Tranfer of POI Database Between Tom Tom's

[CruisingWriter]

Hello:

I have a USA Tom Tom XL which I have owned for several years. I back up the entire device regularly to a laptop computer.

Here is my question. I am a professional coastal Travel Guide author. I have spent a great deal of time and effort feeding in POI’s to my Tom Tom, representing all the many places of business I need to visit as part of my writing.

So, even though I’m backing up this device, what happens if it dies on me one day. WILL I BE ABLE TO TRANSER THE POI DATABASE TO A NEW TOM TOM, and, if so, how would I go about doing that.

This is really a very important issue. Can someone please help!!!!

Claiborne Young
Salty Southeast Cruisers’ Net, LLC
http://www.CruisersNet.net
(e-mail address removed)

 

[canderson]

If you have regular backups, you are in good shape. Your XL contains a file called mapsettings.cfg which will contain any favorites, and if you have been creating POI files, they will be individually named something.ov2 where the "something" is the name you gave to your POI category.

The good news is that those *.ov2 files you are creating can be imported directly to any of the older or newer TomTom models -- the file format has not changed.

Keep those backups frequently, and if you are especially concerned about your POI files, you can copy those *.ov2 files from the USA map folder on your unit to your PC whenever you like, separately. Your unit opens just like a disk drive, and files can be copied to and from it at will.

 

[dhn]

And if you buy a newer tomtom model which doesn't allow the user access to the file system, you can still add custom poi files currently on your unit (won't bother explaining how as it wouldn't make sense till you bought it and installed the required webapp MyTomTom.)

Further, TomTom has a tool that allows transfer of pois from an older unit to a newer one.

 

[Andy_P]

There are also programs you can install on your Pc to view and manipulate your POI files (such as "Tyre" and "POIEdit").
As well as being able to merge or split the files in various ways, they will also let you save the files in other formats if you ever decide to try a different sat-nav brand.