Accessing a generic brand tablet's root - Upgrading, Modifying and Unlocking

I have a Thalia TouchMe (not surprised if you've never heard of it) which runs its own OS. I'd love to be able to flash it with Android, but at the very least be able to play around with it's system files, ie change the front-end layout, icons and such. When you plug it into a PC, you get a superficial root folder where you can put your personal files, but I'd like to go deeper. There's also a microSD slot.
Any help with this/ pointing me in the right direction would be greatly appreciated
Cheers

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Need Help. How do I get to the Internal Storage area

OK, I got my Sprint TP2 yesterday and was playing around with it. I installed my SD card that had some files on it and when I tapped on one document file by mistake it "unzipped" it to the internal storage completely filling it.
I've looked all over but cannot seem to locate the internal storage memeory on the phone.
HELP!
Thanks in Advance.
OK, never mind. But.....
OK, after I opened it back up today I started looking at it like my old PDA and found the file and deleted it.
But..
I'd like to free up more internal memory as it shows I only have 158MB free. And only 59MB free for program memory. I'll be getting a 16GB card soon to replace my 2GB I have but I'd like to have more internal memory.
What programs/files can I delete safely from my Sprint TP2 to free up more space?
JohnMcD348 said:
I'd like to free up more internal memory as it shows I only have 158MB free. And only 59MB free for program memory. I'll be getting a 16GB card soon to replace my 2GB I have but I'd like to have more internal memory.
What programs/files can I delete safely from my Sprint TP2 to free up more space?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
158MB of "Storage" memory is actually quite a bit -- it's 60% open/empty. Considering that a lot of applications are less than a 1 MB, and a huge one is 5MB -- you still have room to install dozens directly to the device. To minimize use of Storage, install as many apps as possible to your card. And, wherever possible, configure settings on apps to store their data to the card...and set the camera to save to the card, etc. Even a 2GB card is a lot of space -- unless you're carrying full-length, high-quality movies.
Program memory gets filled up by stuff that's currently running, so deleting installed programs won't free up more of that -- unless these programs run automatically/all-the-time.
MCbrian said:
158MB of "Storage" memory is actually quite a bit -- it's 60% open/empty. Considering that a lot of applications are less than a 1 MB, and a huge one is 5MB -- you still have room to install dozens directly to the device. To minimize use of Storage, install as many apps as possible to your card. And, wherever possible, configure settings on apps to store their data to the card...and set the camera to save to the card, etc. Even a 2GB card is a lot of space -- unless you're carrying full-length, high-quality movies.
Program memory gets filled up by stuff that's currently running, so deleting installed programs won't free up more of that -- unless these programs run automatically/all-the-time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, if you have 158MB storage free on the phone right now, be sure to take a screenshot if it so you can look back later and remember "back when" you had still had that much free space
MCBrian is right, moving stuff to your memory card is the best way to free up space on the phone's memory and keep it from filling up unneccesarily. Like he said, first change the camera settings to always save to the card, otherwise that will always eat into your available on-board storage, and quickly. I would also suggest going into the current album of pics on the phone, deleting anything you don't want to save, and move whatever you do want to save into a "pics" folder on your card (HTC's photo album can include pics saved there as well). Same for music...store any and all of it on the card, not the phone's memory. The one caveat with that is that the HTC music player (the music tab in touchflo) doesn't always find music on the card, not for me anyway, but I never liked that player anyway.
Managing my memory that way has given me enough space that even with dozens of programs on the phone, all of them installed to the phone's memory, I still have 95MB free space for programs on there. In fact, I still have a fair amount of junk (stuff I tried but don't use, etc) in there that I need to go clear out. Installing some of your programs to the memory card can help too, but if you're careful you can keep enough storage memory on there available to be able to avoid ever needing to do that (and the hassle that comes with trying to figure out which programs are ok with being installed on the card, as well as managing/maintaining separate install locations).
If you're going to start using file explorer to dig around in your directories, I highly recommend you first install File Explorer Extension. It simply adds a lot of the stock destop file explorer functionality that's missing in the mobile version ("open with>" in the context menu, for example!)...makes a HUGE difference in ease of use when digging through your file structure. I attachted it below, "fexploreext v2.05.CAB"
For keeping your RAM ("running" memory) from growing too fast, I also suggest running the other 2 cabs I have attached below (SSK TP2 Dynamic Resource Proxy.cab and nopushinternet.cab), they make a big difference in the active memory management on the TP2, you'll probably see a noticable difference right after soft-reset.
