Pocket Console on Windows Mobile 6
UPDATE – 4th February 2010
This package gets downloaded from this website many times a month and I’m really pleased that it’s helping people out. If you try it on your device then please consider dropping me a comment saying which device you are using and if it worked or not – it might help other users out there.
Thanks – Mike.
UPDATE – 20 March 2008
It seems that pocket console website is with us no more and so it can be difficult to find both pocket console and pocket cmd on the web. In order to help people who are still looking for them I have uploaded both packages here in one zip file but first, a disclaimer:
I didn’t write this software, I don’t support it and I won’t help you fix it if it goes wrong. If your PDA or phone gets bricked as a result of using it then its not my fault – all I am doing is making an old set of packages available for those who want them. They work fine for me – that’s all I know about them.
So…with that said – here they are. Comments (as always) are welcomed.
Pocket Console (link dead as of March 2008) is a very nice piece of software that provides a console device for windows mobile systems. Combine it with PocketCmd (link dead as of March 2008) and you can control your windows mobile device from the command line – truly geek heaven!
Some of you may be wondering “why bother?” The correct geek response to this question is usually something along the lines of “because I can” but this particular pair of applications have a few other tricks up their sleeves.
Once you have installed the base packages you can install some other, rather more interesting applications. For example – how about a pocket version of the computer algebra system PARI/GP? You can download the windows mobile version from the same site as pocket console – unfortunately it is not the latest version but it is still nice to play with.
If that is not enough for you then how about a pocket version of Yet Another Computer Algebra System (YACAS). I’ll be honest and say that I am not sure if YACAS needs pocket console as all of the instructions are in german and I only attempted to install it after I installed pocket console. It works just fine but since all of the messages are in German it looks like I am going to have to brush up a little on my modern languages.
There are also some non-maths applications on the pocket console website that make use of the application such as tetris, Star Trek and telnet but I have not tried any of them as they are not really my sort of thing.
So is installation straightforward I hear you ask? Well…sort of. I installed pocket console on a windows mobile 6 platform (The HTC Tytn II) and there are one or two issues you need to be aware of for this platform. The first is that you need to modify the following registry entry on your pocket pc
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINEDriversConsoleOutputTo
and change it’s value to 0 (This information came from here). I use the excellent freeware package, PHM Regedit to modify the registry on my device. Please note that modifying the registry can mess up your device if you are not careful so tread with caution!
On my machine I also had problems if I installed Pocket Console and Pocket CMD to a memory card. I received the following error message
“CMD Cannot start. There are too many console windows open. Please close some console applications and try again.”
I got around this by installing them to internal memory rather than a memory card – they are quite small so this is no big issue. I could install Pari/GP and Yacas to the memory card without any problems though. The only problem that remains is that now I get a couple of console messages pop up when I reset my device. Once I have closed them they don’t pop up again until the next resest so its no big deal.
If anyone out there knows of any other Windows Mobile applications that make use of Pocket Console then please let me know.
This software works well on a new HP IPAQ Classic 111
Cheers mate. I spend some time attempting to hunt down a copy of this.
Now, if only ikvm will load…
Ok It works on E-ten Glofiish x800 as well but there is one problem – when I’m typing something I can’t see what until I scroll up or down and then back again. And after commands I need to scroll to see output. Does anyone knows how to deal with this problem?
Same problem like Shox.
As for reccomended programs, try ruby :) contact me if you don’t found it
I have installed Pocket cmd and pocket console on my Windows emulator device..
How to run them to get the command line ?
Hey I installed it sucesfully, and it is running, but I can’t write letters for some reason, whenever I press key, I get numbers instead, I tried everything, even virtual keyboard, but still it just writes numbers on console instead of letters.
hosed my htc pro…. looks like ‘console’ runs on start up… hopefully i can reverse this.
It freezes the HTC Touch HD ;(!
Sorry to hear that Istvan, I guess it was only a matter of time before it stopped working on new hardware. It is an old piece of software after all.
How are you finding the HTC Touch HD? I am tempted but have heard too much bad press about it concerning performance problems.
I can run it on my Touch HD with only a small annoyance: I cannot see what I type until I hide/show the soft keyboard.
there is a version of bochs for ppc that uses pocketconsole
Давно это искала наконец-то нашла у вас. Спасибо!
Thank you! You saved my day. This should standard on every shipped phone.
Works fine on a Dell Axim x51. Thanks!
i cant get the registry value to change it says “access is denied” any help?
Hi James – I won’t be able to help because I don’t use Windows Mobile any more but others who come here might. What device are you using?
Cheers,
Mike
on my HD2, it appears to run on startup and I also cant see what i type.
Hey I am having trouble finding nettools_arm.cab or nettools_arm_setup.exe that has a ROUTE command to run in PocketCMd. Anyone know where I can grab this from?
Although I’m just about to test it, sqlite windows CE version should work nicely with the console application. For those who don’t know. sqlite is a pretty potent relational database that uses SQL. If you are comfortable with console apps and the SQL language then this is the ultimate portable database system!
I am working on windows mobile 5, when i install this app . i am getting a dialogue saying ” application is not signed or components are not installed properly”
hello….i am using samsung sch-i760 wm6
when i try to install any .exe file including these 2…. it says that they are not a valid pocket pc applications! any idea how to fix that….
thank you.
i getting “invalid pocket pc app” on my htc touch viva!
Iam use windows mobile 6.1 Classic install Pocket Console and PocketCmd
Install Successfully then click to run not action Performed
does anyone know if there is a command line parameter for windows mobile 6.1 which, when appended to the command line, will cause the app to start minimized at soft reset in winMob6.1 (like /min works in windows desktop commands) ??
@Hakan Serce
Thanks for the tip about turning the (soft) keyboard on and off. I can now see what I’m typing on my WM5 Dell X51V. Thanks to Mike for the original post.
hi. I m using an HTC s 743 with WM 6.1 and qwerty keyboard no touch screen. I can t install it because the zip fi.dle contains exe files. how do I install it on my mobile??.
Thanks 4 the info regarding the registry modification. I had pocket cmd installed but was not working cuz the registry entry HKLM\Drivers\Console\OutputTo was set to some large number…
Changed it using PocketTotalCommander to 0 and presto! CMD.exe works now!
I am running on a HP 114 with Windows Mobile 6 Classic.
Thanks for the helpful info!
Hi, everyone,
these EXE files are setup files you gotta install using your Windows computer that has ActiveSync. Though, there’s a trick for the ones who don’t have ActiveSync : Running the EXE should generate a .tmp file. Just rename that .tmp file to whatewername.cab and install it on your device. Beware, though, stopping the program deletes the .tmp file, so rename it before exitting the program. I haven’t tried these yet, but I tested the procedure successfully several times.
Regards,
Ozzelot, the Czech geek.