Run Logos5 from SDcard on Win 8 Tablet

How does Logos perform?

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/514415#Comment_514415

Better than I would have expected (I have a Asus VivoTab Smart - Atom duel core processor and I put the program on a 32 mb class 10 microsd card), I made a layout that links about 4 bible versions and 4 commentaries and little else and I it goes to verse links almost instantly. It preforms verse searches and lookups in theological dictionaries quickly too. The timeline is slow (I think its all the graphics). It's certainly not a smooth as my Core I7 laptop, but it's really satisfactory for being able to carry my entire library on a tablet. I'm very pleasantly satisfied.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/514423#Comment_514423

I'll be retiring my Android tablet permanently now. Oh, and now I have the advantage of preforming verse lookups/insertions inside MS Word and Powerpoint when I'm doing sermon writing...just like on my laptop. Cool!

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/514423#Comment_514423

Thanks, David. Class 10 is the fastest but I expect that full indexing would be very slow, so I would use Method 2 (from a faster machine) whenever that was necessary.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/514428#Comment_514428

Thanks. That's good to know. I did use method 2 so I guess I got lucky.[:)]

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/514432#Comment_514432

Hi David,

i may get the same tablet based on your recommendation. Did you by chance also get the official Asus keyboard and Golding cover? If so, how do you like them?

Also, others have said that a stylus is a must to use Logos 5 on Windows 8 tablet. The VivoTab Smart doesn't come with one. What's your experience without a stylus?

thanks!

Peter

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/514590#Comment_514590

Peter,

Yes I did get the keyboard and the cover, and they both seem pretty good. Previously I bought the original Asus Transformer TF101 Android tablet with the keyboard. This one is tiny compared to that style, but I actually like it better because some of the keys are in similar places to most laptops and there were a couple of stinkers on the TF101 (especially the on/off key which was where the DEL key usually is - i was forever turning the tablet off and having to turn it back on!).

Maybe I should be more specific about the performance that I am getting (since some others have questioned it elsewhere, and I don't want you to buy things with perhaps a false impression). First, if this were my only machine to use Logos 5 on, I would be quite disappointed. But for a second machine - a tablet, I'm OK with it. It DOES have a delay when you click down/up a full screen...but it's relatively short and I can live with it. It does take a good while to load. And I honestly don't know what will happen when it needs reindexing (hasn't happened yet but someone else said it may take a long time). I must say that even on my Core I7 with a 5400 rpm drive, there are moments when I wish Logos was more responsive. So I was pretty amazed that I could load my entire (18 gb) program with 2700 books onto my microsd card and have it run as well as it does. I will easily be able to use Logos for sermon writing although I would plan on doing more advanced work from my laptop. It will be great for travel. Personally I'd rather have this than the Ipad or Android apps, which do run better, but are so much more limited in total capabilities. This works just like my laptop, because it IS just like my laptop. Notes, copying text. Searches, etc.

I'll report back in the future when I use it for awhile.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/514590#Comment_514590

I don't know about the stylus, but I have a bluetooth mouse (picked up on Amazon cheap) that I use with the tablet and that is great.

I find in general that I am surprised how well I manage on this tablet with my finger using touch. Even smaller elements are pretty easy to select. Which is a good thing since all the most powerful programs are the ones on the desktop and are not necessarily set up for touch. I am a amatuar photographer and I have Adobe Lightroom and PS Elements. It would be hard to use them without a mouse. But things like Internet Explorer are not a problem (even though the desktop version is not set up for touch. Unfortunately Chrome still stinks, and I'm hoping that will be rectified at some point.) I use MS Word all the time and don't really need the mouse to select things on the menus, etc.

There are some quirks with a win 8 tablet compared to android and apple, but this is the first version and I think that future ones will be better. I have had this tablet for a couple of months now and I'm starting to think that Win 8 tablets are getting a bad rap in the media. Because of their ability to run full PC software, there's no comparison to other laptops. If they catch, software will adapt to touch, and they will blow away what is out there now. Even now I'm satisfied.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/514607#Comment_514607

Thanks very much for your detailed input, David!

