4 EASY Tips for FAST and STABLE Windows Mobile – The Definitive Guide to Stability and Speed

Microsoft Windows. Desktop or mobile, it’s a name synonymous with instabilty. Why does the Windows Mobile camp have to endure the constant taunting of Symbian and Linux users? No more! It’s easy and fast (dare I say fun?) to keep your Windows Mobile Pocket PC smartphone running in tip-top shape. Here are the four definitive ways to keep that WinMo smartphone stable and speedy (you should be running at least Windows Mobile 2003):

1. Clean-up everything
   
   • You can’t expect to run a tight ship with bits of data hangin’ out all over the place. Get things in order with ClearTemp. It’s free and customizable – you can clean everything or just a few things. I would reccommend you clean Temp, Cache, Cookies, and History. The application even has a built-in “Soft Reset” function. Oh, did I mention it was free?
     
   • You can remove orphaned uninstall files by manually deleting them with your File Explorer. Look in the root directory (My Device) for the “Program Files” folder. Tap the “Program Files” icon and look for any folder related to a program that you know you have uninstalled. Delete the offending orphan file with a tap-and-hold.
     
   • Also, make sure you empty deleted emails every once in a while. Those little deleted emails can add up faster than you think.
     Messaging > Menu > Tools > Emtpy Deleted Items
     Click “Yes” to confirm.
     
2. Kill programs
   And kill ’em good! You would think that the “X” button actually closes and stops programs. But, no, Microsoft decided to confuse everybody and design the “X” button with a “minimize” function. Closing a program only minimizes the window and leaves the program running in the background, hogging up valuable RAM. Having plenty of RAM keeps your smartphone happy and stable – so we want to always make sure you have as much as possible. There are three ways to do this:
   • One way to kill apps for good is to use Windows Mobile’s built-in “Stop All” feature.
     Start > Settings > System > Memory
     Tap the “Memory” icon. Within the application, choose the “Running Programs” tab and hit the “Stop All” button. The “Stop All” button will…uhh, stop all programs and free up that RAM.
     
   • If you’re running Windows Mobile 5.0 or 6.0, you can use the built-in “Task Manager” to enable the “X” button to end programs. It doesn’t always work, so you’ll end up having to eventually use the “Stop All” feature – you might as well just goto step 3.
     
   • Get a task manager to replace that useless “X” button. I would reccommend vbar – touted as the world’s smallest and fastest task manager for Pocket PC. vBar will replace the “X” button with its own, and tapping it will give you a choice of closing the open program or closing all programs, and will even let you switch between running programs.
     
3. Use a storage card
   • Get yourself a storage card! Store all email attachments and large files on the storage card:
     Messaging > Menu > Tools > Options > Storage
     Hit the “Storage” tab and check the box that says “Store attachments on storage card.”
   • You might also consider installing applications to your storage card. The only downside is that you have to keep the storage card in the device in order to use those applications.
4. Registry tweaking
   For the more hardcore, there is always the option of tweaking your registry – good for squeezing as much speed out of your device as possbile. First you will need a registry editor – try PHM Registry Editor. It’s straightforward and has a small memory footprint.
   • Disable menu animation –
     Use the registry editor to find:
     HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SYSTEM > GWE > Menu
     Tap on the “AniType” entry and change the value from its default of “0” to “6” – you may need a soft-reset to enable the new settings.
     
   • Give your display cache a boost –
     Use the registry editor to find:
     HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SYSTEM > GDI > GLYPHCACHE
     Tap on the “Limit” entry change the value of from 8192 (default) to 16384 or even 32768 – you may need a soft-reset
     
   • Clean registry of orphaned entries –
     Use the registry editor to find:
     HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SOFTWARE > Apps
     HKEY_CURRENT_USER > SOFTWARE
     In both registry directories, find classes (folders) that belong to applications that you are sure are no longer installed on the device, then delete them with a tap-and-hold