Woot’s Evesham Nav-Cam 7700 GPS review
A few days ago, I wooted a GPS Navigation system. Living in Texas means, unfortunately, that I have to pay taxes on my woots, since they’re based in Texas, too. But it has its advantages! It looks like I was among the first to receive my unit, and I started playing around with it this morning.
First impression is that it feels a bit cheap. I’ve had the opportunity to use a TomTom One, which is a very similar unit, and the TomTom unit just feels better built, more solid. After taking the Evesham unit for a test drive, I’ve discovered that it has other shortcomings… Read more for my short review, and instructions for TomTom installation.
The very first route I attempted to calculate (after achieving a GPS fix) was from San Antonio, TX to Spiro, OK. After thinking about it a few minutes, it gave me a non-specific error, something like “Unable to calculate route.” Gee, thanks! I also had some errors that said my start point was invalid, that froze the unit occassionally.
Next, I tried navigating to a street not too far away, which worked flawlessly. I intentionally missed my turn, and it automatically recalculated a new route for me. The points of interest database seems pretty good. It knew about grocery stores and movie theatres nearby, but that’s as far as I got.
The unit does NOT show your speed while traveling, nor did I notice an option for an ETA (estimated time of arrival), both of which can be done with TomTom software. [EDIT-those options are there, but it's nowhere near as intuitive or legible as TomTom] I had already made up my mind to try to install TomTom, if possible, and the deficiencies in the included navigation software only strengthened my resolve.
A quick Google search later, I found this page, which shows that someone was able to do it, and gives a bit of information about how to access Windows on this device. I used that information, and did some simple hacking to get TomTom installed.
I’ve moved the instructions to separate pages.
Click the following for:
- instructions for booting Windows
- installing TomTom
- Frequently Asked Questions (and answers).
- tweaks, including a replacement menu
- Donate (if you’re so inclined)
Please feel free to continue discussing/adding comments here.
May 9th, 2007 at 7:40 pm
Got mine today too. I am in SA as well… Maybe they were on the same truck.
Just a FYI it CAN show speed, direction of travel, time to destination etc. With your map up touch the bottom blue area. From there you can pick items to be displayed on the bottom such as speed and several other items.
Good luck!!
May 9th, 2007 at 9:51 pm
Andrew, thanks for the tip! I’ve updated the article to reflect that information.
May 10th, 2007 at 4:33 am
Excellent work! Is the TomTom software something that’s available as a free download?
May 10th, 2007 at 6:34 am
Thanks for the guide. Mine should be here soon. How is the Tom Tom funcionality? Does it find sats fast, and is it pretty stable? In other words, is installing Tom Tom an upgrade over the original software, or is it just the coolness factor of hacking the GPS? Any idea if the Tom Tom maps can be updated?
Sorry for so many questions. I am pretty interested in this myself. I’m not too worried about frying the GPS, I just want to make sure the upgrade is worth the effort.
Thanks again!
Chris
May 10th, 2007 at 10:22 am
@Greg: No, it’s a commercial product, available at TomTom’s website. Certainly you could find it online as a “free” download, but that would not be legal, and I wouldn’t endorse it. Further, any posts discussing where to find the software will be deleted.
@Chris: Functionality is great, it achieves a satellite fix about as quickly as the original software, and runs stable. And yes, the maps can be upgraded! I would *absolutely* consider it an upgrade from the original software!
May 10th, 2007 at 11:07 am
Randy…This is AcidSun from woot. I thought it would be easier to discuss things here. It looks like you got things working rather well from the SD card. It is nice to see that you have made things a bit easier for the rest of us. I still am not expected to receive mine until sat.
Did you use Windows Mobile emulator to install to the SD card? You had mentioned you ran into some troubles in this step…would you mind elaborating further?
May 10th, 2007 at 12:11 pm
Randy, this tutorial is amazing! My GPS from Woot is coming on Saturday and reading your steps makes me wish I had it already. I see you updated the tutorial indicating TomTom has updated maps that you downloaded. How do you go about getting these for free? I checked their website and it seems to ask for product information that I’m not sure about. Would it be possible for you to post a direct URL with the information you put in? Thanks!
May 10th, 2007 at 2:01 pm
looking at the TomTom site, which version of the software is used for the 7700? Is it a windows CE version?
May 10th, 2007 at 2:48 pm
Can you keep this up for a couple of weeks. Won’t be able to use it for a while thanks.
May 10th, 2007 at 9:57 pm
@ Brian: I’ve put a little more information in my write-up about the installation. I tried using the Windows Mobile emulator without success. It seems to be running a different version of Windows, and once I got TomTom installed on it, I couldn’t figure out how to get it onto a memory card. If anyone has any better luck, and can write it up, I’d be happy to post it here.
@ Aaron: It looks like the new maps are already integrated into the software that they’re currently selling. My version was a bit older, and I didn’t realize the new maps had been released. Once you’ve purchased the software, you’ll get a product code that you can use to download the updated version… But then again, if you purchase the software now, it ought to just come with the new map anyway. These maps can be found online illegally, but I’m not going to link to such places, and don’t suggest/endorse doing such a thing.
@ Greg: It would be the PDA edition of the software, but realize that it’s not officially supported. Your Nav-Cam 7700 is capable of running it, but if you run into trouble trying to install it, you won’t get any assistance from TomTom.
@ Ryan: Don’t worry, this site isn’t going anywhere any time soon.
May 11th, 2007 at 12:31 am
How did you get the keyboard to pop up?
and the taskbar as well, I can’t get that working!
May 11th, 2007 at 1:49 am
I’ve gotten the registry editor running but I can’t seem to get the soft keyboard to show up.
If the dialog box is open clicking anywhere gives me an error tone and clicking in the lower right when the edit dialog is closed just makes a click sound and no keyboard. Also now that I look at it, in the first screenshot it shows a start button and when I run the registry editor there is no start button at the bottom of the screen.
Anyone run into this problem?
May 11th, 2007 at 2:31 am
NM
I just made a .reg file with the following in it
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\init\]
“Launch55″=”explorer.exe”
moved that .reg file to the same folder as the registry editor etc.
imported it
rebooted
and now it works. YAY
May 11th, 2007 at 5:11 am
Does your version of Tom Tom speak streets better than the original? Can you make it louder? I can barely hear the woman with my radio on.
May 11th, 2007 at 6:36 am
Chris and Domo – I’m VERY sorry! I wrote this instructions up after I had already done it myself. I had created the .reg file on my PC, and imported it in the regedit program, but when I wrote the instructions, it seemed easier to just use the on-screen keyboard. I completely forgot that it wasn’t available at the time. Fixing the the instructions now…
May 11th, 2007 at 11:21 am
How would one go about restoring the registry to factory settings (if they, perhaps, failed to back it up prior to editing it….perhaps….for a friend…)?
May 11th, 2007 at 11:29 am
Steve-
I’ve made a backup of the factory settings for the init settings of the registry. I’ll link to it from the tutorial. (It’s the factory.reg file inside the navcam7700.zip file)
Good luck!
May 11th, 2007 at 12:07 pm
randy: Awesome, thanks. Since the factory “myflashdisk” and “mystorage” folders are on the cd, if one was wanting to use the tomtom software, could you just remove the nav-cam maps, files, etc. and use soley the internal memory for tomtom?
May 11th, 2007 at 12:13 pm
Yeah, I believe that would work, but I’m not sure it’s a great idea, if you think you might want to go back to the factory software. Folks on message boards that have restored the factory software from the CD have found that afterwards, it freezes when you try to enter a zip code.
I’d make my own backup CD, personally.
If you end up doing it, let me know, and I’ll add it to the knowledge base.
May 11th, 2007 at 1:14 pm
Randy, I know you used a SD card, but can this be done(adding tomtom) using the usb and internal memory? Or is the SD route the way to go?
May 11th, 2007 at 1:54 pm
“I’m VERY sorry! I wrote this instructions up after I had already done it myself.”
I kind of guessed that might have been what happened. But still, the tutorial was really helpful starting point for getting into windows and installing tomtom (still working on that part). And boy does this thing ever need it… the default maps etc that come on it are totally out of date for my area (missing roads, old road names, etc.) The nav-cam site for the 7700 north america seems to only have downloads for the instruction manuals… no map or software updates.
May 11th, 2007 at 1:54 pm
Randy,
What is the size of the tom tom app you are using and what size sd card is necessary? I know you are using a 2 gig sd card, but I already had a 1 gig and wondered if that was big enough.
May 11th, 2007 at 2:14 pm
To those asking about memory size, and installation location, I’m about to update the article with that information.
May 11th, 2007 at 2:17 pm
how did you install the tomtom .cab files without using the emulator?
May 11th, 2007 at 2:39 pm
Brian, it was trial and error. I think it ended up working when I copied the .cab file onto the SD card, and then ran it from Windows Explorer on the unit.
May 11th, 2007 at 2:55 pm
You don’t need to create a shortcut to the Navigator program on the desktop. It’s already there. Gate5_Nand is the shortcut.
LiteonAP is the screen with the MP3 and Photo viewer, but once you start that you can’t exit back to the desktop. You have to do a soft reset.
Must say, GOOD WORK on this. It definitely makes this a WAY more FUN device!!
May 11th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
So has anyone found a WinCE media player that works on this?
May 11th, 2007 at 3:13 pm
Actually after starting the LiteonAP you can exit back to the desktop, if you left regedit named navigator then clicking on navigator will bring you to regedit, which can be closed to leave you at the desktop (with the sound button working at the same time… at least in windows, haven’t installed tomtom yet)
Cab files are installers for mobile devices, usually double clicking a cab file will install it, so I would assume to install tomtom you just double click the cab file to install it from wherever…
May 11th, 2007 at 3:15 pm
Tom you can get back to the desktop, if you left regedit named navigator, clicking navigator will take you to regedit, which can be minimized or closed to get back to the desktop. Or you could copy explorer to the flashdisk directory and rename it probably too…
BTW I don’t have tomtom installed yet, but the volume switch does work in windows ce if you run the liteonap then click navigator to get back to windows…
.cab files are installers in the windows mobile world so usually installing is just a double click of a .cab file.
May 11th, 2007 at 3:16 pm
Sorry for the dupe post… it didn’t show up after multiple refreshes so i posted again and voila it showed up twice >:(
May 11th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
I’m trying to get the device to boot directly into TomTom. I don’t care about MP3 or Photos. I can change the registry value to call TomTom instead of Welcome.exe, but welcome.exe not only initializes the volume button, but also the sound in general. If I don’t run welcome.exe, there is no sound.
Currently, I installed TomTom into MyFlashDisk/MobileNavigator and renamed the TomTom executable to MobileNavigator.exe. It fires up TomTom fine, but if you quit TomTom, you cannot restart without a soft reset.
Just wanted to add my attempts into the ring.
May 11th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
TCMP seems to work. I couldn’t download it from the main site, but this link worked: http://picard.exceed.hu/tcpmp/test/
I installed it and quickly tested it, and it played my test mp3 and video.
May 11th, 2007 at 3:32 pm
A couple more notes: Tom Tom 6 old maps are 1.4 gig (North America). Newer maps are 890 meg (US and Canada). As long as you get the new maps (if you buy it now, it should come with new maps) it will fit on a 1 gig card.
Second, I had Tom Tom installed on my Windows mobile phone and all I did was copy the \Program Files\Navigator folder to the MyFlashDisk\Mobilenavigator directory. There was not enough room for all of the voices. No big deal.
May 11th, 2007 at 3:35 pm
@randy, I tried it, but when I try to run TCPMP it just showed an hour glass forever… I will try again
May 11th, 2007 at 3:40 pm
Reinstalled and it worked a charm this time… who knows
I love TCPMP, been using it on my axim for a while and it’s great!
May 11th, 2007 at 4:46 pm
I’m interested in what version of Tom Tom 6 you installed, and where did you get it….. I have a version of Tom Tom 6, but I believe it’s already been installed (and should be run from an sd card), and I have found us and canada maps, but I have no idea what to do with it, where to place them or how to install them.
May 11th, 2007 at 5:52 pm
excellent Job Randyoo!
I’ve deleted the original navifgator files from the “My Storage” folder, copied the TomTom files there from the “MyFlashdisk” folder, created a shortcut and placed the shortcut on the desktop (look for “desktop folder” within the “windows” folder. I saw there was a “startup” folder weithin the “windows” folder and when I copied the shortcut there, it launches when the unit starts up! you still have the option to exit from within TomTom if you need to access the desktop.
After removing the original evesham software and replacing it with TomTom (including extra voices) there’s over 900Mb free in “Mystorage” so I’m copying the “USA and Canada” map folder into there. I hope to be able to dispense with needing the SD card for the maps. hopefully I can squeeze a few other programs on, just for fun. Does anyone know of a few good freeware or shareware games that will run under this OS?
May 11th, 2007 at 6:38 pm
ALRIGHT, finally!
I got Tom Tom 6 and the USA Canada maps working!
I ended up having to get various parts all over the place to get it to work.
now the only problem i have now is finding an easy way to hide the startbar when i run the Tom Tom software!
Any tips?
May 11th, 2007 at 7:53 pm
Chris, “Autohide” under Start, Settings, Taskbar and Start Menu works for me. Updating the article to reflect it…
May 11th, 2007 at 8:10 pm
Chris, or anyone that can help… what is the extension of the file that you have to install from inside the nav-cam operating system? Im not quite familiar with windows ce (I am guessing that’s what is installed). Thanks.
May 11th, 2007 at 8:51 pm
KB44, where did you get your file package?
I can probably help you from there.
email me for more help,
cdf12345
@ Gmail
.com
May 11th, 2007 at 9:33 pm
Great info everyone. Was there a final verdict on getting the sound initialized? I don’t have any sound in TomTom, other than that I seem to be working fine, just need to drive around and test it!
May 11th, 2007 at 9:54 pm
Ok, got tomtom running, but I have no maps loaded. Where do the map files need to be saved to?
thanks for the help!
Kelly
May 12th, 2007 at 1:18 am
What a work Randy~! Thank you. I just got mine this morning and tried it, however, mine seemed to have a problem with the software; all icons did not show up when I ran the navigator. I tried several more time, but it did not work. So I erased all the files from “myflash” folder and “mystorage” folder, and restored the files from the installation CD. However, Another problem came up in which I could copy one of the map, QUÉBEC-2, from the map folder; in fact, there are four files for the map, and all didnt copy. It has been about six hours that I have been trying to get it worked (most of the time was spent copying files from the CD to the device). I think the CD is defect.
Can anyone please send me fresh copy of QUÉBEC-2 map, not from the CD to my email (drumlist@gmail.com). if you could add the navigator app., it would be so perfect(I am worried about the issue on putting “zipcode”). (I checked the size of the file and that was about 10MB).
Thank you.
May 12th, 2007 at 9:58 am
Regarding sound – check “Volume and Sounds” under the control panel. I thought I was having the same problem as you are, but discovered the various soft resets seemed to have turned the WINCE volume setting all the way down. There is also a volume setting within TomTom When looking at the main screen, click on the blue box in the lower left, the one where the “waiting for a valid GPS signal” and satellite related messages appear. This will bring up a volume slider.
May 12th, 2007 at 10:11 am
Has anyone else had the problem of getting their computer to install the device when you plug it in the USB? You know, it recognizes it, then it doesn’t–back and forth until you disconnect the device.
May 12th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
Jerry try pushing the little off switch off for a few seconds, then back on… worked for me
May 12th, 2007 at 1:15 pm
John,
Thanks for the help, but that didn’t do it.
I’ve tried uninstalling all my USB controllers and restarting, updating the driver, and nothing seems to work.
May 12th, 2007 at 2:39 pm
Thanks for the information listed. I had first installed TomTom software from the .cab file on SD to the Program folder on the WinCE. It sort of worked but somehow the built-in Navigator became screwy and hang. I turned off the unit using the switch by the reset button and got the machine back to normal in the sense that the installed TomTom somehow is removed from the Program folder. Wierd I thought, and repeated attempts to reinstall had failed since because the system would not install over the previous copy even though it is no longer there (I looked in the Program and Windows folders). I have also tried to remove it by the control panel’s remove software option but somehow it says that the TomTom is either in use of read-only. So I left is at that and gave up trying to install TomTom.
Any one know how to clean the mess up so I can have a clean installation of TomTom?