Thanks for those CABs. I'm pretty good at managing the storage on things like this, I just couldn' find the files/folder on the newer phone using the options available in WinMo6+. I've been using an Axim for years runnign WinMo5 and earlier versions. Storage cards are pretty easy for me as I'm use to running stuff between the Main/CF/SD cards that I had on the Axim. I just have alot to learn about the newer 6.1 OS. Probably, by the time I get used to 6.1, Sprint will come out with 6.5(6,7,whatever) and I'll get to relearn everything all over again.
If there are any other programs you'd recommend to help me out I'd greatly appreciate it.
JohnMcD348 said:
Thanks for those CABs. I'm pretty good at managing the storage on things like this, I just couldn' find the files/folder on the newer phone using the options available in WinMo6+. I've been using an Axim for years runnign WinMo5 and earlier versions. Storage cards are pretty easy for me as I'm use to running stuff between the Main/CF/SD cards that I had on the Axim. I just have alot to learn about the newer 6.1 OS. Probably, by the time I get used to 6.1, Sprint will come out with 6.5(6,7,whatever) and I'll get to relearn everything all over again.
If there are any other programs you'd recommend to help me out I'd greatly appreciate it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well the file structure is obviously still pretty much the same windows-standard, just some locations moved around. The bad news is that none of the programs installed by default in the stock rom are removable through the normal remove programs dialog, or any 3rd-party app I've seen. However you can just go perform the same steps manually by deleting any folders matching the program/publisher's name in these locations:
<root>/program files
<root>/application data
<root>/windows/start menu
...and then searching in the registry to delete any keys in there for the program as well. You'll need a registry editor to do that, I've attached my favorite free one, PHM Regedit...just search your registry by the name of the program you're removing. If you're not familiar with messing around in the registry, there's guides available here, let me know if you need me to point you in that direction. And, as always, be SURE to make a backup copy of your registry (PHM can handle that for you) before making any changes.
Here's a couple of other utilites I've found useful:
Advanced_Configuration_Tool_v3.3.cab -Gives you acccess to all sorts of advanced UI and system configuration options, a favorite and often-referenced tool here at xda.
Extra Camera Modes.cab -unlocks some capture modes that the TP2 camera is capable of, but aren't enabled from the factory on US models. New modes include MMS video, Burst, Sport, and geotagged images
SDK certs.cab -windows authentification certifcates necessary for installing many hacks/apps/cabs/etc that are available here
DivXPlayer_PPC.cab -a lean, mean .avi player from the people who came up with DivX (the codec standard, not the movie rental crap lol). I rip my DVD's at home to ~700MB DivX files, save them on my memory card, and use this app to play them...it gives far better performance and quality than any of the other players I've tried.
Very Much appreciated.
Now, I seem to have another probelm and I don't know if it's my unfamiliarirty with the newer Sync Center or am I just doing something wrong, or if it's an issue with the programs I've got.
I'm new to both Win7 and WinMo6+(and touch flo, etc). Up to now I had XP(w/ ActiveSync) and my WinMo5 Axim.
I can't seem to get my programs installed onto my TP2. I use a prgram for work called Tarascon. It's a medical reference program. I tried to install it yesterday and I never got the repsonse on the TP2 to request permission to install it. Today, I tried to install SOTI's Pocket Controller and this time I did get the request and I installed it to the device but I can't find it anywhere on it. It didn't install an Icon on the device and I've looked through every place I could think and can't even find an installation file for it. I didn't get an install error or failure notice and my memory size dcreased 2MB so something happened.
Glad to help
Since I don't really know anything about the medical reference software you're using, my first suggestion would be to check with the publisher and make sure that the version you have is compatible with Win7 and WM6.x...often software that worked on WM5 won't work just right on 6.
As for SOTI Pocket Controller, the latest version available on the site should be compatible with your setup. When you install it, are you doing that by running a .exe file on your PC and then letting Mobile Device Center (the new generation of ActiveSync) handle the install from there? It might be advisable to just moving the .cab file for the program straight to your phone (device memory or storage card is fine), and run it from there to install...bypasses the MDC, and ends up doing the same thing in the long run. In fact, it might be worth trying the same thing (running the .cab straight from your phone) with the medial software you've got.
It might just be that I'm using Ver4 and it doesn't want to run right with the newer install setup(MDC).
It worked fine when I installed it on my Axim(WinMo5) and using WinXP(ActiveSync).
Another odd thing, every time I plug in my TP2 and MDC starts to Sync, I get the request from Win7 for the Tarascon program to initialize. So that tells me something, somewhere set a pointer to my TP2 to update the program. I think.

