TomTom3 and GPSDriver V3.x won't coexist with other GPS Apps

[swlawson]

I've been happily using TomTom2 on an IPAQ4150 together with MemoryMap software and a TomTom BT GPS receiver.

When I first started I soon hit the problem with TomTom tieing up the GPS port, and used the trick of deinstalling the 'TomTom ~GPS' program. This seemed to do a partial deinstallation as the driver still appeared in the program list and worked, but it no longer tied up the GPS COM port and allowed other applications to access the GPS receiver when TomTom wasn't running.

I even upgraded to GPS 3.01 still using TomTom2 and the deinstall trick still worked.

However I've now upgraded to TomTom3 and the deinstall no longer seems to work. Initially I upgraded the GPS driver to 3.02 straight away, but on deinstalling it it really did deinstall. It no longer appeared in the program list and TomTom3 hung when started (but it did let MemoryMap access the receiver). I reinstalled GPS 3.02 and tried again but it still deinstalled fully. I then tried GPS 3.01, but this did the same thing. So it seems to be the combination of TomTom3 and the GPS driver that's causing the problem.

Anyone got any ideas ?

Thanks.

[lbendlin]

Sure. Go back to TomTom GPS 2.07 and refrain from upgrading the GPS driver
_________________
Lutz

Report Map Errors here:
TomTom/TeleAtlas NAVTEQ

[swlawson]

Thanks - downgraded to 2.07 and everything now works.

Seems a bit unnatural going back to what sounds like a very old version, but if it 'does the business' then that's the main thing.

Thanks again,
Simon.

[lbendlin]

Welcome to the club "The head scratchers"

When we asked TomTom about why on earth they are doing this they eventually came out with a response that they want to avoid service calls from average users about other BlueTooth hardware interfering with TomTom.

Eventually this is coming down to a fundamental question - does an application vendor assume they own the Pocket PC, or are they accepting their role as a guest, alongside other guests, on the Pocket PC that is owned by the user.

It is similiar to the discussion about install locations. There is absolutely no reason to force installs into main memory, yet many programs like TomTom, Alk Copilot, or SpaceMachine Pocket Map are blatantly ignoring the user's wish to install them to storage card, and are installing to main memory anyway.

And I thought ignorance was something that only exists in Texas...
_________________
Lutz

Report Map Errors here:
TomTom/TeleAtlas NAVTEQ

[Taz]

Any chance of a step by step guide of removing 3.2 and installing 2.7 please? I have both files unzipped on my pc.

Thanks

[lbendlin]

see my answer in the other post. The only thing that is really important is to make sure no programs are running while you try to deinstall them. Since this is difficult to tell unless you use a task manager, you should always do a soft reset in between steps.
_________________
Lutz

Report Map Errors here:
TomTom/TeleAtlas NAVTEQ

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