Second try to get TomTom running (not installed): I deleted everything from MyFlashDisk and MyStorage folders after copying them onto my desktop. Then I simply copied TomTom into MyStorage and use TomTom Home to install USA and Canada Map via USB/activesync. It is at 8% complete now so I will report back later.
May 12th, 2007 at 2:48 pm
mine took forever to transfer over from the pc to the nav-cam. It is much faster if you go from your pc to the memory card with a card reader and then stick the card into the navcam and use it off the card.
I was never able to use it off the internal memory even though I did get all the files over finally. I ended up doing it off the memory card and works great.
Thanks everybody for all your assistance getting this done.
May 12th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
guys..could someone mail me where to find Tomtom files plz….
arrarrgee at yahoo dot com
May 12th, 2007 at 4:05 pm
I copied everything on sd card, ran the cab file and gave the path for installation in program files. Everything went fine and gps/maps are working fine but voice selection is not working. It uses maps from the sd card but not the voices. I found a folder of voices in program files which contains only one file collected.ini I tried to copy files from SD card. but there is no space in program files folder.
Any suggestions how to go around this problem.
Thanks
May 12th, 2007 at 4:06 pm
TomTom.com is the official site to get legit files. File torrents can be found in the usual torrent sites.
May 12th, 2007 at 4:17 pm
CM..i go to tomtom.com…what do i need to buy? could you tell me…do i have to buy TomTom NAVIGATOR 6 – Software & maps of the US/Canada on DVD which is selling for 149..plz confirm…Pardon me for my ignorance
May 12th, 2007 at 4:18 pm
Do i have to buy both the maps and software or just tyhe maps…i am confused…whats the difference between the two??
May 12th, 2007 at 4:29 pm
@ arrarrgee for testing google for usa and canada 675_1409, and tomtom_navigator_v6
May 12th, 2007 at 4:50 pm
So got TomTom working off internal memory and all seems well accept I am still not sure how to launch it from then navigator button on the splash screen thing… any more details on that?
May 12th, 2007 at 5:06 pm
# Jerry Says:
May 12th, 2007 at 10:11 am
Has anyone else had the problem of getting their computer to install the device when you plug it in the USB? You know, it recognizes it, then it doesn’t–back and forth until you disconnect the device.
Anyone with the same problem. I noticed I got the same problem. It happened after I tried to install the new reg file. I noticed that there is a connectivity program that runs in the background on the unit that keeps flashing indicating that it is trying to connect then it isn’t able to….a continuous loop. After reverting back to the old reg file…I think it is doing the same thing in the background because I hear the same beeping sounds each time the unit is trying to connect and then failing. Only now with the unit back to it’s original mode you cannot see what is going on in the back ground. Anyone have this problem….any fixes??????
May 12th, 2007 at 5:27 pm
hchanrn did you try flipping the little switch on the bottom to off for 10 seconds then back? Fixed it for me…
May 12th, 2007 at 5:46 pm
# John Says:
May 12th, 2007 at 5:27 pm
hchanrn did you try flipping the little switch on the bottom to off for 10 seconds then back? Fixed it for me…
Flipped the switch off for 10 seconds…..not working. It goes through the detection of the new device. Then a screen pops up on the installation of a windows ce usb driver…press continue anyways and then reverts back into a loop of connecting on and off
May 12th, 2007 at 6:04 pm
Anyone know of a way to boot the unit up directly into windows CE…bypassing the immediate loading of the navigation program? This atleast allows me to see what is going on inside the unit with the connectivity problems I have been talking about…Thanks for everyone’s input.
May 12th, 2007 at 6:19 pm
@ arrarrgee – an extract from somebody
Here is a step-by-step guide to installing it on one…
* Remove your SD card from your PocketPC and insert it into your card reader.
* Using your PC delete all the files from your SD card or simply format it if preferred.
* Copy the contents of the ‘TTN6′ folder to your blank SD card.
* Remove your SD card from your card reader and insert it back into your PocketPC.
* Switch on your PocketPC then tap the following:
‘Start’, ‘Programs’, ‘File Explorer’ then tap:
‘SD-MMC Card’ then tap ‘tomtom_navi…’
you will be prompted for location to install
browse and use soft keypad to select
you will get tomtom icon in programs
when you run it it will take you through its own configuration like code activation map selection etc etc
Hope this resolves some of the queries
May 12th, 2007 at 6:59 pm
Yeah, the switch on the bottom didn’t fix it for me either.
May 12th, 2007 at 7:23 pm
I have both usa and canada 675_1409, and tomtom_navigator_v6..I aint sure how to proceed further…Could you pls tell me what to do next
May 12th, 2007 at 8:51 pm
so i have tomtom v6 and the new USA/Canada maps… i installed it according to this tutorial and added the shortcut to the startup folder according to the instructions in a reply post… but it doesn’t run the program when i softreset… and if i hard reset… the shortcut is deleted… any ideas?… also I need to add the maps… where do i add them to?… the internal 1 gig?… if so… doesnt the program files have to be in the same folder? thanks
May 12th, 2007 at 9:25 pm
It looks like the tomtom software can fit on the flshdisk drive, anyone know how to configure it so it sees the maps while they are on mystorage drive? If so that should take care of having it replace the default software…
May 12th, 2007 at 10:15 pm
Here is a step-by-step guide to installing it on one…
***an extract which worked for me **
* Remove your SD card from your PocketPC and insert it into your card reader.
* Using your PC delete all the files from your SD card or simply format it if preferred.
* Copy the contents of the ‘TTN6′ folder to your blank SD card.
* Remove your SD card from your card reader and insert it back into your PocketPC.
* Switch on your PocketPC then tap the following:
‘Start’, ‘Programs’, ‘File Explorer’ then tap:
‘SD-MMC Card’ then tap ‘tomtom_navigator.cab’
you will be prompted for location , browse and select one
after installation you will find tomtom icon in programs. run that and do configuration
May 12th, 2007 at 10:18 pm
my maps were in folder usa_and_canada on sd card and software picked it up automatically. Just prompted for verification during configuration
May 12th, 2007 at 10:34 pm
Well it was easier than I thought:
Get Tomtom working on mystorage drive
Load and activate any maps you need
copy the contents of the tomtom folder (except for any map folders) into the myflashdisk/navigator folder
rename tomtom.exe to mobile navigator.exe
Now when you turn on the device you will get the stock front end (with mp3 player and pic viewer) hitting navigator will load tomtom and the volume rocker on top actually works!
100% replacement for built in software
Only catch I am guessing if you want to add maps later you might have to move tomtom back to wherever the maps are so it finds and registers their location.
Now I am VERY happy with this device!
May 12th, 2007 at 10:35 pm
Just saw the post above mine, so maybe the initial step of running it to register where maps are or for adding maps is uncessary, even better!
May 12th, 2007 at 10:53 pm
OK just discovered it’s not a 100% replacement… if you go into tomtom and then exit out the evasham menu thing is frozen so you can’t access the mp3 or pic functions again until you do a reset…
May 13th, 2007 at 12:09 am
Just wanted to post a huge THANK YOU
May 13th, 2007 at 6:36 am
After struggling for most of Saturday, I managed to install tomtom and maps on SDMMC and run it on Nav-Cam. I followed the instruction by randy. But I’ve got one big problem. Tomtom cannot find valid GPS signal!!! (The original software works fine and is able to find GPS signal, btw)
Please help!
May 13th, 2007 at 6:45 am
Sorry about my last comment. It is kind of working. I don’t know how it worked but GPS signals appeared as soon as I moved the Nav-Cam away from the window. Please delete my comment. Big thanks to randy.:)
May 13th, 2007 at 10:30 am
I think I’ve got TomTom running fine now from the internal memory on the Nav-Cam. The volume control toggle on top does not work but that’s fine with me. I have also created a folder containing the TomTom shortcut along with the MPlayer and Photo applications on the desktop and in the MyStorage folder. If I have to reset the unit hard or soft, I can simply delete all shortcuts that were put back by the Nav-Cam and copy my shortcut folder back from MyStorage folder to Desktop and be back in business.
May 13th, 2007 at 11:03 am
Do you mean you have individual shortcuts to the mp3 player and picture viewer that are built in? If so where are the executeables?
May 13th, 2007 at 11:16 am
qaiser, Did you ever get the voices working? I’m having the same issue.
Thanks
May 13th, 2007 at 11:17 am
NM I found em in the windows folder…
You can get the volume toggle to work if you run the welcome.exe and leave it running in the background (hit show desktop in the lower right of taskbar to make it more or less invisible) as long as it’s running the volume toggle works.
May 13th, 2007 at 1:03 pm
I still can’t get this contraption to be recognized via USB. I’ve tried different drivers, different ports, a different cable, flipping the hardware reset, and deleting all the USB controllers and restarting the computer. Nothing works, and I am pissed.
May 13th, 2007 at 2:40 pm
This is weird…I keep trying to install the files, but then some files cannot be copied successfully and then it tell me my installation is incomplete.
Anyone one else get this problem?
May 13th, 2007 at 3:04 pm
John… your method really seems simplest! stupid question, but do you have to hack the registry editor to install this way?
May 13th, 2007 at 4:02 pm
2 questions -
1. I think I have TomTom installed. Maps are working. Voices are not. I do have the voice files – where do I put the folder with these files so TomTom will see them, and I can choose a voice (it keeps telling me I haven’t selected a usable voice)
2. GPS settings – It’s showing no GPS device. What should I chose for the device choice, and what baud rate setting? NMEA? GPS is connected to?
Thanks in advance for any help you may have.
May 13th, 2007 at 4:08 pm
edit – got the voice working. maps are fine. Just need help with config. of the GPS.
May 13th, 2007 at 4:16 pm
oops. found the settings in the tutorial. Still not finding a valid GPS signal, but I’m inside. Sorry for all the questions. Thanks for the awesome tutorials!
May 13th, 2007 at 5:25 pm
I’ve a dumb question… I have TT6 for WM5, WM2003, and PPC. Which one should I use? I can’t seem to install any of these, except for the WM2003. The PPC version says NOT A CE COMPATIBLE FILE. I format my SD card on my PC, copy the usa and canada maps onto it, as well as the CAB files. I insert them into the evesham, and click run, and go to SDMEM ( or something like that). I find the file, and I run it. I get the prompt INSTALL HERE, and it is highlighted. Should I navigate to the SD card to install it? If so, should I change the name of the file, or leave it as INSTALL HERE? I tried to install on the SD card, and I bring up the keyboard on the lower right, but I CAN’T FIND THE ENTER BUTTON! Am I going insane? When I click on the Return key, it says file not installed. If it seems like it installed, I soft reset the device, and look for the application, but can’t find it. If someone could find it in their heart to give me a hand, I would appreciate it very much. My e-mail is platano1966@yahoo.com, or respond here, as I am sure(?) others may be having this problem ( or not ).
May 13th, 2007 at 7:44 pm
Al: The enter buttom on the “keyboard”
You have to highlight the field and use your keyboard to press button as you cannot drag the install window.
Hope that helps. For me, I can’t install either. I have WM5, 2003, and PPC as well, and cannot install successfully. Not sure what the problem is…If anyone can help it’d be great!
May 13th, 2007 at 7:48 pm
Ed, I have the same problem you are having. I’ve tried running the cab files and it tells me some files can’t be installed. It also seems that no matter where I choose to install the program (like on the sd card) it still creates a bunch of files elsewhere on the 7700.
I’ve also tried coping the files directly onto the sd card but when I try to run tomtom it shows the splash screen then tells me that it failed to start. Any help would be much appreciated.
May 13th, 2007 at 7:53 pm
Well…I’m going to assume we’re getting our files from the same source :-/. I’ve tried running the .exe file directly, and being able to start the program, and also getting a signal, however, it’s kind of sketchy, and I cannot get the voices to work.
When I try to install from the main .cab file, It also installs under program files and tomtom/, which confuses me, as I had requested to install under sdmmc. I think, there is a possibility that it is just the install files’ problem. Might have to find another source. Navigator tomtom.com just can’t seem to get copied. quite mind boggling.
Do you or anyone else have a PDA that has windows CE installed? If you do, maybe you you can try installing it on there to verify the integrity of the files.
May 13th, 2007 at 7:53 pm
JT (and possibly Ed),
I made an error when I re-wrote the TomTom install instructions. I left out an important step about the memory. I’ve updated the install page with the following:
Go to the control panel, and choose “System”. Go to the memory tab, and drag the slider to the right, about 1/4 of the way.
Try to reinstall again, it should work fine. Sorry for the confusion caused by my mistake!!
May 13th, 2007 at 8:00 pm
@ dweller. Yes i got the voice working. After install and before running it 1st time you have to copy the voice files (i just used 2 files for one voice) in the folder where your exe file is located. in my case it was program files\navigator.
When you run it first time configuration files are automatically generated, voice folder created and voice files moved to this folder.
During re-install it gave errors which were actually due to memory setting which was resolved by the process explained by randy in initial setup.
May 13th, 2007 at 8:08 pm
Ed,
thanks for getting back to me, but I am confused… I am not sure if I explained myself earlier, but when I run the CAB file, I get up to where it will install, but The install field is already highlighted with the words INSTALL HERE ( Blue shading). I try to install on the SD card, but I can’t find what button to push to actually install the program ( For some reason, on the keyboard on the 7700, it does NOT have an ENTER button). I have succesfully installed the WM5 cab on a treo 700w, and it went flawlessly.. I can almost install the WM2003, but I can’t get past this little detail…..
May 13th, 2007 at 8:11 pm
I believe I’m having the same problem as Ed and JT…I have the TomTom software but I cannot install the .cab file without getting an error at the end of the installation. I also just tried installing with the memory slider 1/4 of the way over like randy suggested earlier.
Like Ed, I also can run the .exe file and open the program. The voices need to be copied to the same directory as the voices folder where the .exe is located for them to work.
My problem is that I cannot get a satellite fix. I continually get the message, “Waiting for a valid GPS signal…” I can sometimes get my GPS coordinates on the “GPS Status” page of tomtom, it still says I have zero satellite strength.
I know I’m available to communicate with the satellites because when running the “GPSViewer” that came stock on the evesham unit, I’m interacting with at least 6 satellites all with good signal strength.
I have my settings in tomtom to other NMEA device, 9600 baud, COM2…anyone have any suggestions? Thanks
May 13th, 2007 at 8:21 pm
Al:
Correct me if I’m wrong, the enter button should be under “]” key.
Highlight the field and click that button. If not, I’ll check it out again.
BTW, does anyone know if today.cab needs to be installed too?
Ed
May 13th, 2007 at 8:38 pm
Al: It has an enter key, shaped like a backwards L, with a left-facing arrow inside. That symbol means “Carriage return”. It’s right above the left arrow key. Once you pull up the keyboard, though, you need to click BACK in the install prompt window to give it focus, and then when you hit the afore-mentioned Enter/Return key, it should work. I know it’s really weird, I thought I was stuck there for a while, too.
Shawn: *VERY* strange. Maybe try something other than COM2, and then switch back? Try a soft/hard reset? Just grasping for ideas here… Good luck, keep us posted if you come up with a fix.
Ed: Today.cab is completely unnecessary. It gives an icon on WM2003 devices that have a “Today” menu as the desktop.
May 13th, 2007 at 9:10 pm
Nvm Randy…i reread your instructions, and found that my volume under my windows is set to “softest”
Please disregard my previous question.
This is also a reminder for other fellow hackers out there
May 13th, 2007 at 10:05 pm
Thanks Randy, your solution worked perfectly.
For those of you suffering from the same problems as Ed and I were having, the fix posted by Randy a few posts up works brilliantly!
May 13th, 2007 at 11:14 pm
marked001 Says:
May 13th, 2007 at 3:04 pm
John… your method really seems simplest! stupid question, but do you have to hack the registry editor to install this way?
===
I would think it should, except once you exit tomtom you will have to soft reset as I think the welcome app will freeze (does it do this with the default software?) and you will be stuck.
I think worst case scenario it won’t work well and you will have to do the registry hack…
May 14th, 2007 at 12:04 am
Well I decided to install the Tomtom onto the internal memory…it worked and I’m now able to get a fix on the satelllites woohoo!
One quick question: how are you all getting the voices to work. When I installed the program, I told it to install to the MyStorage drive, but it installed it to program files. There isn’t enough space to fit any more than 1 voice file in this folder…I know the voice files have to go where the .exe is located. Did I goof on the install?