[Q] Autorun.inf

Some quick searching tells me that Froyo automatically removes autorun.inf from the internal storage or SD card when they are mounted. I was using these to display custom icons, but that functionality has been removed care of Google.
Anyone know of a possible fix? Also, feel free to move this thread.
Completely unrelated - Thanks to andrynalyne, koush, ihtfp69, rmk40, and all the others working to make our Incredibles a joy to use.
Bumping this to see if anyone knows of any work around or solutions.
Would be awesome to have iSyncr run when I plug my phone in, instead of having to navigate to it.

MotoBlur editing.

Hello everybody,
So these days I've been interested in theming MotoBlur since I had PS skills and wanted to put them to use since being 17 and with so much free time I said it might not be THAT hard.
However, **** happened.
Finding out those pesky MotoBlur apps wasn't that hard - found it rather easily after checking up a system backup.But finding out the MotoBlur apps wasn't the problem - the problem were the apps.
This is how a simple .apk file (MotoBlur Phone app) folder looks like:
http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk125/secretalex125/untitled.jpg
See that little thing there? Yeah, you're seeing right - that is the Motorola FlipFlop (or how it's named) phone. But God, why?
Don't ask me; ask Motorola. This may be the reason why they ended up making a striped version of their newer phones' skin/OS updates' skin.
Not to mention these images come up with .xml files. Now, as a dumb idiot with relatively limited text editing (.xml / .ini / whatever coding files) knowledge, but still a basic one enough to know not to screw up with the position of some text, I know that checking up ALL these files would be a damn hard task. Not to mention editing them properly. However, I'm in for the images. And I'm somehow sure that some of these files are pretty much useless. So they should be deleted. But then, when you have 2 apps called "BlurContacts" and "BlurPhone" and notice both of them feature pretty much the same images in some folders, you know you're screwed.
But this is only the foreground idea. The background, the immense sea of files is what is annoying. How could someone be able to create an entirely new skin? All that comes in my mind is that he must be a masochist.
So questions pop up:
1. Did anyone else try to skin ALL the files?
2. Did anyone try to remove files?
3. I know that out there is only one more GB skin. One more. But is it any better?
4. Are there replacements? How easy is to replace these files? Would simply removing these Motoblur apps make my life easier and revert me to classic Gingerbread?
4. I think there's more on my mind, but it doesn't come up right now.
All in all, I don't like what I'm seeing.
I was able to theme almost all motoblur apps when I was on ms2ginger rom, so it was the gb version of defy. I didn't remove any of the files, but yeah it takes some time to understand where goes what.
Sent from my ICS Defy

