Windows Tips and Tricks

I have had a chance to play around a little with the MojoPac software mentioned previously. Here are some more details on how it works.

Installing the software on a USB flash drive does not actually clone your desktop or system from your computer. Somehow it makes use of the Windows XP OS on the main drive to create the equivalent of a new computer on the USB drive but it does not copy the Windows files directly. In fact, the new installed system does not occupy a lot of space on the USB drive. The recommended 1 GB drive will probably suffice for many. The only settings that seem to get copied are the Internet Explorer favorites, cookies, history and some Windows Media Player stuff that I did not check since I rarely use WMP. Any customization of the Windows XP system is not transferred. You start with the usual default settings. You can transfer documents and data files but it won’t let you transfer files from the Programs folder. Obviously, the company is trying to avoid any kind of copyright infringement. If you want to install programs, the procedure is the same as if you had a new blank Windows system. Here are some excerpts from their Web site.

Installing applications: In your MojoPac PC view (MojoView), installing applications is similar to installing applications on any PC - simply load the application installer CD/DVD, or download the application installer from the web and proceed as you would on any normal PC.

In fact, in your MojoView, your “C” drive represents your MojoPac device, NOT the Host PC’s hard drive. So applications install in the right place on your MojoPac device automatically. And here’s an added bonus: if the application installed on MojoPac asks you to reboot your PC, the only thing you need to do is to log out of MojoPac and log back in. There’s no need to reboot the host PC!

Working on the Host PC: To access and work on the Host PC, simply switch to the Host PC view using the MojoBar. As long as you are in the Host PC View, whatever you do is stored on the Host PC, including any applications you install. The moment you switch to the MojoView, whatever you do is stored on the MojoPac device. What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG).

Copying data: You cannot access the Host PC files and folders from your MojoView. However, you can access the MojoPac contents from the HostView. To copy files back and forth, toggle to the HostView, open up your MojoPac device drive from My Computer, and you copy files back and forth as you would normally do with a storage device.

I found switching back and forth between the host and Mojo to be very fast. It did seem that performance on the Mojo system was a little sluggish. However, I am not sure how much of that is inherent in using a USB system. I tried installing a few utilities like IrfanView and Karen Kenworthy’s Cookie Viewer and they worked fine. Installing Adobe Acrobat Reader 7 was very slow but it also worked once it was installed. In general, I found copying files over to Mojo to be slow. All in all, I think this might be useful for someone who travels and wants a personalized system with some applications that can be used on other computers. However, if all that you want is to be able to connect to the Internet with your own settings, there are simpler ways to put a browser on a flash drive.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 6th, 2006 at 1:29 pm and is filed under Software. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.