May 14th, 2007 at 4:43 am
Ok… I adjusted the memory, and ran the cab file. I chose to install it to my SD card, brought up the keyboard, and hit enter. It seemed to unpack under the keyboard, so I hid the keyboard again, and I look on the card, and the file is not there, just the CAB file again, and the folder with my maps. I click MY DEVICE on the desktop, and select WINDOWS FOLDER, and I look in APP MANAGER folder, and there is an icon that says TomTom, but are a pair ofgears on a tabbed page. I try to click on it, but I get the error ” there is no application associated….” Any suggestions? I REALLY want to do this, maybe just out of spite that I am having so much trouble with this! Thanks again!
May 14th, 2007 at 4:52 am
Pardon me, it is the TomTomNavigator.DLL file that is in my /Windows/Appmgr Folder. ( Need Coffee…)…
May 14th, 2007 at 5:24 am
I’m finding a lot of the TomTom nav voices are very quiet. I don’t have the stock voices, just the “celeb” pack… John Cleese is way too quiet, a bummer! I have it at 100% in the TomTom program.
I have the windows system volume all the way up. Is the physical volume switch on the unit adding volume to that when it’s turned up, or is it just controlling the windows volume? I’d assume the later is the case.
Does anyone have the stock voices and the extra voice pack? Are the stock voices naturally louder? What is the file format on these voice files? Does anyone know if they can be edited to make them louder?
Sorry for all the questions! This blog has been a great source of information. Other than the lack of volume, the unit is running the TomTom software perfectly.
May 14th, 2007 at 6:34 am
I used a SD dump of TomTom that I found (on a previous post on here at hpcfactor.com) to use on this GPS. I copied it to my SD card and launched it with no problems. The software runs straight from the card but I cannot get the GPS hardware to be recoginized. I never get past “No GPS device!” on the TomTom program. Changing to “Other NEMA”, 9600, COM2 does nothing. I’ve run through that 10 times and it never sees the hardware. Does anyone have any suggestions on what else I can do?
Thanks!
May 14th, 2007 at 6:53 am
The Gps signal is not picked up instantaneously. Initially I also ran into a similar issue like most of you but trying it out in open and leaving it there for a couple of minutes solved the problem.
May 14th, 2007 at 9:10 am
Have totally messed mine up, am locked at initial win CE boot screen & can`t get out of it, tried all kinds of regedits with mobile reg editor but no luck. Any one got a COMPLETE registry file that i can replace mine with?
Or if it comes to it how hard is format & re-install?
Or is there a way to boot into windows with an external boot device? ie.. boot from sd card..
May 14th, 2007 at 10:13 am
sigh…this thing is starting to drive me nuts…
I took the unit for a test drive earlier today and it worked pretty well. However, after I came back into my house, it lost signal. Ok, no big deal. However, now, whenever I try to get a signal again, it always says “waiting for valid GPS signal.” I’ve let it sit outside with clear view of sky for 30 minutes but it still says the same message.
I’ve already tried completely deleting/uninstalling everything and reinstalling…still no luck
May 14th, 2007 at 10:17 am
aaron… i can get it working now from my sd card..but i’ve got a 512mb sd card :-/ for some reason, it does not want to run from the internal memory
May 14th, 2007 at 10:18 am
in order to fix a knackered registry if you hold down the suspend button while you slide the power switch from off to on it’ll restore some registry settings.
May 14th, 2007 at 10:21 am
Al:Instead of looking in the Windows folder, try checking “MyStorage/Program Files/Navigator”. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
You can move that over to your SD card and run it from there, if you prefer.
Greg: I wouldn’t say the “stock” voices are louder, but definitely louder than John Cleese. I’ve found most of the other voices are plenty loud enough when you’ve got the Windows volume at 100% as well as the TomTom volume at 100%. You may want to uncheck the box that changes the volume with vehicle speed. It may be making it quieter when you’re stopped/going slow.
Shawn: I think I may know the cause and solution to your issue. Try a soft reset, and then run TomTom with a clear view of the sky for 15 minutes, or however long it takes. Afterward, EXIT TOMTOM prior to powering off the unit. I suspect turning the unit off and on while running TomTom may cause that issue. See if that helps, and let us know. By the way, you should have enough room for PLENTY of voices. There must be something installed on MyStorage that shouldn’t be there, perhaps you’ve double-installed TomTom?
May 14th, 2007 at 11:38 am
Just thought I’d mention a couple of issues I’m finding now that I’m successfully running TomTom.
1. The GPS signal indicator doesn’t appear to function in the status bar. (No big deal, as I can tell its working just fine)
2. When choosing “Home” or a “Favorite” to Navigate to, it says “no route found”. However, manually typing the address of my house or a favorite, it finds it just fine. Is anyone having this issue?
May 14th, 2007 at 12:18 pm
I Finally got this thing working!!! I am inside a building now, but I will try to see if the satellite signal will work. Man, what a pain in the ass that was, but I am hoping that it will all pay off! Thanks to everyone who helped me thru this install…
May 14th, 2007 at 12:22 pm
My issue is to get the GPS signal. It’s working on and off, not very stable at all. Shawn said that installing into the internal memory worked better. Anyone has any good ideas for fix? Thanks.
May 14th, 2007 at 2:37 pm
I tried multiple soft and hard resets. The TomTom software will not recoginize the GPS hardware. I’m still stuck on the “No GPS Device!” message when running TomTom via the SD Card Dump method. If anyone wants to help me out who got this working, please e-mail me acrocco [at] gmail . com
Thanks!
May 14th, 2007 at 3:18 pm
I GOT IT!!!! Holy crap! I kept hitting “Serial Cable” instead of Com 2. What a bozo move. I’m all set. Randy, you are the man!
May 14th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
Well let me just say that I completely reinstalled everything and it seems to work now. I could not get a signal outside of my house at all, but once I started driving, the unit made a fix within 10 seconds
Frank: try just putting the GPS in your car and driving around a little bit…It seems to get a fix much easier when the unit is moving. I let my unit sit outside for 30 minutes in the middle of my patio and it still could not get a signal…but after getting in the car and driving a bit, it locked on and didn’t lose connection at all.
And finally, thanks so much to Randy for being a pioneer with this! I know I wouldn’t have been able to do it without his great guide (hell, I didn’t even know Windows CE existed!) But now I have a sweet player that will play movies/music as well as a kick ass GPS unit
May 14th, 2007 at 3:27 pm
a little picky issue – Does anyone have any luck with the TomTom software saving the Home, and Favorites locations? Everytime I turn it off I lose them… Home goes back to Wash. D.C. Any ideas?
btw – I’m running it from the SD card.
May 14th, 2007 at 6:13 pm
Great Step by steps.
Gave up on the install from cab. Used the Captain Dump (ver 6.000 (7370)). Just copied the folder onto an SD Card and ran it. Copied the latest map files to the root of that SD Card and ran captain’s renamed TomTom executable. Activated the maps and it was golden.
With the SD Captain Dump ran right off the SD Card, I noticed that if you used the top power button to “suspend” while leaving the TomTom app open, then turned back on later , it would crash every time. I suspected that it was due to the SD slot being “external” and brought out of suspend mode last. The executable needs it right away however, and bam, crash. So, I bit the bullet and copied the contents of the MyFlashDisk, and MyStorage folders to my PC for backup, then deleted their contents on the Nav-Cam. I then moved the MobileNavigator folder from the SD Card into the MyStorage Folder. I left the Maps on the SD Card.
I then from the device, browsed to the executable, clicked it once, did a File>Send To>Desktop as Shortcut. Then used the activesync to explore and copy that shortcut from Windows>Desktop to the Windows>Startup Folder.
Few things: The hard volume switch don’t work but that’s a known issue with this hack. I could care less. Turn up the volume all the way in control panel, then just control it via TomTom 6. I also did not care about the audio and picture stuff.
General Signal Strength on the GPS doesn’t seem to show.(Haven’t tried in the car yet)
LED lights for when the power is on etc. do not seem to work anymore as well. It does work when charging it though.
Celeb Voices suck! They are mostly impressions and not the real actors. They’re also not as loud. I picked the Default UK Female.
Plans: To get a 1GB SD card instead and use that, then my camera can have the 2GB I used for this. The reason I kept the Maps on the SD Card was so that I could update them later and not have to worry about activsync.
WOW. When I got this thing, it was a terrible piece of junk. Not worth the price on woot even. Now, its actually is something that is useful.
May 14th, 2007 at 6:27 pm
Also, hard reset kills the desktop shortcut and shortcut in startup folder, and also places the default shortcuts back on the desktop. Is there a hidden directory like the ones windows file protection use in XP , but in CE where I can change to prevent this?
May 14th, 2007 at 8:22 pm
I got the Nav-Cam 7700 from Woot ast week also, very interested in reloading with TomTom. Using Randy’s blog I have successfully gotten past the Windows CE hurdle, but now I have a few questions about what version of the software I would need….could someone who has been successful at this please email me at ‘cantucan @ comcast.net’
Thanks in advance
May 14th, 2007 at 8:27 pm
Cecil anything not in myflashdrive or mystorage will be reset upon a hard reset. That’s how embedded windows ce works, the basic os is in non writeable ROM area and during a hard reset most of the options will be reset to what ever the default is. Why are you doing hard resets?
May 14th, 2007 at 9:40 pm
Disregard my last post, I got some great help from a poster on here.
May 14th, 2007 at 10:18 pm
So since we do have a full fledged WinCE system, what other software have people found that works on this?
I am currently looking for a GPS software that will let me save routes that can be uploaded into GoogleEarth so I can watch flybys of my hikes and stuff… but so far no luck… anyone?
May 14th, 2007 at 10:42 pm
Anyone out there figure out the usb connectivity problem? I have an email out to nav-cam. Got tired of waiting on the phone.
May 15th, 2007 at 2:20 am
It was getting to be that time again where my system needed a clean slate, so I reformated my hard drive and reinstalled windows. After that, the gps connected via USB right away. This convinces me that it was a driver conflict with some other devices that was once connected to my machine.
May 15th, 2007 at 4:09 am
Got my unit up and running….. Works Great! Thanks to Randy for making this happen and having a forum to discuss install and work arounds, and to all the folks here who have helped so much….
May 15th, 2007 at 5:22 am
Re: The media player – what resolution settings should the video be encoded at?
Still wondering if anyone else is having luck with TomTom saving favorite/home locations when running from the SD card. I can’t seem to get it to. I lose them when I turn the unit off.
May 15th, 2007 at 5:37 am
Thanks, Shawn. You’re absolutely correct. Just can’t get a GPS signal sitting by the window in my room. You’ve got to put it in the car and start driving around. It was working well for my last twenty-mile trip. The thing is that you still can’t see GPS signal indicator, but it IS working. Randy, time to add another piece of FAQ:)
May 15th, 2007 at 6:45 am
When i try to install Tom Tom Navigator 6 .i get a not enough space in the selected directory…I am using a 2GB card…pls help
May 15th, 2007 at 6:50 am
When i try to install Tom Tom Navigator 6 i get a pop up asking me to browse to the exact location i want to install…and i donot even see a ok button. Its just not visible..cant do a thing except do a soft reset
May 15th, 2007 at 8:28 am
@arrarrgee you will have to use enter key from the soft keyboard instead of ok button. you don’t need exe file for maps. just put them (unzipped) in a separate folder on the sd card. the configuration routine will automatically scan for them
May 15th, 2007 at 9:13 am
arrarrgee make sure you don’t skip the memory slider step mentioned in the FAQ…
May 15th, 2007 at 9:25 am
Got it to work…works like a charm…had issues with Voices but figured the problem..my windows setting was set to soft…thx a bunch folks….
May 15th, 2007 at 11:56 am
Just a quick question, can someone else confirm that if you launch something from welcome.exe’s navigator button (like regedit in the first step to this guide) it freezes afterwards (ie you can’t then go launch mp3 player or something).
I just wanna make sure it’s not just mine or something…
May 15th, 2007 at 1:52 pm
There are some CE-based apps cataloged here:
http://www.gpsinformation.org/dale/PocketPC/wince.htm
I haven’t had a chance to customize my Nav-Cam yet, but I did put 1800 miles on it so far
May 15th, 2007 at 2:36 pm
Thanks codesuidae, I had checked those out before and so far not much luck getting them to run on the 7700… for the ones I tried I get the message that these are ARM2 and I need to install the version for ARM3 or that they aren’t comaptible with this version of CE (even though it seems we have 5.0 and most require only 2.0)
May 15th, 2007 at 5:02 pm
Bummer, I was hoping that there’d be an easy win with some of those. Which ones have you tried?
May 15th, 2007 at 5:22 pm
Only tried a handful, GPSDash for sure and a few others (don’t recall now) was specifically looking for ones that allowed you to save routes though… if you get any luck lemme know!
I wish the built in GPS Viewer had a way to save… it does track your route and display it onscreen, how hard would it have been for them to add a save feature
May 15th, 2007 at 5:24 pm
I installed TCPMP just fine and it seems to open the file. However the video doesn’t show while the audio plays fine. When I switch to fullscreen mode, it shows what I can only describe as a distorted version of the video. Do I have to reencode the video before I play? I tried to reencode as mp4 but it seems that they disabled mp4 playback due to copyright considerations.
May 15th, 2007 at 6:00 pm
Tim–I found that I needed to switch options, video, video driver to “Raw FrameBuffer” instead of DirectDraw, and that gave me a good display.
As far as the mp4 playback, go to [url=http://picard.exceed.hu/tcpmp/]this site[/url] and download the ffmpeg plugin, and you should be all set.
That site seems to be down right now, but it worked a few days ago. Hopefully it’ll be back up pretty soon.
May 15th, 2007 at 6:45 pm
Okay, so I’ve got Tomtom up and running on my NavCam. I installed it to the internal flash as I run the system through my car’s aux imput and want to play mp3′s as well. I actually really liked the interface stock, though tomtom is clearly superior, so I’m glad I “hacked” it.
Has anyone been able to load the softare to the internal memory, and then return the device to its factory state where the only difference is Tomtom instead of evesham? I would like to power on, go to the default liteon screen, and have the exact functionality as before with this major improvement.
Any luck? Anyone? I thought I had it by renaming shortcut paths and executables, but after I inserted my SD card all of the storage directories got renamed and it threw everything out the window. The soft reset purged my changes.
May 15th, 2007 at 7:02 pm
in an effort to install the software on sd card I removed my previous installation (fully functional). Now i am stuck and have not been able to re-install even the previous way using cab file. Most of the time it freezes at the voice selection. soft restart freezes the tomtom at start. I have tried hard reset, remove programs etc etc but unable to figure out the exact problem.
Can some body send me the link (qaiserpk at gmail dot com) for version directly executable from sd card. any other suggestions?
May 15th, 2007 at 7:33 pm
Via active sync, with all hidden and protected files enabled, things are starting to make more sense with regard to getting the original interface to work as it originally did while utilizing tomtom instead of navcam. I don’t even know how to edit a .exe file though. I think that if I could get in somehow, it may be but a simple path that needs to be changed. Still, I don’t know enough about programming to no where to begin. Any takers?
May 15th, 2007 at 8:10 pm
Hi…Tomtom cannot find valid GPS signal!!! (The original software works fine and is able to find GPS signal, btw)..pls help
May 15th, 2007 at 8:11 pm
@qaiser sent u a mail…
May 15th, 2007 at 8:19 pm
I am having similar issue as the one Shawn had with his..Unable to locate GPS signal even trying for like an hour..pls help
May 15th, 2007 at 9:24 pm
Try putting the GPS in your car and driving a little bit. It should get a fix once it is moving. I cannot get a fix just sitting in my house, even sitting out in clear sky, but as soon as I start moving a little bit, it will make a connection.
May 15th, 2007 at 9:50 pm
Ian it’s not hard to get it functioning like stock with tomtom at all. Just do a plain tomtom install, no map packs. The total tomtom folder should be under 20MB. Copy all the contents of that folder and dump that into the myflashdisk/navigator folder.
Change the tomtom.exe filename to mobilenavigator.exe
Now when you launch welcome.exe (the stock front end thing) navigator will launch tomtom.
The only problem…
If you exit TomTom the evasham front end is frozen, you can’t launch anything else or tomtom again. You have to either reset or pull up the start menu to launch something.
May 16th, 2007 at 12:45 am
Got TomTom working on mine from an SD card but I wanted to confirm some anomalies I have run into:
1) GPS strength bars on map window do not work even when GPS is tracking a signal.
2) Time and date are lost with a hard reset (the switch on bottom).
3) Seems more difficult for TomTom to get a fix than the native software. The Nav-cam software get a fix very quickly for me but TomTom sometimes take a long time to report 3d fix.
Can anyone comfirm any or all of these? Just want to know if it is my set up.
May 16th, 2007 at 1:55 am
Hello all still trying to make the tom tom work. Been on it now for 4+ hours. Anyways I’m getting closer. Just need to install the maps now. I did notice however that while runing tom tom it says there are no sats but it still tracking me. Is anyone else expirecing this? If no how can we “fix” that. Also I changed my regedit back to normal and the mobilenavigatorold back to the original names and now when i try to load the navcam software it says failed to create empty document! Can anyone please help! Thanks!
May 16th, 2007 at 5:34 am
@shawn Was drove it for almost an hour..no luck…reset multiple times..dideven a hard reset too..still the same…
May 16th, 2007 at 7:25 am
@John – Thanks for the info. Looks like I was barking up the wrong tree
I wonder why that happens – the front end lockup that is?
So if I open the stock front end, pull up the mp3 player and play a file, then back out, go into TomTom via the navigator button will the mp3 continue to play or does it lock up as well? I wonder why that happens?
May 16th, 2007 at 8:30 am
Has anyone figured out how to save the Home and Favorite locations for those of us running it on an SD card? I have seen a few questions but no answer yet. Thanks!
May 16th, 2007 at 9:13 am
Ian I didn’t actually try to play mp3s or anything, I just got it to load tomtom when I hit the navigator button… thought I had it perfect, then realized that after launching anything with the navigator button (even the regedit hack) the front end locks up and you can’t push anything on it…
At that point I gave up no that option as I don’t want to be soft resetting every time I exit out of TomTom.
Brian the sat strength bar doesn’t work in TomTom on this device and if you deleted any files from your unit you may have broken the built in software, I would just edit the registry back to launching explorer and use shortcuts in startup to auto run anything you want.
May 16th, 2007 at 10:01 am
How does one get the Device ID for the NavCam?
Thanks in advance.
May 16th, 2007 at 11:45 am
The device gives you the ID when you open a newly purchased map for the first time from within TomTom.
May 16th, 2007 at 12:21 pm
Have you tried using the “Exit Application” in TomTom? I think that is the point things get saved. If you reset without doing that changes are lost.
Chad: Has anyone figured out how to save the Home and Favorite locations for those of us running it on an SD card?
May 16th, 2007 at 12:52 pm
Thanks Wilfred… I will try that.
May 16th, 2007 at 1:26 pm
Exit Application doesn’t help the TomTom software save favorites/Home locations, etc. (at least running it from the SD card it doesn’t for me). This is the feature I’d like to figure out. Does anyone know if theres a certainly folder these are saved in? Perhaps it needs to be on the units memory and not the card? Thoughts?
May 16th, 2007 at 1:37 pm
Greg – Has your unit ever given a “Fatal Application Error” after resuming from suspend (button on top) while running TomTom? I get this when I run from an SD card.
May 16th, 2007 at 1:59 pm
I got the TomTom installed and working on the internal memory. Only thing that doesnt work is the GPS strength bar while navigating. I guess just a minor thing at most. Would be nice if we could get this to work. Anyone else have an issue with TomTom saying make a turn in like 30 yards, but you are already at the intersection to turn? Any way this can be corrected?
May 16th, 2007 at 3:39 pm
Hmmm. For some reason, the system time keeps on defaulting back to Greenwich Mean time instead of my local time after I turn the unit off.
I guess the answer is to not turn it off then. Has someone else found this also?
May 16th, 2007 at 3:59 pm
Wilfred – it did the one time I didn’t close the tomtom app. before turning off the unit. Now I just shut down TomTom before turning off the unit… sort of a hassle, but not the end of the world. I wonder if it’s an issue running from internal memory.
If favs/home are saved from running in the internal mem, I wonder if you can run the app from internal, and the maps from the SD.
Time of day seems to be saved fine. I’d like to figure out where the saved places get stored, and if that file can be edited. I did get the TomTom home app, but it’s not much help.
May 16th, 2007 at 4:13 pm
Maybe you guy scan run tomtom from memory then copy the folder back to SD once it’s saved your favroties and home? Also putting tomtom on internal mem and map on sd should work fine.
TJay how are you turning it off? If you just hold the little power button at the top left it should maintain correct time… soft resets will make it go to grenwich though..
May 16th, 2007 at 4:30 pm
Looks like I might of figured out why I couldn’t save the favs/home. I’m using a mini-SD card in a SD adapter. Seems the adapter is in the locked position… I never noticed this as I take it out of the adapter to put it into a reader to write files. Put it in the unlocked position, and it seems to be saving the home location when I turn off the unit. Silly things like this take the longest time for me to figure out! I’ll see if they stay saved after leaving the unit off for awhile.
May 16th, 2007 at 6:32 pm
I was just looking at the TomTom One on
http://www.tomtom.com/products/features.php?ID=259&Category=0&Lid=4
and compating it to our Evesham/TomTom frankenGPS. I think the FrankenGPS wins out. Same size screen, same software. The TomTOm one doesn’t come with an AC adapter only the car adapter. It does have Bluetooth but only for using the TomTom plus services, not for handsfre phone use. TomTOm one runs off the Memory card, near as I can tell, so the Franken GPS beats it there. Also TomTom One has no multimedia capabilities. Oh, and it cost $300.
Score one for the hardware hackers.
May 16th, 2007 at 8:47 pm
Thank you for your review and tutorial. Great help and got me on my way. For some reason the resolution is all wacky with this unit and when in windows you have to use a tab and prayer for installing TomTom. I found later that even though it installed on the built in memory, I moved the whole folder over to my sd card and it worked fine afterwards.
May 17th, 2007 at 8:54 am
Excellent review and tutorial! I also grabbed one of these off of Woot, and while the included GPS software is pretty good, I have to think that TomTom will be a good deal better. I’ve already ordered a 2gb SD card to use with it specifically for this purpose.
Thanks again!
May 17th, 2007 at 9:31 am
I have an issue here… The tomtom unit doesnt mention the street name when asking you to make a turn,….its just says In 200 feet make a right..I would want it to say In 200 feet make a right on to Kelly Drive… is it a settings issue? Has any one done anything to fix this? pls help
May 17th, 2007 at 9:39 am
Wilfred – I just duplicated the “fatal application error” from the SD card when not exiting the program before shutting it off.
May 17th, 2007 at 9:39 am
I don’t think TomTom software is capable of that. The voice files would have to be a lot bigger than they are.
May 17th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
Anyone not happy with their Nav-Cam 7700, please contact me, I want a few more.
Shoplift
(at)
Shopliftin
(dot)
com
May 17th, 2007 at 1:03 pm
So… some of you got a 4GB SD card to work? How’d you do that? I can’t get the navcam to recognize mine. I’m guessing it’s the FAT32 formating (you can’t reformat a 4GB to anything else). I would think this would be a problem with all 4GB cards.
May 17th, 2007 at 2:21 pm
Hi everyone. great tutorial so far…have tomtom installed and trying to copy the maps over…i don’t have an sd card or reader so i’m working directly with the onboard flash memory….here’s the problem….trying to copy the larger map files doesn’t work for some reason…they keep restarting the copy halfway through….any suggestions? i’ve tried zipping them down to make them small but the copy still restarts…there’s plenty of room and i don’t get any errors….help please! thanks.
May 17th, 2007 at 3:08 pm
Hi Randy
First of all thanks a lot for such a wonderful blog.
I am having some issues with installing tomtom, basically the GPS keeps on freezing on each step of install..while selecting the maps, choosing the language or getting the gps signal. I am using a SD 2gb card with tomtom6 and ver6.** maps of US and Canada. I end up doing a hard or a soft reboot each time.
Any help will be apprecited.
May 17th, 2007 at 3:59 pm
What is the trick to getting the cab to install? I’ve tired moving the memory slider, I bring up the keyboard and pick where I want to install (external SD card) and hit enter. It seems to unpack but I can not find any other exe’s except start.exe and autorun.exe in a subdirectory called 2577 on the SD card. I can’t seem to get to the point of a good install.
TIA peaty
May 17th, 2007 at 4:25 pm
To those of you who are having trouble with the installation, I’ve figured out one of the big problems…
The most recent version of the TomTom software, 6.03, does NOT work on our device. There is no way around it. I’ve been able to get 6.02 working, but it wants the map to be in the My Documents folder, which doesn’t have enough space for the USA/Canada map.
Basically, for now, you NEED to use version 6.00 if you want a trouble-free installation. I’m about to update the tutorial to reflect this info.
Good luck everyone!
May 17th, 2007 at 5:05 pm
Randy, Thanks – at least it’s not me. I was going crazy almost all day trying to get this to work.
May 17th, 2007 at 5:34 pm
Wow.
I finally got this to work. It is fantastic. This Nav-Cam is very small but packs the punch of a larger TT unit.
I am having a bit of a problem though with the TCPMP media player though.
I have downloaded the App on my main computer, then it Autosyncs into my NavCam. When I go to it on my NavCam, it will not open, stating it is not a Windows CE supported player.
I am going to try to find another version of the player and see if that works.
I’ll post a link to it when I find it.
Randy, as most have already stated, this blog is fantastic. Thank you for your instructions.
Also, I checked and my Version is 6.0 also and it works like a gem.
May 17th, 2007 at 6:46 pm
Quick Follow up. I loaded V 6.0 a little bit ago and that worked like a charm. And to think I could have gotten some real work done today
It is so much better than the OEM software it’s not funny. Well it is funny now since I have John Cleese narrating 
I know it’s getting old but thanks a ton for all the good work.
Peaty
May 17th, 2007 at 9:07 pm
One thing I just discovered. I can make shortcuts on the WinCE desktop for things like the MP3 player, photo viewer, volume and brightness (the one I was concerned about) The exe files are in the windows subdirectory, just make shortcuts is all, pretty simple. This makes it so I don’t need the OEM front end and no need to do a soft reset. Not bad just, boot up and set things you need before running the Tom-Tom. During using the Tomtom you can always bring up the taskbar and hit the hide the desktop on the task bar if you want to adjust anything like brightness.
May 17th, 2007 at 10:24 pm
For those with the problem where the device is not always recognized via USB, have you tried different USB ports? This is just a stray thought, but I have a Firefly remote for use with BeyondTV4. The remote receiver will only work when plugged into a USB header directly on my motherboard. It’s the only device I’ve run across like that, but perhaps some systems are finicky with the Nav-Cam 7700?
Thanks for all the work on this blog; I’ve enjoyed all the reading the past few days. I’ve been playing with my Nav-Cam pretty regularly. Tonight I tried loading the Microsoft Pocket Streets 2006 that came with my Woot-ed MS Street & Trips 2006 with GPS Locator onto my SD card. No love there so far… I get a message that PStreets or a library file can’t be found, even after a soft reset.
With no legal copy of TomTom6, and PStreets not working either, I’m pretty close to just loading the Nav-Cam back to factory defaults. The GPS viewer program is kinda neat, but not real functional. Also, the altitude is given in meters, and doesn’t jive with other GPS units. And the speed given doesn’t match up with MPH or KPH with this program.
My biggest beef with the Nav-Cam is the lack of maps for US military bases. I work on one as a civilian, and much of my route planning would start from there normally. But not being on the Nav-Cam’s street grid prevents usable routing. Everybody else at work who has a competing GPS unit has all the military base streets on their machines. What gives with Evesham? Is it because they are not a domestic company?
May 17th, 2007 at 11:30 pm
T-Jay: no idea what your problem could be, unless you somehow installed the wrong version of TCPMP? No one else has reported a similar problem. Let me know if you figure out the cause.
Peaty: that’s exactly what I do. The only problem is that the shortcuts disappear when you do a hard reset. (which you shouldn’t be doing that often, anyway!) I’m working on a solution to this…
MartinR: don’t know what to say… saw others complaining on Woot’s forums about this subject. I don’t understand why they would leave these streets out, if it’s perfectly legal.
Everyone, I just put up a donate link for those of you who contacted me to ask about it. Glad this site has been so useful for you guys!
May 18th, 2007 at 6:56 am
The GPS function of my Nav-Cam is now refusing to work out of my car. The original GPS software (used to work by the window) now gives me the following error messages:
“GPS failed to open
Failed to open device: CreateFile 110″
Then after doing a scan, it shows:
“Failed: GPS cannot be found. Ensure GPS unit is plugged-in and powered (some units require power from vehicle to operate). Check, then re-start.”
Tomtom, as usual, cannot find a valid GPS device.
Any ideas? Please help!
May 18th, 2007 at 8:44 am
Quick update.
I drove to work this AM with TomTom and it’s head and shoulders above the OEM software. I managed to get the latest maps installed on the chip (V6.75…..) and loaded them up no problem. One thing that happened this AM that kind of annoyed me. I was showing fellow geek / wooter the unit. I was showing the different funny voices etc and backed out of TomTom to the desktop, then wanted to show the OEM NAV software. I hit the Gate5_Nad shortcut on the desktop. The OEM splash screen popped up then some sort of error message that was behind the splash box. I can’t be sure what it was but I suspected it was a memory issue. I went to the system memory tab but could not see anything. I did a soft reset and when the desktop came back up all my shortcuts including TomTom were gone! I’ve looked around on the device and I can’t find the App anymore including the voices. I did not think that would happen when you loaded it on the unit itself. Looks like I have to reload it.
I suppose I need to move the install location to another spot other than the default one (which I forget exactly where that was). Where is the best place to move it on the device? Will it still find the maps on the chip if I move it. I’m pretty sure it will.
May 18th, 2007 at 9:05 am
Are you sure you didn’t do a hard reset? Just pushing the little button in with a pen or something is a soft reset, moving the switch left to right is a hard reset.
Things on the mystorage drive should not be effected during either. Shortcuts on the desktop will be wiped out with a hard reset..
May 18th, 2007 at 9:29 am
I’m positive I did not do a hard reset. I did get that error message and then brought up the system—-> memory tab to see if I was out of memory or something like that but since it was behind the splash screen I could not see anything. Then I did the soft reset. Strange thing, I looked in the control panels remove programs and it does show that tomtom is there. I just thought I was looking in the wrong folder. It’s nowhere to be found on the internal memory though. I’m bumming because I thought I had it licked.
May 18th, 2007 at 10:02 am
Frank: Perhaps a hard reset would be in order. Try holding down the power button on the top of the unit while you slide the reset switch on the bottom to the off position, and then back on again. This should restore some factory settings, which will hopefully at least get the factory software working.
Let us know if it works.
Peaty: If you re-read the installation page, you’ll see that I’ve revised it somewhat. The best way to install is to install to internal memory (MyStorage), which happens automatically when you run the .cab install file. You can keep your maps on the SD card, it will find them automatically.
If you do a hard reset, you’ll lose those desktop shortcuts, no way around it. But that should be it. And you shouldn’t have to do a hard reset that often, so it shouldn’t be a big deal. Hope that helps.
May 18th, 2007 at 10:23 am
That was how I installed and and was running the TomTom app. I suspect it was some sort of weird glitch due to the lock up when I tried to run the OEM NAV program. I will reload and then remove the OEM NAV program that will hopefully prevent that happening in the future.
May 18th, 2007 at 12:15 pm
Any advantages to setting the GPS at 115200 in the TomTom app over your previous reccommended setting of 9600?
Does it acquire faster, blah blah blah? What about some that use 4800? It shouldn’t really talk at all if you set it wrong so it leads me to believe that it auto-negotiates, but if set correctly the “No GPS Device” message might go away faster.
Also, has anyone tried any of the other GPS device choices to maybe get the signal meter on the main screen to show something, or does it flat out not work with anything but “other”
Anyone used an external antenna with this thing yet?
May 18th, 2007 at 1:21 pm
I’ve been considering one of these antenna’s
http://tinyurl.com/342hv3
Price isn’t all that bad, the only drawback I can see is it will reduce the battery life if you are not using the power adapter. So far though I’ve been getting strong signals and it has not been an issue.
