One word of warning before we delve in to this.  Fiddling in the ULDR menu can seriously damage a Rugged PDA, I mean actual hardware damage can be if you don;t know what you’re doing so whilst this blog will show you what you can do with it, you must consult with your reseller before doing anything.  We are happy to help too so just ask if you want some help.

Getting into the ULDR Menu

First we have to get the ULDR menu up.  You do this easily by performing a hard reset but this time instead of pressing the “OK” key you hold down the “Send” key for 5-10 seconds.  Instead of resetting or reloading the OS on the device, you’ll quickly see a DOS style menu pop up like the one below.

The Pidion BM170's ULDR Menu

What do the 5 sections do?

There are 5 menu items and we’ll talk about what each does here:

1. Download Image

You won’t really use this at all.  It allows you to download an OS image using various techniques.  However the best way to do this is to use the SD card method found in (5) below.

2. Delete Hive Registry

This does exactly what it says on the can, I can’t say I personally remember using this feature before.  It can screw your device up though if you’re not careful!

3. Format FlashDisk

This feature will format your FlashDisk or ProgramStore area.  It will basically delete and format the whole area.  If you do this and then try to hard reset the device, it will still reset but you may be missing some essential patches and startup files.  This is good though if you really want to lock your device down and hard wire them to your own applications.

4. Nand Format and repartition

Now this is a useful feature because it allows you to fiddle with the Rugged PDA’s memory.  from here you can alter the ProgramStores size from the default setting of 55MB.  This is really useful if your apps are large and you want to try to cram everything into the persistent storage area of the device.  You can also reduce the size to if you just want to use the device in a more generic smartphone manner.  This will increase the ROM you have in the device.

Be warned that when doing this you will wipe the device totally and you will need to reload the OS again (See 5 below).

5. Image Reload

This allows you to re-image a device with a new OS.  We can’t give out OS images willy-nilly so its a feature we use here rather than the end users for licensing reasons, however you can re-image your device from here if you have the right OS and boot files.

We do get asked what the ULDR menu does a lot here, and whilst it is a useful tool, this blog is really to show you what can be done, rather than what you should be doing yourself so always consult with your reseller before attempting anything in this article.

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But we know how to hard reset the little semi rugged PDA now, from Mondays blog, whats all this about cleaning the device down?  I hear you say, well one of the tricks a rugged PDA has over its smartphone cousins is something called persistent storage.  This is usually a folder that can store all kinds of things in it from patches, persistent programs like bar code scanner apps but most importantly it can store your own solutions and apps making the device resistant to hard and soft resets.  It is an essential process to keep Rugged handhelds running in the field.

However this can also be your worst enemy when you’re trying to fault find or just want to get the device cleaned down right back to factory settings.

To do this you need to go and look at the “ProgramStore” folder.  Its right in the top-level of the devices folder structure and you will notice it has the little black icon marker on it.

The Pidion BM170 ProgramStore

Essentially this needs to be reset to the factory standard before you perform a hard reset.  Go back and ask your reseller for a copy of the original ProgramStore folder, or come talk to us and we’ll help.  We just need your serial number and the build on the device which is easy to find and we can send you the original ProgramStore folder for you device. 

Copy this new folder to the device, overwriting the one that’s there, Hard reset the device and then it should be totally cleaned down for you. An alternative way of getting hold of the ProgramStore folder is to take a copy when you buy your devices.  Make sure the build number of the device’s ROM is the same as it’s likely you’ll need to keep a different copy for each build you h ave….thats life I’m afraid!

Just a quick word of warning about this.  If you play with this folder and delete stuff that the OS needs to rebuild itself, then you can potentially break the device so always get advice before fiddling with this folder on the Pidion BM170.

Tomorrow we’ll get technical and I’ll take a look at the ULDR menu and talk you through what it is and what it does.

www.ruggedandmobile.com

Finding the Power Button App

Hidden in the depths of the settings you’ll find the power button set-up application.  It’s actually a new tab on the “Buttons” application which can be found in”

Windows Button -> Settings -> Personal ->Buttons -> Then click on the right tab twice and you get the power button screen as shown below.

We’ll talk you through the 3 options you have here

Power Control feature

 This feature allows you to select from 3 options

• Default – This means the button will just put the device into hibernate (Unattended) mode.  It will not do anything else with the device.
• Set Sleep/Wakeup delay - This simply tells the device the delay you want to put on the hibernate and wake up of the device.  The power button will still only hibernate the device but if you want to put a delay on the button action so that a 2 or 3 second press is required rather than a a quick press then select this option and put the desired time from the drop down menu.  This is useful to stop the device from waking up accidentally whilst in your pocket or tool box.
• Deep Sleep - This now changes the power button so that a short press will hibernate it and a long press will actually turn the device off completely.  You get a little confirmation box pop up before the device actually switches off.

 Hold Control

 This feature isn’t that obvious at first but it effects how the behave button behaves. 

The hold button short press can be set to launch a whole load of things. 

Just click the tabs in the Buttons application until you see the “Program Buttons” screen and you can select what this does. 

For instance the hold button is ideal as a launch key for the camera application.  This replaces the old, fixed hold functionality of the button that basically just locks the Semi Rugged PDA into the Lock screen.  This functionality is still useful though and indeed hasn’t gone away.  It is now operational on a long key press of the Hold button. 

The Hold Key

This feature here sets the delay you want that to happen. 

So setting this value to 5 seconds will mean in this example that a short press will put my device into the camera app, a 5 seconds long press will lock the device.  Hope that makes sense to everyone!

Wake Up Lock

This will automatically require you to unlock the device when it wakes up if selected.  If not then the device will wake up and the screen will be live just where you left it.  This is useful again if the device wakes up in a pocket, the screen will effectively be disabled so you can;t make any accidental phone calls.

Hope this helps people, as always don’t forget that we are the Number 1 Pidion experts here in the UK.  If you want any more help at all then just come and ask us and we’ll be happy to help.

www.ruggedandmobile.com