Thread: OS Installation Guide for the 9700 to save space and give you higher performance!

The only real difference in my opinion between the 9700 and the 9780 is the available app memory on each of the phones. Wit the 9780, you have 512 MB so even after you install the OS, no matter how many apps you have on, you will never run out of memory. But with the 9700 you are limited to 256 MB and thus, if you shrink your OS (remove unnecessary components) you improve the performance of your phone drastically and prevent low memory errors especially while browsing.


Follow the below guide and watch how your phone will perform differently!

1) Ensure that you do not have any previous OS installed on your PC by going to Control Panel and uninstalling any BlackBerry Device Software that you see there. (AGAIN, DEVICE SOFTWARE, Not BlackBerry Desktop Software, DEVICE!!)

2) Install the Operating System which you have downloaded on your computer.

3) Navigate to C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Research In Motion\Shared\Loader Files and ensure that folder is empty, if there was any folder in there (usually any previous OS files will be there), then delete it, that folder needs to be empty before we start.

4) Download and install OS 6, you may choose any build you want.

5) Download and install BB Boss v2.2.2

6) After selecting all the components / languages you want to, click on the Add/Remove button on the bottom right to initialize the shrinking process, when it is over, you will see at the bottom right by how much was your OS shrunk (in MB)

DO NOT REMOVE ANY LANGUAGE FILES UNLESS YOU DONT NEED THEM, ENGLISH UK CAN SAFELY BE REMOVED IF YOU DON'T USE IT AS ENGLISH USA WILL ALWAYS BE THERE BY DEFAULT.

The below image are the options that I select to be removed, feel free to change anything according to your requirements. Make sure the OS Build Folder has the right directory path of your OS and not blank like the image below.



7) Navigate to:

32-Bit Windows:
Computer >>> C: >>> Program Files >>> CommonFiles >>> Research in Motion >>> Apploader
OR
64-Bit Windows
Computer >>> C>> Program Files (x86) >>> Common Files >>>Research in Motion >>> Apploader

Then delete the file named vendor.xml (only if it was there, if it wasn’t then don’t bother)

8) Run apploader.exe within that same folder to start the OS update.

9) While getting the options of components to install, you should now see much less as you have shrunk your OS, however, still do a final check to ensure that everything that is checked is something you actually use. Sometimes for example, the Chinese language or any other language or component might be there, so just don’t select it if you don’t want it.

I would personally not bother with Social Feeds as well as it is of no use tome, saves me some space not to have it. (This is a personal choice, if you need it, then keep it)
What Social Feeds does is it interlinks all your social apps such as Facebook and BBM, twitter, etc, into one application, so for example if you want to set your status as gone on holidays, you don't need to do it on each application separately, social feeds will do it for all in one step. Still, I personally don’t need that.

Next come podcasts, if you don't deselect that during the installation it automatically gets installed, again, useless to me. TuneIn radio is much better IMO.

In the shrink options, MAKE SURE to select Startup Video under the Media Files. What that does it it removes the hidden / built in introductory videos to OS 6. Very unnecessary if you ask me especially on a device who would benefit very much from every MB! Shrinking those videos which are normally hidden deep in the device memory and undeletable, will save you a whooping 23 MB of space to enhance the performance of your BB and give you more space to install applications should you need to in the future.

Originally Posted by Matrix Leader

In the shrink options, MAKE SURE to select Startup Video under the Media Files. What that does it it removes the hidden / built in introductory videos to OS 6. Very unnecessary if you ask me especially on a device who would benefit very much from every MB! Shrinking those videos which are normally hidden deep in the device memory and undeletable, will save you a whooping 23 MB of space to enhance the performance of your BB and give you more space to install applications should you need to in the future.

How would one extract the Startup Videos from a OS?

Originally Posted by Joe Jerde

How would one extract the Startup Videos from a OS?

I personally don't know of any tool that does it. It is sort of like the ringtones, I know some people who extracted the ringtones and converted them to MP3 in order to be able to wipe the entire ringtones from the device memory, and have them stored on the memory card. So I am sure there is a way to extract the videos too but I am not aware of how.

Just FYI: If you have a progbram like FileScout, you can go into your device memory, then to samples, then videos, then you will see the scary amount of hidden videos, not only the video you see when you first install an OS, there are many more!