May 18th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
in Randy’s 5/117/07, 4:25pm post, it is stated that >v6.00 will not run because the newer versions look at \My Documents for the map files….
couldnt you just change the registry entry HKLM\System\Explorer\Shell Folders\My Documents to point to the \SDMMC, or whatever your card is named?
May 18th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
I was trying to load V 6.03 (or is it 6.3?) and it would not even unpack the CAB file at all to even start the app. Not sure about .1 and .2 though
May 18th, 2007 at 5:05 pm
Cecil: don’t know if there’s an advantage or not, but it makes sense to me to set it at the highest setting possible that still works. It seemed to respond just a bit faster while driving, but that may have been my imagination. I think you’re probably correct about the auto-negotiation. I’ve fooled around trying the other GPS choices, without success. I KNOW I had the signal bars working back when I first installed TomTom. At first they didn’t work, then they did, now they don’t, again. I just haven’t wasted time trying to figure out why.
Peaty: Personally, I won’t bother with the external antenna. I’ve found that my unit achieves a lock rather quickly, even when I’m indoors, not moving, and nowhere near a window! Hard to believe, but true. Compared to my Garmin eTrex, this thing is WAY more sensitive.
Uuesley: In an effort to solve that issue, I tried doing exactly what you suggested, only to find that there IS no entry there to modify! I went ahead and created it, but it didn’t work. I don’t know if I did something wrong, or if it’s just not possible, but I struggled for a few hours trying to get the “official” My Documents to be located on the SD card, to no avail. If anyone is able to get it working, please let us know. Update: I was looking in the wrong place. This should work just fine, going to test it out shortly
May 18th, 2007 at 8:34 pm
seems to me like you can set the volume to be at max at startup by changing the following regkey:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ControlPanel\Volume\Volume=4294967295 (default is 0)……seen at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/897599
this will max out the volume, and you can use the TomTom softkey to adjust…still doesnt fix issue with hardware volume buttons…keeps you from having to launch LiteonAP or use the Control Panel to get access to your volume…..
May 19th, 2007 at 2:35 am
How do you get into where you can edit the registry? Tomtom 6.0 is having a very very hard time to get a fix and keep it while I’m driving. I’ve read that 6.02 is a bit better with this, so I’d like to try to load that program on. I’ll first need to change the My documents location so the maps will be recognized
May 19th, 2007 at 5:14 am
About my GPS issue, I was able to do a soft reset and get it working again:) Honestly, I don’t know how it happened. It seems that, if you have some kind of weird problems after everything works, you should try a soft reset (if not working, then try a hard reset:) Good luck to us all.
Thanks randy for your reply.
May 19th, 2007 at 5:32 am
I’d like to share my funny story. Now my Nav-Cam is getting a good GPS signal even in the house, but the thing is that GPS shows my location as about two blocks away from where I really is (in Tomtom)!!! Good grief! A bug or a bad GPS fix? BTW, the Tomtom GPS signal bar is filled to the right?!! The same thing happened last night when I started driving. The stupid thing showed that I was driving on a side road about two blocks away and told me to turn right when I was on a highway:) After about 10-min driving, it seemed to find my location at last. LOL:)
May 19th, 2007 at 9:40 am
Mine seems to lock even when I’m in the house as well. The only reason I’d get an external antenna at this point is if I mount the display somewhere inside the car and it could not get a view of the sky.
I reloaded Tom-Tom and removed the OEM Nav software to make room for more voices on the unit. So far no problems.
May 19th, 2007 at 2:11 pm
Shawn: I’ve got 6.02 running on my unit, and haven’t noticed a difference in GPS tracking ability. According to the file version information screen, it uses the same driver as 6.00, so I wouldn’t expect there to be any difference at all.
If you insist on doing it to see if it helps, you will need to modify the registry entry uuesley mentioned earlier. You can use the regedit.exe that was used in the Windows booting instructions on my site to make the modification. I will write some more complete instructions, and add them to the site within a few days, hopefully.
May 19th, 2007 at 5:56 pm
my taskbar is set to autohide and always on top but it doesn’t autohide most of the time. when I go to settings and click the taskbar it then reacts and autohide. Any suggestions on this?
May 20th, 2007 at 12:38 am
I think the tracking problems seem to occur if you set the baud rate to higher than 4800. I cranked mine up all the way and started having the kinds of problems Franks describes. Set it backl to 4800 and problem gone.
May 20th, 2007 at 12:43 am
Thanks, Randy. I figured out how to edit the registry once I opened the regedit so the new software will pick up on my documents located in MyStorage. I still don’t get any signal in my house, but I’ll go for a drive tomorrow and see if I can have any better luck with this GPS unit.
May 20th, 2007 at 12:54 am
I found a fix for the volume problem!!!
Not sure how to email you the .reg file so I’ll post the code here and you can create it. This registry setting will survive a soft reset as well as a hard reset. It sets the volume up to max. You can control it within TomTom after that. It does not enable the volume control.
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ControlPanel\Volume]
“Volume”=dword:FFFFFFFF
“Screen”=dword:00000003
“Key”=dword:00000002
“Mute”=dword:00000007
May 20th, 2007 at 12:56 am
For those having GPS problems, try setting your time zone and time first. I’ve had lock issues when it wasn’t set correctly.
May 20th, 2007 at 2:36 am
Mike (at May 17th, 2007 at 2:21 pm) said that copying the files to the GPS using USB only (no SD card) was causing the larger files (e.g., cline.dat) to restart halfway through. I was getting the same thing happening, but I eventually just left it running. It took about 8 hours of copying, but the files finally copied. I think what we were seeing was partial conversion of the file to a WinCE format, then a partial copy, then another partial conversion, then another partial copy.
May 20th, 2007 at 10:45 am
Tom K.
Can I just add the reg info above to the bottom of the modified.reg save it to the unit then run it? Is the bottom the proper place to add it?
This bit here:
——–
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ControlPanel\Volume]
“Volume”=dword:FFFFFFFF
“Screen”=dword:00000003
“Key”=dword:00000002
“Mute”=dword:00000007
————
May 20th, 2007 at 3:38 pm
Peaty,
Yes, you can just add that block of text to the end of modified.reg. Works wonderfully.
May 20th, 2007 at 5:28 pm
I just gave it a try and did a soft reset and for me it didn’t seem to work for some reason. The unit started up at the lowest volume setting. Not sure why, I added it to the bottom of the modified reg randy made saved, moved it via active sync to the unit then with then imported it with the regedit. I double checked the reg file I modified and the new info was there. I’ll try another reboot sometime just to be sure.
May 20th, 2007 at 10:22 pm
Noticed today that it seems if I use the button on top to shut off the machine while tomtom is running it will not aquire satellites the next time I turn it on even though the GPS is functioning fine (verified by using gpsviewer). After that it takes a soft reset to get things hopping again.
May 21st, 2007 at 10:57 am
@Dag68 – Going to try 4800. Have had it at 9600, and now 115200. Seems to always do the “couple of blocks off” thing when I first turn it on. I then turn it off and on again and the 2nd time locks fine. Right now, its the only problem I am having. It ticks me off cause I am enjoying this thing otherwise.
May 21st, 2007 at 11:55 am
I got some good use out of mine this weekend. Went on a 700 mile trip and with TomTom it worked perfect. The only thing I wish I could fix is the signal strength bar on the right….anyone figure this thing out yet?
May 21st, 2007 at 12:00 pm
I see the same thing that John (above) does and was wondering if everyone’s unit was doing the same. I noticed 2 different cases:
1. Leave TomTom running and shut down the unit using the button on top. The next time I turn on the unit I get an error in TT saying the GPS isn’t configured, or not found, but after about 2 minutes it starts working fine.
2. Shut down TT then shut down the unit with the button. The next time I turn it on I get a message in TT saying “Waiting for valid GPS signal”, and it too takes about a minute or two to acquire a signal.
I am never able to just start TT and have it acquire a signal right away. I like scenario #1 above because I never have to manually start TT, I just turn the unit on/off using the button on top and all is good. (I’m currently not running any other apps, just strickly GPS)
What I think is that the button is the same as selecting Start->Suspend in WCE and just suspends the unit. When “waking up” the GPS hardware takes a bit to re-acquire the signal.
Or, my unit is messed up. It would be nice to know how others units work, how long it takes to acquire a signal day to day, and how others actually start and stop TomTom and the unit itself.
Thanks!
May 21st, 2007 at 12:43 pm
Ok im trying to install tom tom however after following all the steps to the letter Tom Tom will not install. As soon as i push the rtuen key on the vitual keypad it starts to intsall then just quits out of the inttaller. I did have an unsucessfull install iniitially due to a bad version of Tom Tom. Can anyone help with this?
May 21st, 2007 at 2:55 pm
Rob maybe I am impatient but it seemed TomTom was just not getting a signal at all when left on during a power off. While I initially thought the same thing about the suspend feature and the gps hardware comming out of suspend, the gpsviewer software seemed to work fine shortly after comming out of suspend even when Tomtom wouldn’t…
May 21st, 2007 at 2:58 pm
@Rob – Changing to 4800 so far seems to help the whole “close to 2 min wakeup”. However, I have only had it on that since lunch. I’ve been in my car once since then. Hit the button and it regained after about 20 seconds. (I had been out of the car for an hour)
I will be testing all week just to and from work. However, I always remember seeing 4800 baud as being the setting for external serial GPS units of the past when reading about them. I also set someone’s GPS adapter up years ago for their laptop via serial and I vaguely remember 4800. I have not personally owned anything GPS until this unit. I am hoping this is the fix for this issue and the “two blocks off” one that I get.
May 21st, 2007 at 3:46 pm
Gambit – Which version of Tom-Tom are you trying to install? I tired to get V6.03 to install but I had the type of results you are describing. When I switched to V6.00 It went just fine.
May 21st, 2007 at 8:50 pm
Thanks for the instructions, I’m about to try out the tomtom install. I too am using the 4GB SD card that was sold on woot, and it works fine.
May 21st, 2007 at 9:09 pm
BTW, I realized that it is possible to plan trips with multiple or at least two legs. “Navigate to” your final destination and then go in to the alternate routing menu and tell it to travel by way of another location and you’ll get a route From A to B to C. Good for travelling from say home to grandma’s witha stop at the video store en route or for planning a long rip with a food, fuel or lodging break on the way.
May 21st, 2007 at 11:29 pm
Dag it is possible to plan a lot of steps via the itineiery (if you are talking about tomtom)
May 22nd, 2007 at 8:33 am
My 4GB card works as well, mine is some off brand called EP Memory “Extreme Performance” X150 I got it off of newegg I think.
May 22nd, 2007 at 8:37 am
Well now I did it. Everything was working fine on my unit so of course that wasn’t enough for me and I tried to get the original menu working and kick off TomTom using the Navigation button. I ended up messing something up and although I have TT running again it no longer wants to find any satellites. I’ve tried 4800 baud, 9600, and the highest (11560?) and it still won’t lock on. I had a moment where it did but it loses signal again and kind of hangs there. Ugh. I just couldn’t let it be.
I’m currently using Captain’s version (6.000) installed on MyStorage with US maps on MyStorage, launching from a shortcut on the desktop. I tried a soft reset to no avail.
Any ideas from anyone who was in this boat and are now running fine?
May 22nd, 2007 at 9:36 am
You could always try flipping the dip switch to see if that helps? Also check gpsviewer to make sure the gps is functioning.
Are you giving it a long time to find a signal?
May 22nd, 2007 at 12:18 pm
Thanks to all who have inspired me to hack around a bit with my new toy. One question: After installing TCPMP and tinkering with it a bit, I can get a decent playback of my video files, but everything is pushed off to the right. About a third of the screen is missing. I’ve messed with the program options as much as possible, but I have a feeling there is some other codec for TCPMP that I need.
Also, should those video & audio codecs be stored in the same folder as the program?
Thanks in advance…
May 22nd, 2007 at 12:47 pm
I’m having the same problem as Greg. I tried encoding some videos using the tool recommended on the TCPMP site, but all the videos I play are offset on the screen by about 1/4 to 1/3. Perhaps it’s an option I missed on the encoding screen?
May 22nd, 2007 at 4:22 pm
With the TCPMP, I was getting the same thing where it would display only the top left 1/3 of whatever video I was trying to play. I found that you need to set the correct video driver and it should have no problem playing any video.
go to options > video > video driver > Raw FrameBuffer
That should get your video centered and sized perfectly for the screen. Also, it helps to have the video zoomed properly. Make sure you see
options > view > zoom > Fit Best
and options > view > Pixel aspect ration > Auto
This completely fixed any viewing issues I had with the TCPMP. Good luck.
May 22nd, 2007 at 9:30 pm
Rob said:
Well now I did it. Everything was working fine on my unit so of course that wasn’t enough for me and I tried to get the original menu working and kick off TomTom using the Navigation button. I ended up messing something up and although I have TT running again it no longer wants to find any satellites.
————————-
I also tired to get the original menu working and have tom-tom launch when hitting the Navigator icon in the menu. using these directions posted on the woot blog:
>>>>>>>>>>
The easy way to get the menu program to run is to use the menu for everything. The way to do this is to copy the TomTom Navigator directory into the \MyFlashDisk\MobileNavigator directory. After that rename MobileNavigator to MobileNavigator_old, then rename TomTomNavigator to MobileNavigator. Then when you select Navigator from the main menu, it brings up TomTom. Easiest way to do the move is exploring to the Nav-Cam from an ActiveSync connection.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I could not get it to work, it just sort of sat there and locked up when I hit the icon. I ended up doing a hard reset and it removed the tomtom software. I reloaded, tried again making sure I did everything right but got the same result. In the end I’m sort of back where I started. Now I can’t run the menu because it will still lock so I took off the icon from the desktop (onlight) so I don’t hit it by mistake. In the end I managed to make it so I can’t enable the switch at the top for the volume. I guess I did the “If it ain’t broke fix it till it is” thing. However, I can still get a GPS lock no problem. Sometimes it takes a min or to when moving but no problem.
May 23rd, 2007 at 6:21 am
So glad I found this site with all the postings here I was able to get tom tom on and have austin powers voices in no time thanks all the posters will be donating now to put tcpmp on does anyone know what format vdeo files it will play? avi mpeg? again thanks all for the great information
May 23rd, 2007 at 6:43 am
shawn Says:
May 22nd, 2007 at 4:22 pm
go to options > video > video driver > Raw FrameBuffer
That should get your video centered and sized perfectly for the screen. Also, it helps to have the video zoomed properly. Make sure you see
options > view > zoom > Fit Best
and options > view > Pixel aspect ration > Auto
—————
Two thumbs up for shawn. Savior of the day!
May 23rd, 2007 at 11:53 am
OK got the software running now (thanks for the help!). Now im having a problem loading the voices. I go to selct one and it shows up, when i hit test i hear it but when i hit select the system freezes up on me.
May 23rd, 2007 at 12:25 pm
Strike that, 4800 doesn’t help me. Had the same this morning with first lock being two blocks off, then on “suspend cycle” the second lock being good. Also, first lock took almost 2 min.
Well, I guess that is just what this thing is going to do.
When connected to power via the cigarette lighter, it locks in no time on wake. This may lead to a fix eventually via just power settings in the control panel or the registry regarding wakeup behavior dependent on “AC Power” profile vs. battery and peripherals.
May 23rd, 2007 at 3:24 pm
@Peaty, I tried the same thing and got nowhere as well. Also, by doing this you are limited to the voices because there is only so much space on MyFlashDisk and I can’t get TomTom to use voices from anywhere else besides the current install location. No biggie for me, though, not having the front end. I really only use TT anyway.
I got mine working again by leaving the unit on outside in the car. When I came back a couple of hours later it was working and has been ok since then. I still notice that whenever I turn the unit on it will almost always take about 2 minutes (maybe a little less) to acquire the signal but at this point I’m ok with that.
May 23rd, 2007 at 8:25 pm
Have had no issues here with locking on took about 30 seconds when I took it out to car in morning and dam compared to my old gps a Iway 100 this puppy recalculates routes very fast like 5 seconds I am very happy with the unit so far still playing with the tcpmp prog takes like 1.5 minutes for it to start still have to put a vid on to test the screen and settings again thanks all for the great info.
May 24th, 2007 at 10:32 am
Hello, I was looking all over and trying to get tomtom on my 7700 but i cant get the map files to read. What format are the map files in? I found dat files, foldered ones, cab ones with skipping number (North America 3, 5, 6, etc…) and none of em seem to work… It always says no maps found.
