Windows Phone Thoughts: The Big Red Box for PPCs -- Pocket Mechanic Professional v2.23

How Well Do They Work?
Below are timings for each of the functions, running on a lightly loaded (not many apps) Axim X50v which was upgraded to WM5. All tests were done with the Axim on external power and with only Activesync running:

Card Info - 4.3 secs to retrieve all info from 2GB Sandisk SD; 4.4 sec to retrieve all info from 512MB Sandisk CF;
Free Ram - 1 min 22 secs to hibernate 4 processes, defrag and optimize heap of 15 processes;
Card Benchmark - 36 mins 20 secs to run all file system benchmarks on 2GB Sandisk SD card; 28.05 secs to run all low level tests on 2GB Sandisk SD card;
Fragmentation Status - 6.13 secs to analyze 2GB Sandisk SD;
Defragment - 12.3 secs to analyze and defrag 2GB Sandisk SD;
Slack Analysis - 6.13 secs to provide Slack stats on 2GB Sandisk SD;
Format – (Not run, as I didn’t have a card I wanted to blow away);
Recover Bad Sectors - 10.35 secs to analyze and recover bad sectors from 2GB Sandisk SD;
CE Databases - would not work on my upgraded Axim X50v;
Find Duplicate Files - 21.36 secs to scan 733 files and identify 16 duplicates (skips files in ROM, system and read-only files;
Find Invalid Shortcuts - 5.23 secs to scan 127 shortcuts with no invalids found;
Large Files - 8.33 secs to enumerate large files on entire device, including SD and CF cards, but skipping those in Read only, System, Hidden and ROM files;
Large Folders - 28.23 secs to scan 176 folders on entire device, including SD and CF cards, but skipping files which are Read Only, System, Hidden, and in ROM;
Notification Queue - 1 min, 33 secs to scan 76 notifications, with no duplicates found (all options selected);
File System Cleanup - 17 mins, 7 secs to find 324 files in 34 folders that matched the cleanup rules (all were selected);
Registry Cleanup - 16.40 secs to find 5 invalid keys (all options selected);
Uninstall Apps - about 14 secs to populate the list of applications;
Relocate - about 14 secs to populate the list of applications - 32 secs to move the files, update the registry and update the shortcuts for a medium-sized application (Resco File Explorer).

Of all the tools provided in Pocket Mechanic Pro, the one that generates the most information is the Benchmark testing. As you can see from the timings above, running all the benchmark tests can take considerable time, but you get back a wealth of comparative info about your card. You can even run the benchmarks against your RAM! After the benchmark tests have completed, you can view comparison graphs for your card, a number of cards, and finally a report of the results.


Figure 8: Graph of results from one of the tests.


Figure 9: Benchmark Results comparison. Using the dropdowns, you can select from a large number of other cards to compare.

You can also save the results and send them to Anton for inclusion in the next release of Pocket Mechanic.

Storage Cache is a new function added with this latest version of PMPro. It allows you to tune the memory management of the file storage mechanisms to optimize it for your situation.


Figure 10: Options available in Storage Cache. As this is brand new, some of the options selectable are a bit cryptic (e.g. the Cache Settings).

Most of the applications worked well and there was a notable improvement in overall performance of the Dell afterward. The only glitch was with the Uninstall Applications tool. After installing and successfully relocating the Resco File Explorer (approx. 960kb) to my CF card, PMPro was unable to uninstall the application. It said it couldn’t run the ‘uninstall.exe’ file. Subsequent screens said that the application had been successfully uninstalled, but Resco was still there, working just fine.

Conclusions
Pocket Mechanic Pro provides an extensive and exhaustive set of tools to analyze and repair any part of a PPC’s memory. It's obvious Anton and his team are working hard on this application, as there were three versions released during the writing of this review! Although there are a couple of features not quite working correctly with WM5, it is certainly a worthy addition to the maintenance suite on your Pocket PC.

Don is an Associate Director with Fujitsu Consulting and a member of its Enterprise Mobility Community. He is an inveterate tinkerer, with the pile of no-longer-working PPC’s on the workbench and the oil stains on the driveway to prove it! :wink: