How do I delete files from Windows directory on PDA? - MDA, XDA, 1010 General

Hello,
I want to delete AIM.exe (AOL instand messenger) from Windows folder and I can't do that (Delete option is grayed out). What am I doing wrong?

It's in ROM, so it doesn't take up any memory space. No point in deleting it, and since it is ROM, you can't delete it.

Well, standard Explorer does not allow to delete them but Commander allows, I guess becouse they are marked as "read-only". I don't see how they can be in ROM if they are physically on my hard drive in unit.
Also I generally don't understand what AIM is doing in Pocket PC, my understanding that AIM is competitor to MSN Messenger and Microsoft is not supposed to be putting competitors products.

what unit are you talking about that it has a harddrive?
my xda certainly does not have one.

I meant not hard drive but whatever media is used internally on XDA to store files.

Yes, it's in the internal media known as ROM.

Related

Possible ? Changing location of synced PDA My Documents folder in XP

I want to change the location of syncronized PDA files folder on the netbook from a folder under My Documents to a different drive. I do not want to move the computer's My Documents though, merely to change the location of "PDA My Documents". Is it possible ?
Ummagumma said:
I want to change the location of syncronized PDA files folder on the netbook from a folder under My Documents to a different drive. I do not want to move the computer's My Documents though, merely to change the location of "PDA My Documents". Is it possible ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you wan to make changes in device or in computer??
manhab said:
you wan to make changes in device or in computer??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
On computer.
Let me explain the situation here.
There are some files on my phone that I want to keep secure (the financial application data, some excel spreadsheets, a file with all the passwords etc). All of these files are encrypted in their respective applications, plus I always have the phone on me.
I am syncing to the netbook - not the desktop pc. I travel a lot with this netbook and unlike the phone it's not with me at all times, I leave it in hotel rooms etc. If it ever gets stolen, I don't want some of my sensitive files getting into the wrong hands. I have a TrueCrypt container that is mounted on logon as a separate drive (X), and that's where I keep the sensitive info like financial data etc. Unfortunately the files synced from phone go to the C drive by default. Of course I could move the entire My Docs to X but I don't want to keep huge directories like Downloads and My Pictures in an encrypted container. I can still move My Docs to container and keep Downloads and photos separately but this is kind of a messy setup in XP - in W7 this would be easier done via Libraries. So before I do that I want to see if there's a way to just sync my phone to a directory on X drive.

[Q] PC to Phone File Management

Coming from my Nexus S to the Galaxy Note, the PC to Phone file transfering experience is a lot different. I do not like what Samsung (or ATT) did to it.
It constantly asks me if I am sure if I want to transfer files to my phone. "Do you want to copy XYZ.xyz to your device? Your device might not be able to play or view this file." It's quite annoying when I'm trying to copy over files that are not all the same file type. Any way to get around this?
I'm on Windows 7 and I prefer to view all my files in the "Details" view type. However all the directories (that I haven't changed) on the phone are defaulted to something different and there is no way to change this but go into EVERY folder and modify them. There has to be an easier way. Is there?
On my Nexus S I had about 1100 music files. Prior to switching phones I copied all the information from my Nexus to my PC so I can transfer to my Note. When I copied the files from my PC to my Note I only had 750 songs and a good amount of my albums were missing 50% of the songs. Is this a limitation of file types supported with the Note?
Can these issues be resolved if I use a microSDHC card reader to put my files on the card?
These issues baffle me because they're both made by Samsung. Only thing I can think of is that the Nexus was Google's baby and they didn't want limitations put on it, but the Note wasn't.
Thanks for reading.
-Chris

[Q] Hidden folders through Android MTP

Hey !
I've searched the web as well as the forum but i didn't find any solution and it seems i'm not the only one wanting to do that.
Is it possible to see hidden folders of internal sdcard through MTP ?
I really talk about hidden folder like ".android_secure", not the photos that aren't yet scanned by the media scanner service.
In my windows environment i already set the view all hidden files/folders as well as view system files.
If i have to change folders permissions through terminal what are the correct permissions i should put ?
Thanks for the help !!
Am i the only having that problem ?
Do you guys see the hidden folders through mtp connexion ?
If you'd bother reading a bit before asking questions, you might have the answer already.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_Transfer_Protocol
MTP and PTP specifically overcome this issue by making the unit of managed storage a local file rather than an entire (possibly very large) unit of mass storage at the block level. In this way, MTP works like a transactional file system - either the entire file is written/read or nothing.
More or less, it is designed to keep hidden what should be hidden stick to USB storage or FTP/SCP.
PS: can't believe we're using a transfer protocol designed by Microsoft in a Linux-based system mastered by Google. The horror, the pain... no wonder it doesn't work on my Mac!
VAXXi said:
If you'd bother reading a bit before asking questions, you might have the answer already.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_Transfer_Protocol
MTP and PTP specifically overcome this issue by making the unit of managed storage a local file rather than an entire (possibly very large) unit of mass storage at the block level. In this way, MTP works like a transactional file system - either the entire file is written/read or nothing.
More or less, it is designed to keep hidden what should be hidden stick to USB storage or FTP/SCP.
PS: can't believe we're using a transfer protocol designed by Microsoft in a Linux-based system mastered by Google. The horror, the pain... no wonder it doesn't work on my Mac!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thx for the link ! I knew what mtp is but its always good to refresh things up
I read the whole article and unfortunately it doesn't answer my question.
I understood that its the same for all of us meaning that we are not able to see hidden folders.
But the main question is if there is a way to bypass this behavior ? Where is this defined exactly ?
It seems according to the article that its not on the file permission layer ? Should it be at partition level ? How can mtp know what to share with the host ?
It's not a "behaviour" per se, but more/less a database. Remember that media scanner program which wakes up every time you change something on your SD card, be it internal or external ? it simply keeps a "database" of files which are presented to the MTP client (your computer) and hides away the phone's internal folders which are not supposed to be seen by the end-user.
Theoretically, this is done in order to have the iPhone-like behaviour: seeing the entire device memory as one big unified storage which you can fill as you want (no more of those partition size limitations which brought us the app2sd hacks). In my opinion, it's more or less just a small step done in order to "secure" phones for DRM protected content.
Studios and media companies require devices to have such measures of protection in order to allow you to sell media content (like movies, books, etc) and since Google wants to push its business further with the Play Store, it needs to cave in to the studios' demands. In the future, it will probably even become illegal (DMCA-style) for me to give you the information below
Back to the technical part of our show now.
At the first boot in the life of the device, Media Scanner will look under /system/media and index everything there. After that, it will scan everything under /mnt/sdcard (hence your external SD card too, if you have one, as it's mounted under /mnt/sdcard/external_sd). On some devices, you have an "internal.db" file and one "external-123xyz.db" file; that's a unique ID of the SD card which was scanned. The idea here is you might have 2-3 SD cards which you swap often, and it's not nice to do a full rescan each time you change the SD card. These databases are in /dbdata/databases/com.android.providers.media (on my phone, there is only one "external.db" for example).
So what you're looking for is a way to populate this database with all the files found by the Media Scanner. But Media Scanner doesn't want you to see the hidden folders you mentioned above. So, you get an application which doesn't ignore them, like Rescan SD Card! or SDrescan.
Happy now ?
Thank you very much i really enjoyed reading the explanation as it answers completely my questions and it makes sense !
Ill give a try to the apps but i'm also curious to investigate on those files
Cheers
PS. Is this a disguised way to support non open source protocols ?
Well, you could poke around inside the database with sqlite if you want. But don't really see what's so interesting about them.
It is just another protocol which is supported, which happens to be designed by Microsoft (and probably licensed/paid by Google to be used in Android). I understand the technical explanation behind this decision, but I'm also wary that someday UMS will be disabled by default and enabling it will disable content purchasing for that device (just like having a rooted phone now disables some "sensitive" apps, like banking and online TV).
As a system admin its interesting to know whats happening on my system
As a hobby its interesting for my personal knowledge
And from a development point of view it gives me some ideas for maybe future apps
You say that its just another protocol which is supported but to my understanding there are not so many of them ! So i would say that Google was kind of forced to use the MTP method, first from a hardware point of view and second to be compliant with the rest of the world.
Is there any other protocol that could suite their needs ? Since USB mass storage is not usable on some devices and MTP is well spead.
.HiddenAndroid folders in Win - Here Yesterday, Gone Tomorrow
<Win 7 and GN2>
What's curious and a bit frustrating to me is that, yesterday, when I mounted my device ALL of the hidden (.folders and .files) were visible and searchable. Today, when I went to explore some more, all are gone. I understand that I can use a 3rd party app, just can't figure out why it was visible yesterday and not today.
Hmmph
Did you ever resolve this issue? I really hate MTP for several reasons but this is one of the reasons why! I need to back up all my directories on the SDCard because some apps store them as hidden files in hidden directories. Furthermore, I came across the Play Store bug that requires me to delete a "temp.asec" file in the ".android_secure" directory, but of course it is not visible.
In a post further up it was suggested to use a "Rescan" app to force the DB to include hidden files/directories, but I have tried no less than 4 of these apps, and all they do is trigger the built-in android media scan, which is the problem in the first place!
So has anyone ever been able to access hidden files and directories using MTP?
EDIT: I have an HTC phone that actually shows hidden files and directories, so they have obviously implemented their own media scan. The problem I am currently having is on a Samsung phone (Epic 4G touch)
It may depend on the implementation. For example, using stock rom for the phone doesn't show some files and folders, for example folders starting with dot. But if you use Neatrom Lite it will show all files and folders.
Flash forward about 6 years and Samsung still does not show hidden folders/files when viewing the phone contents in Windows File Explorer, but HTC does.
The reason this is still a problem for me, is that I want to backup the contents of a particular directory (WhatsApp) which contains some hidden folders, so I can restore it anytime on a new phone or the same phone.
I recently switched from HTC to Samsung and alas, it seems the problem with this implementation still exists. Anyone found a workaround to this to allow File Explorer to see the hidden folders?
Update: It appears that hidden .nomedia files (and probably others) appear under regular folders, so the problem is limited to hidden folders themselves

