I have a new Palm Vx - it’s a great toy. But my serial interface cradle is at work, because that’s where I sync my schedule. The Palm Vx also has an IR port, so i can “beam” memos to another Palm user.
So here I am at home… and I realize my laptop (a Toshiba 460CDT) also has an IR port, which I can use to beam print jobs to IR-capable printers.
My question, for which the answer doesn’t seem immediately clear from the Palm website… does anyone know of an IR driver/interface that would let my Palm and my laptop exchange information?
If your laptop has an IR port, I’d bet you’ve already got IR drivers installed. If not, they’re definitely on your install CD. Obviously your Palm already has IR drivers installed.
I think the question you’re asking is not about drivers, but about software that’s capable of exchanging data with a Palm. So the first question is, what programs do you want to exchange data with? You can probably find some plug-ins at Palm Gear HQ for various PC programs.
Yes, you can use the IR port just like the cradle to sync with yor laptop. You don’t need to upgrade the HotSync manager - the one that came with your Palm Vx should have the capability already. Just install it on your laptop. You can sync your Palm with two computers just fine.
If your Palm uses PalmOS 3.5, all you need to do is install the Palm software on your laptop. Then on your Palm, if you go to HotSync, there should be a button to select IR. Just select that, and point your Palm at your laptop. If you have an older PalmOS, you may have to install IRSync, but that should be included somewehre on the CD-ROM. Then look in the Palm’s settings - you should see a setting for IRSync. Just go there and enable it.
I was using Windows 95 on my laptop… and there was no IR device in the control panel. I checked the Toshiba web site for a driver, and found they only had an IR driver for 98. Nor was there an IR driver on my 95 CD, and if I had a Toshiba CD once, it’s lost in the mists of history now.
So I figured I’d upgrade the laptop to 98. Alas, all I had was a full 98 CD – not an upgrade CD. And I didn’t want to zap the laptop hard drive completely - I’d then lose my apps, which would be a pain to reload. But the full Win 98 CD wouldn’t work if there was already a version of Windows on the drive.
So I figured I’d bite the bullet and buy an upgrade 98 CD.
Surprise! No such animal! All of them are gone from the shelves; Windows ME is the darling of the moment.
So… I gritted my teeth and bought an upgrade WinME CD.
Happy ending: I got home, the upgrade went like a dream, and without any additional work from me, the IR device driver appeared in the Control Panel, with two check boxes: receive files from other users, and send files to other users.
Just for chuckles, I pointed my Palm (in memo mode) at the laptop IR port and told it to beam the memo. Sure enough, a dialog box popped up on the laptop that said, “Accept a file from Rick?” I said yes, and seconds later there was a text file on the Desktop that was the memo in question.
I know you solved the problem, but just in case someone else runs into this, it’s actually pretty easy to upgrade a system with Win 95 with a full version 98 CD. I’m assuming here that you own the Win98 CD and haven’t already installed it on another computer (in other words, that this is a Win 98 CD you have the right to install).
1 – If you don’t already have one, use another Win 98 machine to create a boot diskette.
2 - Use this diskette to boot the computer you want to upgrade.
3 - Make sure you have CD-Rom access while at the DOS prompt (dir the CD or something). If not, you may need to find the DOS drivers for your CD-Rom player, and play around with the config.sys and autoexec.bat on the diskette until you can access the CD-Rom while booted from the diskette. But the Win98 boot diskette will give you CD-Rom access with most fairly current boxes.
4 - From the DOS prompt on the a drive, type sys c: and press Enter. This updates the boot files on the c drive to Win98.
5 - Change to the c drive (type ** c: ** and press Enter) and type ** dir win.com /s ** . This will show you all instances of win.com on this drive. There is usually only one, in the Windows folder. Make note of all files listed, and their folders.
6 - Rename all instances of win.com found in step 5 above to something else (like winsave.com). For example, to rename the one found in the Windows folder, type ren c:\windows\win.comwinsave.com and press Enter.
7 - Repeat steps 5 & 6 for any other hard drives in your system. (There must be no files named win.com on any hard drive in the system before you continue.)
8 - Run d:\setup (substituting your CD-Rom drive letter for the “d:”) from the Win98 CD-Rom. Windows will install, and will upgrade your current setup (despite being a “full version” CD), keeping all settings and installed software intact.
You now have a Win98 system, and can use the full version CD-Rom normally for installing other options, drivers, etc.
Note that sometimes it’s a good idea to clean your Windows directory out and start from scratch, and an upgrade is a good time to do it. But if your Win95 is working OK, and you want to upgrade to 98 with a “Full Version” CD, you can do it.