Help on dowloading an oversized map

[carnutga]

Recently purchased a TomTom 540xxl WTE for my upcoming trip to the UK. As I have been reading in this forum, the new maps for download don't alway fit on the available space. The Europe map that is offered for an update (Free in first 30 days) is 2.4GB compared to the current Europe map on the 540 which is 1.6GB. This exceeds the 4GB available space by .5GB.

To download through HOME, I will need to delete the US map to my computer. Nothing else is big enough to allow the download.
Since my TomTom will be an important tool in my road trip to the historic homes in the UK, I don't want to mess up the deletion. I also want to be able to reconvert the map to the US version when I return.

My question is: I would like to take advantage of the free map but want to save the instalation until I return from Europe. The 1.6GB Europe map seems adequate for my upcoming trip. Is ther a way to download the free map directly to my computer without installing it first on the TomTom?

 

[dhn]

Well a couple of issues here:

1. You can download without installing by doing the downloading in Home and when the download portion is finished and the Install progress bar starts in Home, hit the 'Cancel' button that you'll see. The downloaded map will be stored here:
   c:\documents and settings\yourname\my documents\TomTom\Home\Downloads\Complete\Maps\. And you can install it at a later time, either using Home or manually. See here: https://www.tomtomforums.com/genera...nstall-downloaded-map-without-using-home.html
2. You are correct that the updated Europe map will not fit on the 4 gb space after updating the USA_Canada map. In fact, if you DID dl and install the newest USA_Canada map and then tried for the Europe update, you'd see that it would only offer Europe zoned maps for you to select from (Western_Europe has UK on it).
3. You can use Explorer to move the existing USA_Canada map folder to the computer. ALSO copy the folder called 'maps'. By the way, if you look at the contents of existing Europe folder with Explorer, if you see a buch of cspeechXX.dat files in it (where XX represents the abbreviation for various European countries), you CAN delete these files. They are meant for models with a microphone to use Voice commands. The 540, not having a mic, doesn't need or use these files ....... and, in total, they represent well over 100 megs in size.)

Before doing ANYTHING, make an Explorer, not Home, backup of your unit's contents.

 

[carnutga]

Thanks for your reply. Unfortunately, I will still need to delete the US map before it will even download the 2.4GB Europe update. I did install the updated US map first because it was about the same size as the existing one. But, when I later went back to Home, it still wanted me to download the total Europe map instead of a regional one. I would accept the regional one, since the Northern European region is all I will ever need but don't know how to make it offer me that.

 

[dhn]

That's why I said to make the Explorer backup first.

What should happen is that the regional map is offered but what happens sometime is that the current Europe map gets deleted and then Home winds up not installing the updated complete Europe map.

You are then left with NO Europe maps.

 

[carnutga]

Yeah, that's why I think I'll just keep the Europe map that is on the unit. It's only about 6 months old and will do me fine for the trips i make to Europe. Thanks again for your help.