[Q] Encryption app for folders, preferably multi-platform as well

I'm looking for an app that will allow me to encrypt folders (preferably without having to go through a third-party file manager) on my Galaxy Note 2 and Nexus 7, while possibly being able to also decrypt and view the folder/files on a Windows or Mac machine.
BoxCryptor is one that I've looked into but I'm not sure if it will allow me to encrypt folders within folders.
A little bit of background for what I need this for... I'm a medical health professional and there are times when I have sensitive data about some of my patients that I need to access via my phone/tablet/home/work computer. I don't necessarily need the folder of patient data to sync across all devices but if that could be done (say via DropBox or WebDAV, encrypted), that would be a bonus.
There are some apps on Google Play that seem like they might work:
Encryption Manager
Safe+
DroidCrypt
If anyone has any feedback on any of the above, or can recommend an app that I've missed (or a link to another xda post that I missed in my searches), that would be much appreciated. I'd rather not have to pay for each one to see if it fits my criteria.
Thanks in advance!
cdnmaplechick said:
I'm looking for an app that will allow me to encrypt folders (preferably without having to go through a third-party file manager) on my Galaxy Note 2 and Nexus 7, while possibly being able to also decrypt and view the folder/files on a Windows or Mac machine.
...
A little bit of background for what I need this for... I'm a medical health professional and there are times when I have sensitive data about some of my patients that I need to access via my phone/tablet/home/work computer. I don't necessarily need the folder of patient data to sync across all devices but if that could be done (say via DropBox or WebDAV, encrypted), that would be a bonus.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
@cdnmaplechick, did you have any luck with all this? EDS is another one you could try, but I'm not sure if it can do what you want without rooting your device. If you are comfortable rooting your device Cryptonite is an additional option.
If I understand you correctly I am also looking for something similar (which is how I ended up finding your post). I'd like an app that can encrypt specified folders such that other apps can interact with the contained encrypted files without any trouble (this would be very analogous to how TrueCrypt works for Windows computers). I know there is full device encryption available for Android, but that has its drawbacks. I think what you and I are both wanting is something like full device encryption, but being able to limit it to a few designated folders.
I'd love to hear anything you're willing to share about your experiences (positive or negative) with pursuing all this!
Edit: Forgot to mention a secure syncing service you might be interested in: SpiderOak. I have not yet used their Android app, but I use SpiderOak for Windows all the time to securely sync sensitive data between multiple Windows computers (the data is stored in TrueCrypt volumes on each computer).
Apparently this works with Truecrypt so it will work when you transfer it to a Mac or PC
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sovworks.eds.android
Droidcrypt should do entire folders, but has a lot of neg reviews. Personally I wouldn't use any closed source encryption app you have no idea if they're actually generating true random numbers or if it's junk software.
LUKS is free and open source, if your phone is rooted
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nemesis2.luksmanager you can just copy folders into the virtual encrypted folder it creates.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.mrpdaemon.android.encdroid is open source, free and works with dropbox
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.koushikdutta.backup Carbon now uses encrypted backup
There's also APG http://thialfihar.org/projects/apg/
You can use PGP to encrypt/decrypt files (perhaps folders?) for transferring to another computer. Or if both your Nexus and your PC/Mac is using full disc encryption then you can just transfer the folders to each other in the clear with USB.
derpsec said:
Droidcrypt should do entire folders, but has a lot of neg reviews. Personally I wouldn't use any closed source encryption app you have no idea if they're actually generating true random numbers or if it's junk software.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I've felt ambivalent about Droidcrypt. It should do what I want but they feel like such an unknown; they don't even have a website (not that that would make them automatically safer, but I'd at least be able to get a little more of sense of who I'm trusting my data to).
derpsec said:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.mrpdaemon.android.encdroid is open source, free and works with dropbox
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for those additional links, and especially for Encdroid! I'm a fan of open source, and it looks like the author's on the XDA forums:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1917665
I definitely want to check that one out further.
How about Cryptonite? https://code.google.com/p/cryptonite/ It says it uses TrueCrypt.
Yes cryptonite seems to be a good solution.
Check-->
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=csh.cryptonite&hl=el
Hello friends
Is an application for Android that folders can be encrypted and password-access to that folder wherever necessary, same encryption on the kms 9(Kaspersky Mobile Security 9 v9.4.96 – S60v3)