Windows Icons for Card & Phone

So, totally recognizing this is nit-picky and really more of a Windows question than an Android question, here's what I'm struggling to figure out.
When I connect my Sprint Galaxy S3 to my Windows 7 PC it shows up under My Computer as a Portable Device. I have changed that icon to look like an S3 by editing the registry (per instructions here). However, when I open it, I see two "drives" named Card and Phone respectively (see screenshot here). The problem is that both drives have the same icon (of a hard drive). I'd like to be able to choose an .ico file so that I can visually differentiate the two. Anyone know how to do this?
I have tried the traditional autorun.inf and .ico file in the root of the drive. But, those go unnoticed as they technically aren't drives (at least not according to Windows 7). Really any ideas at all would be welcome. Thanks!

[Q] New N7 what do I do

Hi, I just bought a new Nexus 7 32 GB (2013).
I transferred a load of files over to the Nexus from my PC. I can see them in the storage folder but can't access any i.e. I can't play any audio/video or read any pdfs.
On a separate occasion I tried to transfer over one AVI file but Windows Explorer kept crashing.
The tablet also keeps asking me to sign in for everything, which is annoying.
Anyway, I think I need to root my tablet but I'm a bit hesitant about this because I just bought the thing.
Anyway, some advice would be helpful. Thanks.
Beside return it and use your money better, unlock and root it install SlimROM and enjoy the glory of it Or install kali for "pentesting" 3
You can always return to factory defaults when you only rooted current rom. But if you unlock and install custom recovery then that needs a bit more of fiddling around to return it to stock.
evilnecessity said:
Hi, I just bought a new Nexus 7 32 GB (2013).
I transferred a load of files over to the Nexus from my PC. I can see them in the storage folder but can't access any i.e. I can't play any audio/video or read any pdfs.
On a separate occasion I tried to transfer over one AVI file but Windows Explorer kept crashing.
The tablet also keeps asking me to sign in for everything, which is annoying.
Anyway, I think I need to root my tablet but I'm a bit hesitant about this because I just bought the thing.
Anyway, some advice would be helpful. Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you new to tablets, in general? You don't give a lot of info. You don't need root to play music/videos and to read pdfs. You do need an app that will handle your file. Your N7 should be able to handle video, audio, and pdf through google apps, I believe although I use other apps for those files. Have you tried to open any of these files from within an app? If the google apps don't work for you, play store has many free apps for everything you need.
Hi, yes, I'm new to tablets. I tried rooting my Samsung Galaxy Y a while ago but it was such a mess I've been put off Android since.
Anyway, I read about ES File Explorer and that seems to have helped as it actually lists and makes accessible all the files I transferred over. I can even delete files which I couldn't do previously.
One wonders why the Android OS doesn't have something built in to do this but anyways, I guess they're just forcing us to buy their apps.
As a windows user, I find it frustrating how I can't even do the most simple things in an intuitive way..like makes notes to a notepad whilst reading a pdf.
Anyways, I guess I need to do more research on rooting. The problem with rooting is that it's not just a question of following some instructions as invariably it goes wrong and then has to be salvaged.
It's just a matter of becoming familiar with it. Windows wasn't easy coming from Mac years ago. Now I have Windows 7 and latest MacOS in the house to try to comprehend. I think your choice of naked Android (Google product) may help in many regards because your tablet isn't loaded with bloatware. If you decide to root, it's also much easier on the google devices. If you know anything about ADB and command prompts, you can do it that way--and in the long run, it's the most valuable for learning about the process. If not, I've found Wugs Toolkit to be very user friendly--although a few times I had to resort to CMD input. The greatest challenge for most users is getting the ADB/Fastboot drivers loaded. His toolkit helps with that, but I'd already had it set up before ever trying the toolkit so I can't speak to how it goes. He is very helpful when/if you have a problem.
As far as pdf annotations, there are many free apps out there (ESFile Explorer should have been free unless there is a charge for non-US markets--your use of "whilst" could indicate that). Try ezPDF reader--the free trial version. Or, just search for pdf reader with annotations.
The best is that you found XDA. Someone is always willing to help.

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