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Tutorial: SKTools v4.45
January
26,
2009
Review by: Erik Schnebli,
Guest Editor
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Jump to: PAGE 1 | PAGE 2
INTRODUCTION
SKTtools is a maintenance toolkit for Windows Mobile. It has won several accolades including the Pocket PC Magazine Best Software Awards in 2006, 2007 and 2008. This multi-function application allows for maintenance on your mobile devices including features such as Registry and file-system clean up, storage card maintenance, backup and restore, and others. In this tutorial, I will try to cover and describe most of the features of this utility, going by categories.
CLEANUP
With these tools, you can remove useless data from your device and free storage space. The Invalid Registry Entries scanner finds and removes invalid registry entries in the registry of your device. When the scan is complete a list of the invalid entries appears, which you can simply remove through the Action menu. However, it is important to backup your registry if you’re not sure of what you’re deleting. You backup the registry by simply clicking the Backup Registry button from the action menu and saving it to the location which you desire. Restoring the registry is also done through the action menu and by browsing to the location you previously saved it.
The Invalid Registry Values scanner is a similar tool to the registry entries scanner, but this once scans the registry for links to non-existent files. It is recommended to run the invalid registry entries scanner before running the tool.
The Advanced Clean tool offers extra features to clean up your device, as it cleans up history for: Programs, Phone, and File Explorer. Once run, you can clear the listed items by clicking the action menu and simply deleting the items you’ve marked.
Through the Temporary and Cache Folders tool, you can purge temporary, Internet and user-defined folders from your device, which take up temporary space.
MAINTAINENCE
Besides Registry Cleaner and Registry Search, which you can find in the Registry category of tools, there are several neat tools in this category which help you take control of you system.
Using the Cookies tool, you can view and manage data stored on you device by Internet sites. The Installed Programs tool, which is sort of an advanced uninstaller for your device, lets you view and manage your installed programs with size, installation date and installed files. Using this tool you can even move your applications and remove the uninstall info for programs which have been previously uninstalled but still appear as programs on your device.
Another relevant tool of this category is the Storage Cards tool, which lets you manage the storage cards of your device and allowing you to format them, however be sure to backup all data from the storage card as it gets deleted during the process.
With the help of the Databases tool you can empty/export/view and delete the content of your databases such as Contacts, Appointments, Tasks etc.
Also in this category of tools you can manage your Today Plugins, view and enable/disable the Input Methods of your device, manage (kill, list) running Processes, and show activity of processes using the CPU Usage tool. The Windows Startup tool lets you view and remove programs launched when your device starts up, while under Services you can start/stop/delete or set on manual start services which start automatically, such as Wireless Monitor Service, Software Management Service, Software Disable Dialog Service, etc.
Through Device Drivers, you can stop/set to manual start drivers of devices such as your Smartcard, Keylights, G sensor, etc, while the File Types tool lets you view and manage registered file types and the programs associated with them.
Other tools in this category are the following include Notifications Queue (manage the operating system’s list of scheduled actions) and Backup (backup/restore your data).
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