Moving Pics to new phone while preserving the dates?

Oops, seem to have cross posted due to having two tabs open, cant make sense of the changed layout!
Mods please feel free to delete this thread if no one has answered!
Hi all!
An oldie but a goldie!
I've changed from S6 32g, to S6Eedge 64g since I was running out of space.
Now I need to transfer 4000 photos (sorted by date) to the new phone. A direct copy from PC converts all the created dates to the current date (ie when transfer is done) which as you can imagine screws everything up royally!
Ive tried and failed in many many many ways including:
Samsung Smart Switch
FTP
Syncing programs from pc to phone
ADB push
WEBdav
Hail marys, and praying to every god out there
They all bugger up the dates...........
The ONLY ONLY way Ive found out that works is by zipping up the original files, transferring to new phone, and unzipping locally with Total Commander. ONLY Total Commander seems to be able to unzip and preserve the dates, all the other file managers and extracting programs (I tried 10-15) out there can NOT manage this. Total Commander probably works cuz im rooted, and it can use this.
HOWEVER this only worked with smaller directories, but my main pics folder is a 8 gig compressed zip, and when I try the same way Total Commander only manages to unzip the same 700 files and stops (anyone else come across this limitation?). So the only way I can manage is to zip up the original files in 7-8 different zip files and unzip locally individually, which is a big hassle.
Ive googled many threads on this problem, most of them were unresolved and some solutions refer to previous android versions or software and dont work anymore.
I'm hoping that you all dont spend four days setting up a new phone everytime ( home screen and app settings is a whole different drama! Thank you Titanium backup! iOS really has the jump on Andoird when it comes to changing phones...)
The only thing I can think of which I havent tried yet is USB OTG, since I dont have the cable. Anyone can confirm whether this method keeps the dates unchnaged?
So in your experience, whats the best way of doing this? How do you guys do it?
To be honest for 4 thousand photos swapping back and forth between devices you are better off using a could storage. Especially if you want to minimise the risk of loosing them all if something goes wrong. All zip folders will extract with the original date it. You could try and torrent you DCIM folder and language download it to your computer. Torrents download with their file dates intact.
Thanks for your reply!
IMHO this cloud thing is actually whats causing so many of the problems in hardware design these days in general.
Why is it so hard for companies to realise that when you are two floors underground, or roaming or even in middle of central london, net connection is not guaranteed......
Let alone the speed, convenience, security issues etc etc etc
As to the loss risk, I back them up on my home pcs regularly with a sync application, which ironically enough works perfectly well thank god!
So for me cloud is a no go....
As to your other suggestion, sounds great
Can I torrent just on the local net? ie direct from phone to pc?
Any apps you can reccomend? will save me trawling through a hundred crap apps in GPlay.
Thanks again for your time, its appreciated!
PS re what you said about all zips extracting correctly. Can you try on your device? Zip up a few small old files on your pc, transfer the zip to phone, extract there, and check the dates.
All except one of the ones I have tried do it, as mentioned above.
PPS Gave your torrent suggestion a go, no joy. All the transferred files had the new date ;-(.
I tried the the utorrent android app...
Update and for future help for people who will come across this issue.
I managed it!
I used Total Commander on the phone through the LAN plugin function, to access my backup folder on the pc, select all files and copy to local phone directory.
You need to initiate the copy from the PHONE on Total Commander, ie pull the files onto the phone, dont copy them by drag and drop from PC.
It took a while but it was done!
Dates and timestamps all preserved and correct!

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