Peter

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/514643#Comment_514643

Order placed. Will report on my experience with the Vivotab later!

Peter

Alexxy Olu

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/514688#Comment_514688

Thought I should share my experience of the ASUS vivo tab

I have been holding out for a Windows 8 tablet that will allow me to have my full logos library and the word library anywhere I happen to be and be capable of decent functionality.

Cast-iron requirements: It must not trigger an alarm on my credit score nor an urgent meeting with the bank manager: I have no collateral!.

[:D]

Reading the reviews, I finally desired the ASUS VivoTab Smart windows 8 tablet. I woke up on my birthday, and behold it was amongst my birthday presents. I’m not sure my wife or one of the children didn’t hear my loud but covert desire and then decided to surprise me by making it come true.

Hard ware:

ASUS VivoTab Smart windows 8 tablet (as a birthday present from my wife and children).
I then bought:

Micro SD Card 64Gb
A wireless Bluetooth keyboard (Great Shield Go 2!) leather folio case (the original from ASUS would have set me back about £100.00) but this cost £21.99 on amazon
and a wireless Bluetooth mouse (Snappy Speed Link) £6.99 from eBay.

I immediately went to work with on it.

The tablet is said to have 64GB of storage but actually came with only about 35.4GB of useable space the rest having been used for software.
I inserted the micro SD card 64GB. It recognized it without needing to format the card.
It also recognized both the Bluetooth keyboard and mouse (no drivers needed).

Hence it is like a mini laptop with a total of 128GB.

I install my MS office 365 Home Premium on it.
I installed “The Word Bible Software” a free software. Took about 10GB of space and I moved it onto the Micro SD card after installation.
I installed my full Logos Bible Software library on it. It’s a small library of about 5,000 resources. (L5 Diamond and other resources I have acquired over the years). It occupies 25GB of space.
Initially I moved the logos5 to the micro SD card but logos would not work – taking forever to open so I moved it back to the default installation folder on the tablet. It works perfectly well.
Indexing was getting too long and I didn’t have the time to wait so I shut down the tablet after about 2 hours (I later realized I should not have shut it down).
However, when I had the time again I just went into my Logos installation on my laptop, copied the indexing folders “Library Index”, “Library Catalog” and “Bible Index” to replace folders of the same name on the tablet installation.
Restarted Logos and it worked perfectly well.
Examples: It takes about 30 sec to open to the home page. Takes much less to open to any of my many layouts. When I did a search for “doctrine of atonement” exact phrase in my entire library, I have Library Results: 349 in 346 (0.5sec).
I installed C-cleaner software and cleaned out unwanted software and files.
I do not intend to use this to replace my laptop. Rather, it is very exciting for me to have my entire library with me as I travel without the laptop, be able to preach from it and do some note taking too.
For me the battery life is decent: I get up to 7 hours with both the Bluetooth keyboard and mouse in use. I did that just to check the battery life.
I did notice that each time I change the lay out or try a search there is a slight jerky movement as if it is freezing for few milliseconds but for me it is of no appreciable consequence.
I still need a bit of time to get use to the touch but the response of L5 is reasonable.
I still have 8.5GB of free space on the tablet and much more on the micro SD card.
I have backed up the recovery partition to a USB flash drive and I can delete that partition from the tablet later if I think I need more free space.
I have now used the tablet for more than 2 weeks without any problem.
Hope that helps.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/515093#Comment_515093

That's extremely helpful. Thanks Alexxy!

Mine will be arriving on Tuesday. Can't wait!

Thanks,

Peter

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/515167#Comment_515167

So my VivoTab came yesterday. Very good hardware, really like it.

Purchased and installed Office -- works like a charm.

Still struggling to get Logos working. Followed the steps in Method 2 -- I probably forgot to uncheck the "Automatic updates" checkbox. It crashed everytime I started Logos after sign-in.