May 24th, 2007 at 4:34 pm
i have a question and wondering if anyone could offer some input. i have north america maps and the total size of the files is 1.2 GB, the largest file is named faces.dat which is somewhere around 700 MB. dose this seem correct? i thought it was supposed to be under 1 GB total (small enough to fit on a 1GB card).
i’m thinking about copying this one large file to the internal memory of the 7700 and then the rest on to my 1GB memory card. will this work?
thanks for any input!
May 24th, 2007 at 4:41 pm
*** in my previous post, the largest file is actually cline.dat i think…
May 24th, 2007 at 5:10 pm
I believe the map package you actually want is called “U.S. and Canada” and should be just shy of 900MB.
May 24th, 2007 at 9:09 pm
thanks greg for the input. below are the files i have (and roughly their files size). issue is that they add up to more than 1GB. any thoughts?
north_america.mid
north_america.mms
north_america.pna
traffic.inc
traffic.dat
mapsettings.cfg
all the above are 1kb or less in size
tmccodes.dat (1.5mb)
cphoneme.dat (18.7mb)
mapinfo.dat (21mb)
cname.dat (90mb)
face.dat (109 mb)
poi.dat (151mb)
cnode.dat (199 mb)
cline.dat (673 mb)
May 24th, 2007 at 10:49 pm
I found some POI databases at the website below. It seems TomTom’s POI (points of Interest) is a different format that most GPS devices and I had a hard time find any for $$ OR free. This site has some good ones espcially a Red Light Cam database which I found includes all the speed cameras I know ofthreein cities in two states. So it seems pretty reliable and hopefully current. Using the Manage POI menu you can set it to give you an audible alarm as you approach them.
There is also a speed trap database which I have no personal experience with. There is a slew of restaurants and stores.
http://www.gps-data-team.com/poi/united_states/
Overall an excellent supplement to the TomTom Software.
PS – does anyone know about the alert you are supposed to get if you exceed the speed limit/
May 25th, 2007 at 9:58 am
Has one install Media Studio to run on Tomtom v6 on top of the Nav-cam device?
May 27th, 2007 at 10:33 pm
While testing different ways to boot, I provided the name of exe file with a long path. It did start tomtom but I could not exit back to win ce interface. I tried to do the old trick of putting the regedit with the name of current executable. The regedit did not work and raised an error. Now I could not recover my registry. I remembered somebody mentioning this type of problem so I scanned all the messages. jack.D mentioned that if you hold the power suspend button and do a hard start using the slider switch it recovers your registry. I did the same and luckily I was back to the original state.
May 28th, 2007 at 7:45 am
With my cleaned registry, it was taking a lot of time to lock. The GPSviewer was giving perfect lock but not the tomtom. When I could not get a lock in 30 minutes, I left the GPS running and went to sleep. When I woke up it had acquired the lock and surprisingly the signal bars were working. I restarted the application and same long wait for lock. I read some comments of read only files, changing my documents registry entry and performing soft reset. So I did it all. After reset it picked up lock in no time but the bars are gone again.
During complete process my settings were other NEMA gps, 4800 and com2.
It is not the gps settings every time you don’t get a lock there are some files which are probably read only or not at right place which can’t be updated. So you have no previous information which you can use for lock. It probably goes for a cold start every time.Signal bars display is also related to this issue.
I am trying to pinpoint exact files and location. In the meanwhile if anybody makes a breakthrough, please post it for rest of us.
May 29th, 2007 at 6:59 am
I was having a lot of problems with the TomTom software not finding the GPS signal when driving around this weekend. Locked up on me a couple times as well. I switched over to the stock software for a bit (ugly, but does the job), switched back to TomTom a bit later and the signal bars were full (first time I’ve seen that), and it was working well. Half hour later it locked up again, and now seems to take an hour to aquire a signal, and it usually doesn’t work that well when it does – finds current location, and that’s about it. Time for a hard reset I guess. I think qaiser is on to something in his last post.
May 29th, 2007 at 7:21 am
I agree, I think qaiser is on to something as well. When I got it working the first time, TomTom seemed to run quite well. Ever since I mucked around with it and had to re-install/reset registry it hasn’t been working as good. Now it takes a while before it find the correct street I’m on where before it picked up right away. Something is definitely different this time around and I’d love to figure out why it’s not working as well as before.
May 29th, 2007 at 8:16 am
This morning on the way to work, I opened the GPSviewer program, got a good lock (both green lights lit in the 3rd tab – I forget the name), closed it, opened TomTom and it locked instantly to multiple gps satellites with signal bars fully lit. While that’s nice, the map was responding slowly – almost like a system low on memory (perhaps I should move the memory slider… I’m just thinking that now as I typed that last sentence – where do you guys set yours?). Either it was trying to constantly catch up, or I’d get to an intersection and the map would continue to move through the intersection, catch it’s self and move back. It’s strange.
May 29th, 2007 at 4:49 pm
I have noticed that TomTom seems to be lagging a little bit now as well. It’s not a major issue; my position on the GPS is never more than a second off, but it is disconcerting to note that others have been seeing it progress negatively.
I also have noticed that my signal bars started “magically” working at some point, whereas when I first installed the TomTom software, they wouldn’t work at all.
GPS Fix time is still pretty quick, though–usually between 30 seconds and 1 minute; sometimes even faster.
Wonder if the problems have anything to do with TCPMP? I’ve used mine quite a bit to watch the second season of Venture Bros.
May 30th, 2007 at 9:36 pm
Ok, I think I’m on to something here. Regarding my previous comments, I had TomTom working ok until I started mucking around with it trying different install locations, etc. until finally it was running like crap. I did the hard reset with registry reset (hard reset+button) and still could never get it back to where it was working well. I had problems with the unit tracking the road I was on correctly and also had pretty bad lag going on. Finally today I noticed that the GPS screen didn’t show the position of satellites anymore where I’d usually have a bunch showing with the strength bars for each in grey or black. This problem only showed up after trying to reinstall and get TT working again. Before that everything besides the signal strength bars were working correctly.
Tonight I get fed up and tried something different. I copied my backup version of the original software on my SD card and ran it from there. I went into Setup and watched the GPS acquire a fix and then exited the original s/w. I went back into TomTom and lo and behold, it locked on right away, the signal strength bars on the main screen are working perfectly, and the GPS screen shows satellites and the strength bars for each satellite are in blue. This is the first time I remember seeing them in blue! Also, when clicking the signal strength bars from the main screen, the screen before the GPS one (Status Summary) shows the number of sattelites (it was always zero, now shows 4) and also the current coordinates which I have never seen before. I turned off the unit with the power/suspend button with TT still running, waited a while, turned it back on and it acquired a lock in about 15 seconds with ALL features still working. I then exited TT manually (Exit Application), waited a few minutes, started it up again and the same thing. Everything is working beautifully!!
What I think may be happening is that the original software is kicking off another program which stays running in memory that helps with the GPS hardware. I was browsing the Windows directory and saw two executables: gpsmc.exe and gbcctrl.exe
Before I ran the original s/w I started both of these. One popped up a dialog saying it was already running. The other didn’t at first, then afterwards popped up a dialog (in the background, I didn’t see it at first) saying something about changing baud rate. What I’m thinking is that maybe when you run the original software it loads some program in the background that is needed for the GPS hardware and perhaps one (or both) of these executables are involved somehow (?). I tried searching the web for a utility that would show running processes in WCE but didn’t come up with anything. I’m trying to find out what is running in the background but came seem to do so. I also, at this point, don’t want to try running those executables again because I’m worried I will mess things up again.
If someone is having problems try running the original software, waiting for a 3D fix (satellite lock), exit, then run TomTom again and see what happens. Also, if anyone knows how to view running processes in WCE please let me know. As it is now, I’ve exited TomTom manually, suspended my GPS unit, came back and still have the signal strength bars working perfectly.
The following is how I have TT setup:
- TT installed on \MyStorage\Navigator
- Map directory off of \MyStorage
- Memory slider bar just about all the way to the left
- Original software moved over to SD card
I would love to finally get to the bottom of this but I’m a little worried about fooling around with it any more at this point. I have a very strong suspicion that some process is running in the background and that the original s/w is what is kicking it off. If we can figure out what it is on my unit right now that’s making all the functions in TT working correctly that would be great!
May 30th, 2007 at 11:23 pm
Wow, excellent work!! I think you’ve laid the foundation to getting this thing working PERFECTLY!
I’ve been working with a menu system for launching applications, as well as a utility that is capable of running scripts, copying files, etc. My goal is to create a package that can be run from an SD card that will restore everything after a hard reset. I’ve got the menu system running great, and have a shell for the installation utility, but I won’t have any free time to play with it (or answer any questions about it) for a few weeks.
There IS an application called ITaskManager that will show running processes, but you need to copy some .dll files to the Windows directory to get it working. If no one else beats me to it, I’ll figure out what processes the factory software is spawning. Once we’ve done that, it should be a simple matter to add those .exe files to my launch script (once it’s ready), and make the whole thing easy and user-friendly.
Thanks again for the detective work, and for sharing it with us. I’ve got a good feeling we’ll have it all figured out pretty soon!
May 31st, 2007 at 6:48 am
my map directory is showing as 890 MB, too big to fit in MyStorage along with the TT sw as well (it’s not in front of me, but IIRC, it has about 819 MB free after moving the TT sw in, and the stock sw over to the SD. Rob – did you have to trim your Map folder down? Perhaps I have some extra files in there that I don’t need. I am running the correct map package.
Excellent work on this. Looking forward to seeing what Randy comes up with.
May 31st, 2007 at 7:15 am
This is working great! I have the stock sw on SD, TT on mystorage (maps still on SD… space issue), and it works great. full bars of signal, quick gps lock. power button suspends tomtom, and re-opens it fine when you turn it on.
One little problem – I don’t have the TomTom icon anymore. it’s just the standard white box windows one. It’s a small issue, but do you guys know how to fix that? Anyway to select the icon being used for a shortcut? I don’t know windows mobile very well…
May 31st, 2007 at 7:20 am
Hey guys,
Used the gps on the way to work this morning and it’s still working perfectly and still have the signal strength bars on the main screen working as well as the other GPS map screen. This morning it was showing 11 satellites locked (only 4 last night inside the house) and again all in blue on the map screen. I didn’t notice any lag at all and the unit seemed very responsive.
@randy, I, too, think we’re almost there and thanks for the work you’re putting into this as well. I’ll definitely be looking forward to your menu system + scripts!
@Greg, do you have all voice files loaded in the voices directory? That’s what made the difference in my install. I didn’t have enough room to fit the software, maps (890MB is correct), plus all the voices so I only copied over the following voice files since they are English:
English – Mandi (US) – data03.* (these files don’t exist as far as I know)
English – Tim (GB) – data04.*
English – Jane (GB) – data05.*
English – Ken (AU) – data06.*
English – Lori (US) – data07.*
English – Bonnie (US) – data08.*
English – Richard (US) – data09.*
I also added a few celebrity voices as well but besides the voices, software, and maps I don’t have anything else residing on the MyStorage drive.
May 31st, 2007 at 7:23 am
@ Rob
if you run gbcctrl.exe it takes over the gps port and you will find no gps device when you run tomtom. Similarly, if tomtom is already running you won’t be able to run gbcctrl.exe. Also, you can’t run gpsviewer and tomtom together. Only one of them can take control of the gps port.
I think if you get no gps device then you either have one of these programs running or (most likely) your gps settings (other NEMA,4800,com2) are incorrect.
For no gps signal most probably your my documents folder or its registry entry are messing it up. Your my documents (original or mapped) should have tomtom folder with one map reference file to keep it working.
May 31st, 2007 at 9:05 am
Sorry for the confusion, it’s not that I had “no” signal, just a very weak and/or inconsistent one. I was getting a signal because the GPS unit worked while driving around but no where near as well as it used to (laggy/incorrect street nearby, etc)
I was thinking of another scenario that might have “fixed” my unit as well and from what you say it goes along my thoughts as well. Maybe it’s not that one of both of those programs needs to be running but rather the opposite — one or both should NOT be running otherwise it may interfere with the GPS hardware communication with TT.
I found the ITaskManager application that randy mentioned above so as soon as I can I’ll grab the list of processes running on my unit and see what’s going on. I seem to remember that around the same time I started running the GPSViewer utility is when I started having problems as well. Maybe the viewer spawns off something that resides in the background or something similar. Regardless, I think we’re very close!
May 31st, 2007 at 12:36 pm
Ok, I used ITaskManager to view the running processes on my unit. The following is the complete list (minus ITaskManager.exe):
maapp.exe
udp2tcp.exe
rapisrv.exe
repllog.exe
OVL_Manager.exe
GPSMC.exe
explorer.exe
gwes.exe
device.exe
filesys.exe
NK.EXE
Randy, I hope this helps a bit. I want so much to mess around with it to try and figure out what causes the problems but don’t want to lose what I currently have, haha.
May 31st, 2007 at 5:51 pm
Can someone linkme / send the original software? i accidentally deleted it and i would like to try this
-Thanks!
June 1st, 2007 at 12:14 pm
Wow. After seeing Robs comment on getting the signal bars back I tried running the original GPS prog (Gate5_Nand), then I exited and ran TomTom and the strength meter was working and satellite bars were blue. But unlike Rob, mine went back to the way it was on a hard reset. I am running from the internal flash though. Need to experiment some.
June 3rd, 2007 at 9:40 am
i installed my TOMTOM to the /myflashdis/mobilenavigator/ folder (after backup the orignal files) renamed tom tom navigator.exe to mobilenavigator.exe
Now when i start my nav-cam it launches the standerd liteon-app .. so i can configure sound and whatnot… then when i tap the “navigator” button it launches tomtom…
works good. AND having tomtom on the “myflashdisk” gived me 22mb of free space for voices without taking away program RAM….
June 3rd, 2007 at 7:01 pm
I confirmed the behavior reported by Rob and Wilfred that if I run original GPS prog (Gate5_Nand), exit it and then start tomtom I get tomtom strength bar signals and blue bars in satellite map. Normal exiting will keep it working but if you do a soft reset and directly start tomtom then you are back to no signal bars. I looked at the process list using Itaskmanager and there is no process added in the list if you start Gate5_Nand and exit.
For those of you interested in ITaskmanager you can download it from http://www001.upp.so-net.ne.jp/ishi/wince/itaskmgr/itaskmgr_cab.zip and use the files in folder ARM. Run the cab file and add toolhelp.dll in windows folder again from arm folder from ( http://www001.upp.so-net.ne.jp/ishi/wince/itaskmgr/toolhelp_ce211.zip )
June 5th, 2007 at 3:31 pm
Anyone got any luck changing the My Document folders to point to the \SDMMC
I changed the REG key but it seems that is has no effect ( i go to windows Explorer, browse to my documents and its still empty )
June 5th, 2007 at 6:09 pm
Can you run Gate5_Nand and get a fix without having its map files available to it?
Also, is there some documentation somewhere for the GPSViewer 3 utility? Has a whole lot of stuff in it including what looks like a manual command entry. Could it be that we just need to feed it a specific init string, or command or turn on/off specific options?
June 6th, 2007 at 6:24 pm
Folks – I need help! I’ll try to keep this initial post brief, but I can provide far greater technical data for anyone who may need it to assist me. I have taken GREAT notes, I’m just at a loss.
The very short version – I have TomTom6 running on my Evesham, I love it, maps and satellitle detection are perfect, but I can’t get voices to work.
Slightly more elaborate – I think I *originally* installed TT6 with NO VOICE FOLDER and launched / configured it without one there, so that may be where it all started to go awry, but here’s where I’m at right now. Maps are of course on the SDMMC root, and I have tried moving, installing, etc. the Navigator folder to several locations (SD card, \MyDevice\MyStorage\Program Files\Navigator\
\MyDevice\Program Files\Navigator\
a few other places. TT6 always works flawlessly from any location, but having voice files in a \Voices\ folder OR loose in the same directory as the TT EXE file, they never work. Additionally, I’ve even left voice files (CHK, BMP, VIF and RAR files) in all of those paths and run TT from the OTHER locations thinking maybe it looks for a *specific* path, not a *relative* path. I also tried finding a REG KEY that maybe holds the \voices\ path thinking I could just change that. I removed TT6 (though it doesn’t FULLY remove itself, and when I reinstall, it doesn’t prompt for a registration key again, sat settings are all intact, etc… so I doubt it has ANY effect at all to remove / reinstall.
