Installing MioPocket on a Navman MY60T.

I’ve always been one to try and make whatever technology I’ve bought do something it wasn’t originally intended for. Mostly this is because I want to unlock some of the hidden value that the technology has or enable some functionality that had been disabled by the manufacturer. You can then imagine my excitement when my wife’s parents gave us a Navman MY60T for christmas as whilst I wasn’t 100% sure what underlying operating system it had on it I figured it would be either Android or Windows CE and there are plenty of cool things I could do with either. So not a day after getting it I had secured myself a memory card and began a furious google search to see what could be done with this little device.

Initially I couldn’t find much as this particular model is relatively new. Still figuring that most models don’t change too much I widen my search to try and catch hacks that worked on previous models. After an hour or so I came across an application called MioPocket which appeared to be a wholesale replacement for the underlying operating system. After looking around for a while I discovered a forum dedicated to this software and saw that the community was alive and well, so I decided to give it a try.

Installing MioPocket on the MY60T appeared to be a pretty simple affair. After copying across the needed files to my SD card and creating the required folder (the folder name for the MY60T is SEEKER2_T500E) I restarted my device and was presented with the MioPocket install screen. I ran MioPocket and it appeared to install without a hitch, triggering a reboot of my device. However when it started back up again I recieved an error “Application MortScript.exe encountered a serious error and must shut down” and my Navman froze. Removing the SD card and rebooting the device allowed it to come good again but I was unfortunately unable to use MioPocket.

I searched the GPSPassion forums for a good few hours trying to find a solution to my problem. Most of the posts I found relating to this error appeared to be fixed in current releases and attempting to replicate those changes didn’t seem to make much of a difference. Since I didn’t have much of a clue of how MioPocket was strung together (apart from it being a Windows CE application) I posted up my problems and hoped I’d hit someone else who’d had the same issue and managed to resolve it.

Luckily not a day later did a user get back to me with the required solution. All that was required was to delete the toolhelp.dll files in all the folders on the SD card apart from one, the Windows folder. Doing so allowed my device to install and boot MioPocket successfully. A quick test showed that some applications refused to run (although I didn’t thoroughly test it) but for the most part it was fine, allowing me to run all sorts of weird and wonderful programs on my new found toy. Talking with one of my friends (who was one of the fortunate people to have an i-Mate JasJam back when they were hot) revealed that I could also get Warcraft 2 and Doom running on there if I was so inclined.

So after all that effort is it worth unlocking your GPS so you can run other programs on it? For most people probably not as whenever you’re going to be using your GPS the manufacturer’s included software will more than suffice. However unlocking it can provide extra features that might come in handy like the ability to load in eBooks or a simple calculator. Probably those who will get the most out of such hacks would be the modding community as these devices are excellent value for what they provide. I know I would’ve preferred a device like this to the $450 TV screen I bought for my car almost 5 years ago. So if you’ve got a GPS lying around and an hour or two to spare MioPocket could well be worth a look in, especially if you’ve got that hacker mentality.