Uninstalled Logos, tried again. This time Logos 5 came up. It started to do indexing; paused the indexer. "Preparing Library" ran overnight, probably for 5+ hours. This morning Logos was up, but there were no resources in the Library at all. The "scan" command didn't seem to respond.

Checked my installation and file paths on the MicroSD card. Moved some things around. When I left work, Logos started and was "Preparing Library" again...

If it keeps at this pace, I may as well just uninstall and do a normal install, and let it download resources and index overnight.

I understand Atom is a lightweight CPU and is not meant for heavy duty work like video processing or Photoshop editing. The doubt at the back of my mind is, Why does Bible study software have to be so heavyweight? WordSearch, OliveTree (on PC) all do indexing on the PC client, and I have thousands of resources on WS, yet they all start up in less than a minute. Libronix used to start in a minute or so on average-grade hardware. I guess I'm not understanding what "Preparing Library" really is doing (I know it's separate from indexing).

I look forward to the day (Logos 6? 7? 8?) when Logos moves from .NET to a lighter programming platform and performs the same or more functionality without being as hardware hungry as it is today. I can't imagine budget-strapped ministers/seminarians/churches/missionaries being able to afford the expensive resources from Logos and the expensive hardware to run the software.

Peter

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/516359#Comment_516359

Peter my heart aches for you but I am so glad you took the time share the frustrating details. I am with you brother.

I am obsessed with trying to find the right affordable decent hardware. I was so tempted to buy the Surface Pro but cannot afford it really.

God bless you as you try to get your machine working. October is coming and better machines....my advice....return yours and wait with the rest of us.

Blessings

Joshua

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/516367#Comment_516367

Peter,

Gee, that was not my experience. In fact I have been using it without issue. Yesterday a rather large update of books came in and this morning it took about 1 hour to index - while my Core i7 laptop took about 25 min. I thought that was quite decent.

I'm not sure what to tell you. One thing that when you use Method 2 is copy/replace a fully completed index from another computer (in my case, my laptop) with the files/folders on the tablet installation. I assume you did that. Perhaps you should repeat it. (Since I put the tablet based program on my Microsd card, I just took it out, popped it into my laptop and did a copy and paste from my files on the laptop).

I don't know if this is helping at all, but I hope it does.

Dave

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/516402#Comment_516402

Peter,

Your problems resulted in my remembering something that may/may not be significant.

When I was replacing the folders (Data and Documents, I noticed that the names of the subfolders inside were different than the ones in my working Laptop version. So I did mess around with the names before it worked correctly. In my case the name 1vvwhhim.zfg works but I believe (sorry did not make a paper trail) the name I changed it from was kcrobcb3.kbi . This is in the DATA folder.

Similarly, in the DOCUMENTS FOLDER, the one that I now have that works is entitled, 1vvwhhim.zfg .

Maybe something similar or the same is true in your installation?

Dave

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/516405#Comment_516405

Peter,

I am feeling pretty stupid at this point. During my install, I made an dumb operator error and as a result (I thought) I had to go through a lot of extra stuff to recover. Since I thought it was my dumb error, I assumed all that I did was to recover to get back to method 2, but now I'm thinking that was not the case. So now I'm trying to retrace my steps (which of course I didn't write down). My comments just above did not make sense to me after I sent them (when you replace the folders the subfolder names would be automatically changed to the working version).

Here is what I think I actually did:

Reformatted my card and installed Logos 5 on my microSD card per original directions.
As per Method 2, replaced the DOCUMENTS folder and the other folders mentioned, EXCEPT not the DATA folder)
Went to the Tablet based Logos 5 folder and renamed the subfolders inside the DATA folder to the same name as is found in my working laptop program, which was 1vvwhhim.zfg (did not change any files contained within....yet)
Instead of copying the entire DATA folder from my working laptop program, I only copied and replaced the following subfolders and their contents:
1. \Logos5\Data\1vvwhhim.zfg\LibraryIndex
2. \Logos5\Data\1vvwhhim.zfg\ResourceManager

That is what I think I did that worked. I may still be off a little, but that is close.