The only options I have EVER seen for voices are the 7 canned names (Ken, etc.) and they say to download or get from the CD)
WHAT AM I MISSING ??? HOW DO I FIX THIS ???
BTW, my assumption is that the correct place for this to ultimately land is \MyDevice\MyStorage\Program Files\Navigator\
since that is where I have 900MB free right now and where the OEM stuff was, but… anyway…
PLEASE!!!
June 6th, 2007 at 7:10 pm
Brian: I’m pretty sure the following should help you: You need to delete the “collected” file inside the voice folder. That file is the list of voices installed, so merely copying the files into the voice folder won’t get them recognized, you have to delete that file, so it will find the voices that are there. Give it shot, good luck!
ANYONE: I’ve been able to duplicate the same behavior in order to get the signal bars, and I was thinking along the same lines as Cecil, but I can’t find any documentation for the GPSViewer program ANYWHERE. I tried searching for some of the individual options, and didn’t have any luck. I’m sure there’s a way to “evesdrop” on the communication taking place on the COM ports using a debugger or something, but that’s more work than I’m prepared to do, unless I get *really* bored in the future. Opening and closing the program every time I do a soft reset seems like a pain, too, just to get signal bars. I don’t really have any major problems getting a satellite fix, though, I just don’t have signal bars.
I’ve been playing with the GPSViewer program, but I think it might be a lost cause without documentation.
I *do* have a nice menu system working now, hopefully I’ll have it ready to share with you guys in a few days.
June 6th, 2007 at 8:54 pm
Randy, I replied to your email as well, but I sincerely apologize for not touching on this… I have definitely deleted the collected.ini file… NUMEROUS TIMES, PER HOUR, FOR SEVERAL DAYS. Sorry for the lack of mentioning it, but this one isn’t that simple. I’ve also gone the route of powering off and on often to see if memory or running processes are playing a role. The ONLY thing I can think so far is that, my initial install was sooo wrong, maybe something didn’t finish or a reg key isn’t right or something.
Maybe the place to start diagnosing is this way (but you all tell me)
A) Where SHOULD the application be installed (which folder, drive, etc.)
B) Does the VOICES folder have to be somewhere SPECIFIC, or just relative to the TomTomNavigator.exe \Voices
C) What SHOULD the registry entries look like related to TomTom so I can check paths there.
D) Maybe the easiest fix… how do I TOTALLY UNINSTALL, then HOW DO I PROPERLY INSTALL.
To elaborate there, I have a CD with a lot of stuff, much of it I’m sure is extra / not needed, but what of the following post SHOULD I be using (assuming I can start from scratch – and by the way, a HARD RESET does not start me from scratch. The unit still knows it’s had TomTom on it. Anyway, the next post right after this will contain a directory listing of what I HAVE, but quite simply, my install process has gone like this basically…
1) Run tomtom_navigator_6.cab from SDMMC (5,506,984 kb)
2) Manually create a \Voices\ folder within that installation (and other places)
3) Insert various voice file sets (CHK, VIF, BMP)
3) Launch TomTom and configure
4) Not hear voices
June 7th, 2007 at 12:40 am
Brian: I had the same problem too. You have to copy the voices to your \program files\navigator\voices folder. Since its the RAM space, i just copied the english ones.
June 7th, 2007 at 12:57 pm
btw i got 6.02 running fine. However there a little “line” between the status bar and the map that doenst get refreshed when i go into menus and whatnot, its barely noticeable but annoying still. I installed 6.00 back.
June 9th, 2007 at 5:58 pm
In response to Mark who changed TomTom to MobileNavigator.exe to run it from the LiteonAP:
I did the same thing and got it to work the the volume and stuff. However, I notice that if I close TomTom, I can no longer it to open again from the LiteonAP. Also the LiteonAP ends up being on top so I can no longer select the taskbar from autohide. Have to do a hard-reset to get back to the desktop to run again.
Anything else that you did to get around this? Did you restore the registry so that it loads into LiteonAP on startup instead of going into Windows?
June 10th, 2007 at 11:36 pm
Randy here-
Just an invitation for everyone to check out the new article I just posted, with instructions for installing a menu replacement, and also a utility for quick restoration after hard resets. Feel free to leave comments, questions, and/or suggestions there.
June 11th, 2007 at 2:34 pm
Just wanted to second that when I use the liteon app to launch tomtom, you can’t get back… exiting tomtom leaves you at the liteon app and you can’t even run the mp3 player or anything from there…
June 11th, 2007 at 4:02 pm
How are you guys mapping the My Documents folder to \SDMMC? I changed HKLM\System\Explorer\Shell Folders\My Documents to point to \SDMMC, but after a soft reset the card will be named \SDMMC2.
June 11th, 2007 at 4:13 pm
Randy tried your new installer and it doesn’t seem to be working for me… It keeps tossing errors during the auto copy process, not being able to make directories or copy files… seems maybe if a directory exists it will fail remaking it or copying and while your guide says run navicam restor from the room, it seems the ini file refers to files being on your sd card under the restorenavicam folder, not the root…
June 11th, 2007 at 4:36 pm
Managed to get it to more or less install I think by wiping out all the directories as clean as possible and running again… few questions…
Is the mio tool supposed to be in spanish? All my shortcuts have spanish names…
Also roughly how many of your shortcuts are supposed to work? I am going to dig around and see if maybe I can manually copy things in place to get more working but would be nice to have some idea how far I am trying to get.
Overall great work Randy, can’t thank you enough for making this page… I don’t even use a GPS that often, but just all the tinkering has made it worth the $$$ already!
June 11th, 2007 at 4:55 pm
If you’re referring to the shortcuts on the menu, everything on the first page of the menu should work, restart on the second, and the top row on the last page of the menu.
If you’re seeing Spanish, you need to tap “Skin” to get back to the language-less skin (keep tapping the icon on the lower-right until you get to the menu page containing “Skin”. The author is from Spain, and set it up so you could switch between two sets of menus. What you’re seeing is the secondary menu. “Skin” should take you back to the primary, which is the one I set up with shortcuts that should work.
The menu is completely customizable. You can give any button any icon you want, and have it launch any program you want. You just need to edit the navigator.ini file in the Navigator folder under Program Files. (all the “tomtomXXXXX” files are for the Spanish skin) You can even edit the placement of the buttons, if you really wanted to!
Don’t forget to apply the changes to the same .ini file under the SD card, restore folder, navigator folder as well, or they will be lost when you do a hard reset!
-Randy
June 11th, 2007 at 5:51 pm
Thanks Randy, I think I got it mostly sorted and put the icons I really like on the first page… sadly I ended up getting stuck and had to hard reset and somehow wiped out all my tom tom stuff (including maps on the storage folder which I thought was safe…) so I gotta go home and reload all that…
One last thing I am thinking of… now that there is no taskbar, is there a way to have tcpmp playing a video file while tomtom navigates in the background using this menu system?
I suppose one could always exit out to the desktop for this…
June 11th, 2007 at 10:12 pm
John,
MyFlashDisk and the SDMMC are the only places left untouched after a hard reset. I’d recommend installing TomTom app to MyFlashDisk, and the maps to SDMMC. (I realize I probably need to add this bit of info to the instructions)
Re: the taskbar, I think the answer is no. If only there was a minimize button! I’ve been loading “Explorer.exe” just to get the taskbar, in order to do what you’ve just described.
June 12th, 2007 at 7:31 am
Good work everyone! I love my 7700 with TomTom installed!… only one question. Is there a way to “calibrate” the GPS so it is more accurate? Mine is sometimes a little off. It still gets me there, but has some issues. If I get off on an exit on the interstate, it will keep me on the interstate for a few seconds until it realizes I’m not there anymore and will “jump” me over to the exit ramp. It will also try to take streets going off to the left at times…. It’s almost like the GPS thinks I’m a few car lenths left of where I actually am. Sometimes if I’m in a downtown aread it will put me on the wrong road nearby if roads are close. I’ve tried every baud rate with little or no effect.
June 12th, 2007 at 10:59 am
Bad news: that’s not the GPS, but rather TomTom that is causing the issue. The fix from the GPS is pretty good, but not quite good enough for TomTom to know with certainty when you’ve made a turn, until you get far enough away from the road you were on… I doubt there’s a simple fix for this. Integrated factory navigation systems in cars are way better, because they get inputs from the car as well, and combine it with the GPS information, and that helps the computer more accurately determine what’s going on.
You have given me an idea, though. You can read about the “signal bars” issue from previous comments. We’d have to try it, but maybe when TomTom has the signal bars, it will make better decisions when you make turns, too… You could give it a try, too. All you have to do is load the factory nav software, wait til it gets a fix, and then exit and go to TomTom. You should notice that the signal bars work. Then drive around and see if it responds any better. Let me know if it does!
June 12th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
Thanks Randy… for some reason I don’t like having the maps on the SD card… not sure why, maybe because someday I MIGHT want to pull it out to load songs while I am driving… ok that’s a long shot.. but the nerd in my likes to have things all tidy
At the moment I am looking at the original software and seeing if I can strip out a majority of the maps so the whole thing stays small and can take up a small footprint in memory as I can confirm that running it first does make the sat strength bars work and also improves tomtoms ability to be shut down without exiting (I get sat lock in 35 seconds every time I turn it on, literally when the display should say signal lost 35 seconds ago it gets a signal – unless I turned it off recently in which case it’s a few seconds)…
June 12th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
One other thing.. is anyone else noticing the clock running fast? Mine gained bout 7 hours in a 2 hour period of being on… when I watch the seconds tick they are definitely too fast… that’s very odd…
June 12th, 2007 at 12:40 pm
OK on second look it seems the seconds do run fast, but the major problem is it keeps resetting region to Greenwich Mean time which throws it off quite a bit (I am in CA). I notice there was a reg file for east coast time included in the restore, is that some kind of permanent fix for east coasters?
June 12th, 2007 at 1:01 pm
OK so the slimmest I could get the stock software was to strip out the great britain post codes (unless you need them) and then strip out all the POI Files and all maps accept for DC.map1 2 3 and GAZ (I think DC is the smallest map consisting of about 260KB). I think it’s still just shy of being able to put the NA and Canada map pack on at the same time though…
June 12th, 2007 at 1:37 pm
Got it… TCPMP, Stock navigator and NA and Canada all on the internal memory… yeah I know it will get dumped if I reset but I just wanted to get it done somehow
Now technically I can run it without an SD card.
This also means that if you want to carry a full backup around for the heck of it it will all fit on a 1 GB Card
I feel somehow satisfied…
June 12th, 2007 at 2:54 pm
Randy,
I already tried, and do use it with the signal bars working… but it hasn’t affected the GPS’ accuracy at all… Only thing I notice different is it gives me signal bars, and the signal bars when I configure GPS are blue now.
I guess I will have to live with it
June 12th, 2007 at 3:17 pm
Tay I had it do that to me for the first time Sunday (admittedly I don’t use it often) but I think it was on a new section of road that maybe wasn’t in the map properly… it got very confused, showed me way off in the middle of nowhere and figured it out about a minute later.
But normally it’s pretty spot on for me and shows me at corners right when I get to them..
June 12th, 2007 at 8:02 pm
I’m want to clean everything off and start from scratch before I load this new menu thing on…. only problem is, I can’t erase anything! I try and do a “super hard reset” by holding power and moving the switch off and on, it goes through the process and I recalibrate my screen and expect the thing to be empty… but it’s just as I left it! tomtom is in the “MyStorage 2″ folder (which seems to magically create itself if I put it in the “MyStorage” folder. My windows CE is still there, along with the regedit program and mobilenavigatorOLD.exe… how do I wipe the hole thing clean?
June 12th, 2007 at 8:34 pm
Once you get the new menu loaded, is there a way for you to launch the music player and then minimize it so that you can load Tomtom.
June 13th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
MyStorage remains even after a hard reset. Heck it will still be there after a “super hard reset”. Thats were my map files are.
For the whos having problems maping the My Documents folder, you cant just map it to SDMMC, it will create an SDMMC2 folder. You have a to create a MyDocuments folder in SDMMC and MAKE SURE ITS EMPTY (otherwise it will create the SDMMC2 folder ).
This is what i did and im running 6.02 perfectly, i have the maps on MyStorage.
1- Start clean ( if your using the SD, Format it, if your using MyStorage delete everything in there ), this will make sure you dont get the “2″ folders.
2- Do a hard reset, then confirm you dont have any “2″ folders.
3- Copy or Create the “MyDocuments” folder into MyStorage\( or SD)
4- You should have now the path \MyStorage\MyDocuments
5- Edit the MyDocuments key to \MyStorage\MyDocuments
6- Copy your maps into there.
Easy.
June 13th, 2007 at 7:16 pm
David, very interesting… that’s good to know in case future map updates require new version of Tom Tom etc…
One thing, have you found out what happens if you map to SDMMC and take the card out? Does it crash or anything? My biggest fear with this thing is alwyas that I will find a way to brick it…
June 14th, 2007 at 12:19 am
I dont think it would affect windows at all ( bricking it ) since MyDocuments is not a critical folder. However Tomtom will most probrably complain about not able to find a map.
June 14th, 2007 at 11:56 am
I’m having a lot of trouble with the new file that is supposed to restore everything after a hard reset… when I click the Nav7700Restore.exe in the root of my SD card, it gives me a bunch of “ERROR #6″ messages (copy\SDMMC\navcam7700Restore\Unlock\Windows\Windows… and a bunch of other ones…. I get the menu working sort of by copying some of the unlock folders to their respective folders on the GPS itself, but I don’t know where they all go (like utilities and registry). I can’t get tomtom to load from the new menu either, most other things seem to work fine… do I have to name TomTom something to get it to open with the menu? It’s currently named TomTom Navigator.exe
June 14th, 2007 at 1:14 pm
You have to edit your Navigator.ini ( the one fromt he D100 ) load menu to point to where you installed TomTom.
June 14th, 2007 at 1:24 pm
what can I use to edit a .ini file?
June 14th, 2007 at 2:21 pm
ok, nvm… got that…. how do I edit the .c31 file? is there a program I need to edit it?
June 14th, 2007 at 3:43 pm
well, I think I may have figured that out on my own too…. where do the registry files go? can I access them somehow?
June 14th, 2007 at 4:18 pm
All those files you mentioned are text files.
You can use notepad to edit them.
June 18th, 2007 at 1:10 am
I have a 770 With USA mapping installed I want to use in in the UK & Ireland I have the mapping from the nav-can 64 but it will not show points of intrest it says no data base available but it is on the card . Mapping is ok but freezing at times ok if you shot down from the start up screen
any advice
June 26th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
I was able to install Miomap 3.2 on my nav-cam. The graphics are far more superior than tomtom. There are so many skins available which can be customized as well. State wise maps are available so you can put a couple of states in internal memory without deleting original navcam software and no need to use SD card.
I noticed tomtom taking a little longer to get gps signal than original software but miomap doesn’t take any longer than original.
Mio POI database is also better than tomtom.
For those who would like to attempt it, I had to change sys.txt file for landscape mode and was not able to run IGO plus.
June 26th, 2007 at 6:14 pm
Cool! Any instructions of how to do it? was it hard?
June 27th, 2007 at 1:14 am
qaiser: I tried installing it, the first time i ran setup, it installed but it crashed. Now when i try to run setup.exe again, it complains that it cant find it even though its there.
Any ideas?
June 27th, 2007 at 2:34 am
update: Qaiser i managed to install it, but when i run, it starts in portrait mode ( im assuming since there is black bar on the right side of the screen ) and i get an error message saying something about
Failed to open file:
uip_mio/daylight/startlang_320_240_scheme.ui
June 27th, 2007 at 5:46 am
It would be a great contribution to this forum and community if anyone can solve the issue of “fatal application error” when powering the unit off without exiting Tomtom first.
(-:-)
June 27th, 2007 at 12:48 pm
Nevermind, i managed to install MioMap 3.2. Dunno, its pretty but i think i like TomTom better. Much more intuitive.
Frank: Just dont run it from you SDcard? Because im running it from MyFlashdisk and i dont get that problem at all.
