other Pocket PC devices.

This article discusses the problems the process handling engine of the Windows Mobile operating system causes and the cures for that.

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Q: Strangely, there're very similar files in my \Windows directory with names filename.dll and filename.dll1 (or, !filename.dll and filename.dll). Both of these files are referenced by the registry.

A: I don't think any app would use the one with dll1 under normal circumstances. I always check the DLL's installed to \Windows with all the apps and games I review to check their main RAM usage and, if they use RAM, relocatability. I've already checked hundreds if not thousands of apps and have never run into a single one that would use DLL names like DLL1.

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Q: My icons load very-very slow when I go to Start/Programs to start my favourite apps. There're a lot of them, almost everything installed to a storage card, and it sometimes takes a minute to be able to see some of them after I've soft reset my PPC.

A: This problem can indeed be pretty annoying. It is caused by the time needed for resource fetching, which can be pretty large especially in the case of (comparatively) slow memory cards and large EXE/DLL files to traverse. The problem is even made larger by the fact that Windows Mobile needs to re-fetch these icons after a soft reset (when you go to Start menu - incidentally, this is why even displaying Start menu can take so long after a reset if you've run several memory card-based programs before. The Start Menu isn't shown before all the icons are fetched from the card).

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