Pilot-XFer Win32

<h1>Pilot-XFer Win32</h1>

<h2>Welcome</h2>
Welcome to the Pilot-XFer Win32 package. This package allows you to automate
many maintenance tasks on your Palm device (like making a full backup) by writing
a simple batch file for your system (Win95/98/NT).

<h2>What is contained in this package?</h2>
<ul>
<li><em>Pilot-XFer</em> - Command-line utility for backup, restore, etc.
<li><em>KittyKiller</em> - Command-line utility to kill the HotSyncManager
<li><em>PGUI</em> - GUI frontend for Pilot-XFer, written in VB 5.0
</ul>

<h2>About Pilot-XFer</h2>
Pilot-XFer can backup, restore, install & delete databases on the Palm device.
Run it without command-line arguments to get complete instructions.
Make sure you specify the right port (COM1, COM2). Otherwise it will simply
not work. You have to make sure that the COM-port which you are planning to use
is not occupied by the HotSyncManager. KittyKiller can kill the HotSyncManager
for you.
<p>
The default connection rate is 9600 baud. You are welcome to try higher
baud rates (19200, 38400, or 57600) by setting the PILOTRATE environment
variable, but various machines have various limitations. You can also set the
PILOTRATE variable to H115200, which gives you an experimental speed of 115200.
This is unlikely to harm your machine, but it might simply not work for you.

<h2>KittyKiller</h2>
KittyKiller can cleanly quit the HotSync Manager. This releases the COM-port which
it occupies. This is neccessary, because Pilot-XFer needs the COM-port while it
is running. You can restart the HotSync Manager by simply running the file HOTSYNC.EXE,
which is usually located in C:\PILOT.

<h2>PGUI</h2>
PGUI is a graphical frontend to the Pilot-XFer utility. It has been developed by Mark Davis
and requires the Visual Basic 5.0 runtime DLLs which are not part of this package. You may
obtain these runtime DLLs from <a href="http://home.cwix.com/~mark.davis@cwix.com">http://home.cwix.com/~mark.davis@cwix.com</a>.
It is likely that these DLLs have already been installed on your machine by some other application.
Please only download them if PGUI doesn't start.

<h2>Example</h2>
In order to backup your entire Palm device which is connected to COM2 to the directory
c:\users\christ\palmbackup do the following:
<pre>
kittykiller
set PILOTRATE=57600
pilot-xfer COM2 -b c:\users\christ\palmbackup
c:\pilot\hotsync
</pre>
You can also write this into a batch file.

<h2>Rebuilding the package</h2>
The utilities are included as binaries which can readily be used 
without rebuilding anything.
This build has been created using the Watcom 10.6 compiler. It does currently not
compile with MSVC++ 5.0. 
<p>
The source code is part of a package called pilot-link. You will need version 0.9.3
or later. Visual Basic source code for PGUI can be obtained by mailing its author, Mark Davis,
at <a href="mailto:mark.davis@cwix.com">mark.davis@cwix.com</a>

<h2>License notes</h2>
Pilot-XFer is licensed for use under the GPL. KittyKiller and PGUI has been placed 
into the public-domain. 

<h2>Contacting the author</h2>
You can contact me (Tilo Christ) at <a href="mailto:christ@swl.fh-heilbronn.de">christ@swl.fh-heilbronn.de</a>.

<h2>Credits</h2>
Pilot-XFer and the underlying pilot-link package have been developed by Kenneth Albanowski,
and many others. My Win32 port is based on original work by Jeff Senn. KittyKiller is based
on a code snipped by Palm Computing, Inc. PGUI has been developed by Mark Davis.