My sincerest apologies. I really thought none of that mattered, but I guess it did. Please let me know what happens.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/516421#Comment_516421

Thanks so very much Dave. I did notice two different folder names this morning but I was in a hurry to get out the door to work so didn't pay much attention to it. I think your steps are very close and I will try them when I get home tonight.

And thanks, Joshua, for your note and your moral support. This is a wonderful community and I'm thankful for both of you.

Peter

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/516359#Comment_516359

If it keeps at this pace, I may as well just uninstall and do a normal install, and let it download resources and index overnight.

You might find Method 3 easier and it avoids a download.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/516421#Comment_516421

Went to the Tablet based Logos 5 folder and renamed the subfolders inside the DATA folder to the same name as is found in my working laptop program, which was 1vvwhhim.zfg (did not change any files contained within....yet)

Instead of copying the entire DATA folder from my working laptop program, I only copied and replaced the following subfolders and their contents:
\Logos5\Data\1vvwhhim.zfg\LibraryIndex

\Logos5\Data\1vvwhhim.zfg\ResourceManager

You would be better off using Method 3 rather than trying to work around Method 2 to this extent. Method 3 avoids downloading and can be used for updating resources as well as installing Logos.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/516484#Comment_516484

Well, patience pays off! After maybe 10 tries of installing L5 on the tablet, using different permutations of Methods 2 & 3, plus suggestions from the helpful brothers on this forum, I'm happy to report that I have it running on the VivoTab and it's not that bad.

It is, however, still indexing, and may have a long way to go, as I ended up using Method 3 to achieve a working installation. A Basic Search now only returns suggested Topics, with 0 search results (e.g. searching for "Jesus" in the entire library).

Wondering how long it will take for a complete indexing of Portfolio from scratch, on an Atom machine with 2MB of RAM... will report back!

So maybe I'll keep this tablet after all...

Thanks all,

Peter

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/516880#Comment_516880

Hi David,

The last few times I had Logos 5 running and I turn off (sleep) the tablet, logos had either frozen or crashed when I resume the tablet. One time I even had to restart the tablet. Have you experienced this instability?

Also, my indexer has been running on and off for the last few hours, but my search is still returning zero results from the library. I do see results from my own notes documents. Did you have that issue?

Thanks!

Peter

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/516966#Comment_516966

Peter,

No,I have had neither issue.

Well, I have had my tablet sometimes be off when I turn on in the morning. Maybe it is related to Logos...I will keep in eye on that. But it's not a real headache. Most times it doesn't do that, because I generally leave in on in the daytime.

The other problem I have never had.

dave

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/515093#Comment_515093

I have to thank everybody here because my wife now has a VivoTab Smart with her Logos 5 up and running!

The keyboard is on order and I don't yet have a MicroUSB adaptor but it's been fairly easy to use the 2x onscreen keyboards, and to access folders and drives shared on my Network (LAN). The stylus was fine except for selecting the little arrow to get the tab/panel menu, but switching the Windows display size from 100% to 115% took care of that.

Using Method 3 it took about 25 min to install, scan the resources from a desktop computer and index (less than 100 resources!). Performance is good and the dual core showed up when doing a few other tasks during the indexing; which otherwise hogged 95% of the CPU. Logos 5 loads in in 45s after restarting the tablet vs 68s of the ancient single core 2.16 GHz Athlon XP that my wife used to run Logos in Win XP.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/517318#Comment_517318

After many, many tries and learning how to turn on logging and read the logs, I found that putting Logos on the MicroSD card wasn't working for me. I found that the indexing (remember I'm using Method 3, so it required a full indexing) frequently crashed because the MicroSD was not accessible for some reason.

(I saw this myself once when the MicroSD drive just disappeared from File Explorer on its own and the machine needed a reboot.)

Anyway, so I now have Logos 5 working and indexed on my tablet. Problem is, I have it installed on my C: drive, and it is now down to 750MB free space.

Question: Does anyone know how to move the recovery partition off to the MicroSD card so as to free up space on C:?

Thanks!