June 27th, 2007 at 7:29 pm
my startup.txt file is below. This should overcome the portrait issue. Open the data.zip where most of the files are located goto the specified folder to find why is it complaining. You can find a lot of mioskins which are actually complete data.zip files. try replacing your data.zip with that
[debug]
smart_2d=1
slowsim=1
loop_sim=1
show_oneway=1
[interface]
mio=1
landscape=0
portrait=1
width=320
height=240
base=”ui_mio/”
basel=”ui_mio/”
[gps]
protocol=”NMEA”
com_port=2
com_port_speed=4800
June 27th, 2007 at 10:24 pm
my previous message for startup.txt read sys.txt. In addition verify that data.zip has ui_mio folder or replace the two lines (igo or igo_se1) accordingly
June 29th, 2007 at 1:08 am
after i accidentally let my battery die. I had to do a hard reset to clean up the device and reinstall my software. I’ve got TCPMP and TomTom running fine, the menu seems to install from the navcam7700restore.exe, but when I try to run it I get an error “Error en Navigator.ini” and then in a box it says “FileNotFoundException” I’m not sure what file it would be looking for. I’ve reverted to the default Navigator.ini from the Unlock\Navigator folder. do you know what file it might be looking for? could it be one of the icons listed in the .ini file? is it possible it cant find the .ini file at all?
any insight you could provide will be helpful.
thanks
June 29th, 2007 at 11:58 am
nvm, I forgot to copy my custom icons over.
June 29th, 2007 at 7:42 pm
Thanks for the work on miomaps, I would like to try it but when I try to load it using your system.txt I get an error loading uip_mio/daylight/main_320_240_scheme.ui
The thing is th file exists but it’s named 240_320… am I doing something wrong here?
June 29th, 2007 at 10:58 pm
OK I have no idea what I did but finally miomaps is working for me, however a lot of the menus and such seem to be coded for a different resolution with menu bars not reaching the whole way across sometimes and often buttons covering other buttons and such… I am trying other skins but getting the same unable to access 320 240 error…
June 30th, 2007 at 1:17 am
And now after a few more hours of tinkering I still can’t get it to pick up the GPS signal. The stock software shows a 3D fix, but the mio just won’t get a signal… I get the feeling I am using a slightly wrong version or something….
I tried installing via the setup.exe but it fails mid install.
So I downloaded an “alternative” method of using it and it’s labled Miomaps3.2 and the program shows that it’s mio Digiwalker 3.2… is that the right one?
Thanks for any help…
June 30th, 2007 at 6:43 pm
OK i got it working… there was some trickiness to enabling the detect GPS button (adding the sys.txt lines didn’t do it for mine) and getting the skins to run properly in portrait mode.
Now that it works I do really like it because there is so much tweaking to be done with it… the skin community for this program has done a LOT and it’s quite a fancy little program…
Which is it’s downside…
Just a bit too fancy and complex… maybe on a 5 inch or bigger screen it would all work out better but it’s a bit cramped on the 7700 screen and it really isn’t as intuitive as tomto although it has some cool features that tomtom is missing.
For me the big part is now I can record track logs which is going to save me from buying an etrex just to do that on my upcoming trip to China (I Want to load where I go into google earth).
I actually went out and got a few other GPS programs to test out and see how they work so this 7700 could really become awesome as a 5 GPS prog in 1 plus media player device
July 1st, 2007 at 1:49 am
I have both and i like TomTom better. It seems like Tomtom works better on a smaller screen, like John mentioned there a lot of stuff cramped in the small screen. Although in terms on graphics, MioMap sure its pretty, but i thini ill stay with Tomtom.
July 1st, 2007 at 3:03 am
Yeah I think for 95% of my normal driving it’s TomTom, but it is definitely fun to tinker with Mio and of course there is the track log thing that I can only get with Mio.
July 2nd, 2007 at 2:08 pm
Has anyone noticed when using the screen blanking button on the menu (dark screen which makes the backlight go off) the backlight comes back on to a black screen after a few minutes more or less negating the value of turning off the backlight?
July 2nd, 2007 at 9:40 pm
I had the same problem with no GPS data going to TomTom (got the “no valid GPS signal” error after briefly having it working properly), with TT loaded on the SD card. Tried hard reset/soft reset, power on/off, going outside, yadayada. I wasn’t getting GPS output in the original Evesham app, either. That didn’t give me the warm fuzzies at all.
I ended up doing a hard reset, relocating Evesham app folder “Navigator” to SD card, copying TT to “\MyStorage\MobileNavigator” and running it from there. I also was sure *not* starting GPSViewer at all, and finally got GPS output working again.
It’s been a bit of a struggle to get it worked out and functional again.
I am using TT 6.0.0 from the mobilenavigator.rar file posted by Capitan in another forum.
Ordering Teletype GPS Pro to try to get it running on it as well (need topo/off road since I want to use it on my motorcycle)–they are running a special at the moment on US/Canada for with both PC & PPC software included, and it can use topo from the terraserver-usa.com servers (or stuff you scan yourself). TT will be my backup if that doesn’t work out.
July 5th, 2007 at 4:21 pm
Have anyone noticed the POI in TT6 has limited information, not even a piece of information on Walmart, Home Depot or Lowe’s. I am here at zip 75070, if anyone does get the information, please let me know at jasperlws@hotmail.com.
Thanks!
July 9th, 2007 at 10:05 pm
Jasper,
It’s the TomTom maps, unfortunately. You can get third party add-on POIs, just Google for TomTom POIs. The ones I know of are mostly speed traps or red light cameras, though. I found one that has all the Target locations nationwide, though!
MioMap seems to have a much better POI database, but I don’t care for the interface… I’m going to keep MioMap on an SD card for the rare occasions I need to find a Wal-Mart in a foreign location, and can’t use my cell phone to call 800-GOOG-411.
Randy
July 11th, 2007 at 3:44 pm
Randy,
You are right, it is the Tom tom maps. Anyway, I created my own custom POI for common business like Walmart, Target, McDonald’s, Wendy’s. Home Depot, Lowes, and so on. Now I’ve got all the POI information in TTN6 and it is real useful. They are just small piece of kb files that I put on my 1GB SD, but the map was lag when I turn all the POI categories ON, but once I disabled certain POI, the map works flawlessly like before with no lag or slow response, anyway, I still get a chance to search for all the POI information I saved.
Jasper
July 11th, 2007 at 9:15 pm
Hi all,
Just a quick note and a plug for my new application. I’ve written a front-end GUI application somewhat similar to the Navigator-type program that Randy has found except that my application is totally and completely configurable and is ready to go. If you are interested in having a nice “launch” front-end for your device check out my application at the following site: http://www.aycardus.com/launchce/default.htm
I’m hoping to get a bunch of people to use it and interested in user-skins to change the look (it is totally configurable/skinnable).
I learned a lot about this device because of sites like this and the help of our small “NavCam” community so I wanted to give something back. I hope you guys enjoy it.
July 12th, 2007 at 11:59 pm
I seem to have bricked my navcam
I had only set it up to start explorer but not loaded any extra software (tomtom, etc) and I left it in the glovebox in the car for a few weeks. It rattled around a bit, and now it won’t turn on. I can flip the reset switch and then the backlight will come on after a few seconds, but nothing else.
I popped the top and check things out a little just in case something obvious was the problem (bad solder joint, etc), but it’s a pretty simple.
Bummer. I wonder if I can get it exchanged or my money back. Anyone have any ideas?
July 17th, 2007 at 9:50 am
@codesuidae
Try charging it overnight and then restart.
July 19th, 2007 at 9:22 am
I found some files on the net purporting to have the “last” version of the TomTom maps which supposedly have better POI info in them. I’ve yet to install them though as I have had a bunch of other stuff going on. My POI backup plan currently will be a dump of my route out of Streets and Trips w/20 mi POI radius to a different SD card. Streets and Trips for the PDA doesn’t route.
July 20th, 2007 at 7:37 pm
I tried charging it, I left it plugged in for a couple of days, no change.
Evesham has a 12 month warranty on these things, I’m going to see if I can get it repaired or replaced. If I can’t get that done I’ll see about accessing the GPS portion of the unit, I imagine that still works. Maybe I can get it to talk to a microcontroller so at least I can have a display-less gps (with a nice SD card slot)
July 20th, 2007 at 8:03 pm
Can *anybody* point me to where I can get the correct Tomtom software for this hack? I’m having zero luck on ebay winning it. Does somebody have a copy they’d be willing to sell?
July 25th, 2007 at 10:55 am
Hey Rob, thanks for the front end. Works well for me! Keep up the good work.
It was a little hairy getting .Net and TomTom AND your app all installed internally, but I finally got it done. I think some bits are oozing out the sides because I’ve got it so crammed full now.
July 29th, 2007 at 12:08 pm
” hchanrn Says:
May 14th, 2007 at 10:42 pm
Anyone out there figure out the usb connectivity problem? I have an email out to nav-cam. Got tired of waiting on the phone.”
Check your firewall settings. The ActiveSync software uses tcp to connect. Most fire wall block this.
: ActiveSync files include:
Wcesmgr.exe
Wcescomm.exe
Rapimgr.exe
Inbound TCP:
990
999
5678
5721
26675
Outbound UDP:
5679
check out: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/help/activesync/default.mspx
For more details…
August 1st, 2007 at 8:29 pm
Problems with home location not saving: delete the *.cfg file in the map folder
Not a bad idea to delete the cfg in the tomtom main folder too. Seem to help with my gps lock on. still no green bars but I deleted my oem map software. Tomtom will rebuild the .cfg files upon restart. = no harm. I get a lock in less than 1min on starting app.
Not sure if any of this has been posted yet. Did not se it.
August 7th, 2007 at 12:01 pm
To all those having problems acquiring the GPS signal… I too would often get “Waiting for valid GPS signal”, and I *think* I may have it figured out – or at least part of it.
It seems when you boot the device, and goto GPSViewer first, and then go into TomTom, it can’t see the GPS hardware. This is complete guess, but it seems GPSViewer keeps a lock on something that TomTom needs to access. In all cases, I was able to reset (sometimes two resets back to back), and TomTom would acquire the GPS signal in under a minute (of course, I would go into TomTom first after booting the device, and loading Randy’s menu.
I hope this helps – and thanks for this blog! I couldn’t have gotten this far without it!!!
August 10th, 2007 at 5:23 am
Is there anyway to restore the Navcam 7700 to its absolute default/factory condition? I can’t even sync it anymore, so I can’t access the MyFlashDisk etc from windows. TomTom installation failed horribly. Thanks for any help.
September 18th, 2007 at 12:55 am
Has anyone been able to get TomTom working on the nav-cam 7000? I just wooted one. I’ve tried the steps laid out for the 7700 but I can’t get it to work. Thoughts?
October 2nd, 2007 at 10:54 pm
Nav-Cam RMA department replaced my dead GPS unit. Hopefully the new one will keep working.
November 29th, 2007 at 5:54 am
Can anyone have the steps to install another navigator software in nav-cam 7000.? Can i hack the desktop.?
January 21st, 2008 at 8:25 am
Hello all, this is a wonderful source of info for this device. I am having one last problem though. The GPS viewer shows the GPS connected on COM 7. TomTom only gives me two com ports to choose from (2 & 5). Any way to get the GPS onto one of those ports verus COM 7?
Any help appreciated greatly.
January 26th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Jim set it up at com 2, and baud rate anywhere from 9600 to 57K
January 26th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
I successfully installed iGuidance v4 on navcam you can lookup instructions on gps passion forum “iGuidance v4 on Mio C310x”.
GUI is average and far inferior to mio/IGO but but NAVTEQ maps,best routing algorithm and TTS (text to speech – spoken street names) make it a good chioce for some users.
February 9th, 2008 at 11:41 pm
miomap v3.3 with TTS available at http://rapidshare.com/files/73948017/ItWorks.rar works on nav-cam with some changes to the sys.txt file i.e.
[interface]
landscape=0
width=320
height = 240
mio=1
base=”mio\320_240\”
basel=”mio\320_240\”
February 16th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
Hi Qaiser
Can you help me if i need to change anything else to install after moving itworks.rar to sd card and change the add above text to sys.txt
February 23rd, 2008 at 12:46 pm
@ Gopi
I kept playing around with it so I don’t remember exactly but I think that was the only change. I don’t visit this page regularly so u can email me at qaiserpk at gmail dot com.
February 24th, 2008 at 8:44 am
My navcam battery didn’t last long now. If i didn’t use it for a couple of days, it won’t retain the temporary settings like desktop shortcuts. I had to manually update my shortcuts and run the gps software.
My solution was to use mortscript (http://www.sto-helit.de/index.php) . I call this script through registry at start up. This automatically updates my desktop shortcuts and runs the software Igo.
To use the script use PNA folder in mortscript download and rename the autorun.exe to anything like start.exe and create a new file start.mscr and put the script in this file.
I am posting the script for reference. you can modify it
#This script restore a clean shortcuts to windows
If (DirExists(“\MyStorage\links”))
Delete “\Windows\Desktop\*.lnk”
XCopy “\MyStorage\links\*.lnk”, “\Windows\Desktop\”
EndIf
# Run iGO and run taskbar after exit
RunWait \MyStorage\igo\iGO.exe
run \MyStorage\tools\Taskbar.exe
exit
Now with battery dead (hard reset) I just plug in the power turn and I am ready to go.
April 16th, 2008 at 3:34 am
Alrighty, somewhere along the way I messed up. Trying to get back to factory defaults for everything so I can at least use the Navcam software. Could anyone link me or hook me up with the files from the Original Navcam CD? Thanks in Advance!
April 27th, 2008 at 10:42 am
i need help ! can you help me. i bought a sat nav off of e,bay about 5 months ago, it was working perfectly normal until one day it came up fatal application error. now every time i touch the screne for navigation the display comes up fatal application error. is there anyone who can help me. many thanx.
October 7th, 2008 at 12:50 am
Is there any way to make Windows CE recognize traditional Chinese in it?
I moved back to Taiwan and I downloaded tomtom’s Taiwan Map pack, but I just can’t get it to work…it won’t recognize the files due to the fact that Windows CE doesn’t ready Chinese. Any methods?
Ed
January 11th, 2009 at 11:48 am
does anyone know if nav cam’s company is still in business. lost a wall charger and needed replacement. tried to contact the u.s. address and the one on the company site and just got my emails bounced back to me. any ideas?
January 21st, 2009 at 10:36 am
tector, I had to get mine replaced a while back (oct 07, see above) so they were still in business then. They used to be at http://www.lowestonweb.com, but that’s broken right now. When I contacted them they sent me this:
> I suggest that you contact our US support team using
> the following details:
>
> Call toll free: 866-268-8515
> 9am – 5pm US Central Time Monday-Friday
>
> Email: usasupport@nav-cam.com
>
> Regards,
> Sam Price – Customer Support – Lowest on Web
> Tel: +44 (0)906 265 4000 (£1 per minute)
> Fax: +44 (0)1386 769796
> http://www.lowestonweb.com
That put me in contact with a servicing company located at:
Nav-Cam
123 Main Street
Manning, Iowa 51455
And yes, that is a real address. I received an RMA number and form from Linda at Nav-Cam Support. I shipped just the GPS unit and received back a replacement.
If you can’t get an official replacement power cord you can probably find something off the shelf to do the job. If you still have the car charger you can measure the connector to determine what you need to look for.
January 21st, 2009 at 10:45 am
I’m curious if anyone has any information about getting NMEA format data out of the Nav-Cam 7700?
Ideally I’d like to get the NMEA sentences out the USB port, but I don’t know if that is possible. I wouldn’t mind replacing the navigation software with something else that can read the GPS com port and provide a simple text display on the device screen, while sending NMEA sentences out the USB port.
The primary problem here is that I don’t know much about what is currently handling that USB port. Can the software on the device that connects to ActiveSync be disabled so that another application can take over the port?
If I can’t do that, or if it is too dangerous (risking bricking the thing again) I’ll consider opening it to piggy-back a connection on the GPS chip inside. I can route this out to an external connector to get the raw data from the GPS.
Can someone post information about development environments that can be used to write software for this device?
Thanks!
December 24th, 2009 at 12:02 pm
Wow, this site is amazing…….great info for the nav-cams…….. But I still have the same problem I started with. I cant get winxp to see my nav-cam. I cant update or modify it. I would love to put tt6 on there…… any help would be very very…appr…..