Peter

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/517441#Comment_517441

I found EaseUS Partition Master. It works like a charm. I moved my recovery partition to my MicroSD card, freed up 9GB on the C: drive. And now the indexer is running much faster!

I learned a lot from this experience, even though it was time consuming and frustrating. I think I got L5 working on this tablet now with a Portfolio library on a 1.2 lb machine! PTL!

Peter

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/517441#Comment_517441

(I saw this myself once when the MicroSD drive just disappeared from File Explorer on its own and the machine needed a reboot.)

This happened once with my laptop's SD card and a reboot was also needed. I always change the drive letter** in Disk Management so that it is always associated with that card (or removable drive) and occasionally remove/reinsert it.

** system assigned letters are sequential, so I assign letters from K upwards.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/517441#Comment_517441

I found that the indexing (remember I'm using Method 3, so it required a full indexing) frequently crashed because the MicroSD was not accessible for some reason.

I just discovered a couple of failed updates on my Win 8 desktop of which one - KB2855336 - "Resolves an issue that could cause SD cards to no longer be detected by Windows when the system transitions between different power states." Others have had problems if you check the internet, BUT it had installed successfully on my VivoTab Smart today!

Check Windows Update and/or its history to see if you have it.

EDIT:

The other failed update is KB2862768 - "Resolves an issue in which some Micro SD cards are not detected on Windows 8 tablets"! Happily, that also updated successfully on my VivoTab! Note that it is an Optional update.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/517589#Comment_517589

Hi Dave,

thanks for the tip! The VivoTab is running quite well now.

I also ran into an issue with the tablet not waking up from sleep. Aft installing all the Microsoft and Asus updates, it seems more stable now. We'll see if it has the same issue again Jin the next few days. A Google search showed that other users have this same problem.

Thanks,

peter

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/517733#Comment_517733

PL you must be a man of deep abiding faith and extra reserves of patience. The machine (tablet) you describe would have sailed well beyond the fence in my backyard (into the woods) days ago if it was mine!

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/518580#Comment_518580

Here's a video to show the performance of Logos 5 on my VivoTab Smart Win 8 Tablet AND some tips on using Logos 5 on a touch device. I am really impressed on how "touch friendly" the software is. I don't think it would take much to make it truly shine.)

(Sorry about the quality. I took it on a camera rather than by a screen capture so the touch features could be seen.)

https://player.vimeo.com/video/72984685

Logos5-Win8Tablet from David Saylor on Vimeo.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/519191#Comment_519191

Mr. Saylor....Logos should offer you a free book or something for the community blessing you just gave us all with your video. Thanks for the effort, your time, and for caring enough to show us what you have done and how. I especially enjoyed the way you chose columns and could click on margins in order to change pages.

What is the DPI of your screen? Is it easy to ready or sharp? God bless you for being so helpful to us all. Your church or ministry must find you a true blessing.

....I could never do all that you have done with the various methods and all the installs and reinstalls that some have done.

The tablet would fly from my truck window on the way to church on Sunday if I had to do what you and others have had to do here.

Glad to hear your tinkering and patient work is paying off for you though.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/519302#Comment_519302

Josh, thanks I'm glad to share the little I have learned. Others have helped me so much on these forms and on the wiki. I'm certainly not trying to sell the tablet to anyone. The screen resolution is 1366x768 and is quite nice. Looks as good as my laptop. The movie I made does not do it justice, especially with the lights in my office. The Bluetooth keyboard is additional. Mine is the one sold with the tablet and is very compact. I'm sure you can use others as well.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/519191#Comment_519191

Here's a video to show the performance of Logos 5 on my VivoTab Smart Win 8 Tablet

Impressive, David.

It looks like we need a Mouse as the stylus will not drag resources in the Prioritize list (a keyboard is coming!).

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/519311#Comment_519311

One thought. Can't you just do stuff like that from your other machine and it will come onto the tablet automatically? I guess that wouldn't happen if you are not the same user on both however.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/519316#Comment_519316

Can't you just do stuff like that from your other machine

Yes, I had to do that from my desktop! But if we were on holiday it would be a nuisance.

Mark Nolette

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/519316#Comment_519316

David,

Thanks for this very useful tip. I didn't know that it was possible to install Logos 5 on the microSD card. I've had a VivoTab Smart for some time, but I had a glitch and needed to reset it. Now I have reinstalled Logos on my microSD card. That meant redownloading my resources, of course. Logos is indexing now. One advantage to installing on the card is that if I ever need to reset my tablet, I won't have to download everything again.

I've had a chance to use a Surface Pro as well as the Asus. Yes, the Surface does things faster and has a better display. But the Asus does pretty well given its price and specs. The thing that takes longest, in my experience, is setup. Plan on a couple of days if you have many resources to download and index. But once everything is installed, the Asus does a decent job. It's lighter than the Surface and has much better battery life. It's still a lot faster than thumbing through all the books these resources are based on, not to mention easier to store!

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/519191#Comment_519191

Hi David,

Thank you for posting the video. I can't help but noticed that your VivoTab Smart is much faster and more responsive than mine. I also have Logos installed on a MicroSD card (64GB, class 10, Sandisk). I have about 4,000 resources and indexing is done so it shouldn't impact the UI.

I wonder what's causing yours to be so much faster. On mine, just selecting text for highlighting is sluggish -- the selection of each character takes about a second or so. Resuming Logos from minimized state or going into Reading Mode or changing screen orientation also takes a long time (10-15 seconds).

The tablet is otherwise very responsive -- the Metro interface is very smooth. Resuming other programs from minimized state is also fast.

Any ideas, anyone?

Thanks in advance,

Peter

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/519920#Comment_519920

Peter,

I really don't know, but I know I looked at the specs for that Sandisk card (red and gray color?) and it gives a warning against reformatting to something besides EXfat. As noted further up in this forum I reformatted my card to NTFS format (based on another computer help site that said to do that if you wanted to run programs from a Win 8 tablet microsd card). Did you do the same?

Dave

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/520124#Comment_520124

Yes I did reformat as NTFS. I didn't notice any warning about reformatting the Sandisk card.

peter

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/520124#Comment_520124

A little more info:

I found the info on reformatting...http://www.howtogeek.com/136404/how-to-install-windows-store-apps-to-an-sd-card-or-another-drive/

I did not follow the second part of the directions which are for redirecting where Win 8 apps are automatically placed (changing registry settings). I just reformatted to NTFS and then directed Logos to install there.

I don't even know if any of this makes a difference, but that's what I did.

Dave

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/520131#Comment_520131

As far as those warnings, I saw them at Amazon.com... http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-MicroSDXC-Memory-Adapter-SDSDQU-064G-AFFP-A/dp/B009QZH6JS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1377600990&sr=8-1&keywords=64gb+micro+sd

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/520132#Comment_520132

Perhaps to test this out you can transfer your files to another card and try it.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/520133#Comment_520133

Peter. One other thought on your speed Issue. Did you try installing to the c drive before you then installed to your microsd card? If you did, maybe there are registry issues in windows???? For me I never did try this because I already had too much of the drive filled with other programs. So my first try was to install to the microsd card. Just a thought....

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/520137#Comment_520137

Hi David,

Thanks for your helpful replies. After reading through the information, I don't think the NTFS or the Sandisk card was the problem. I started installing other programs on the micro SD card and they are not sluggish.

I did try installing Logos on my C: drive, but at that time I was having indexing and other stability issues and I was struggling getting Logos to work in the first place, so I didn't spend any time actually using Logos to notice the sluggishness.

I will keep looking for a cause. Thanks for your help. Now at least I have full Logos and my entire library with me while I'm on business trip, so I can work on my Knox / Logos studies. For that I should be thankful.

Peter

Erik

With my Dell V8P, I have now installed Logos 5 to a microSD card. In doing so I followed Method 3. My installation was not without issues and seemed to hang on "Preparing Library". I finally realized that my microSD card was shutting down when the tablet went into sleep mode. In order to get it to work I had to set the power to stay on always when plugged in.