MobileGuru Reviewed by MobileGuru on 26th December 2011. Garmin UnLocker Alternative v7.0 Garmin UnLocker Alternative v6.05 - 1. Copy your IMG file 'MAPLocked' directory 2. Garmin Unlocker Alternative V6 05. Garmin Unlocker Alternative V6 05. Adobe Dreamweaver Cs6 Crack Onhax. Holyone Denyo Launch Ver 40 Download. Garmin Unlocker Alternative V6 05. M4v Converter Plus Windows Crack 11. Daisy Van Heyden Bettie A Go Go 15. Oct 07, 2013 If not sure where to find, run MapSource.exe, select 'Utilities - Manage Map Products.' , then find the 'Installed Location' corresponding to the installed map from the list. The 'Installed Location' is the folder containing the.tdb file. Make a backup copy of the.tdb file found. How to Unlock locked Garmin maps already installed on computer. Releated post: Blog: Telegram: ht. Here the simplest solution to unlock Garmin maps. Protected toolkit2254x86 or Garmin Garmin file toolkit2254x64 Just open the system that matches your application. Drag the locked map into the blank window.

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edited November -1 in Garmin Auto Forum (Garmin Nuvi, Garmin Drive Forum)
is there a way to unlock my garmin nuvi 760. or should I say. I don't have the ability to gain access to the pin since I bought this from ebay.
ebay seller wont respond and didn't know i needed a pin.
can someone tell me what do next
Unlocker

Comments

  • You can call Garmin, but you likely bought a stolen GPS.
  • It you used paypal, complain and return it. You can send it to Garmin to unlock, but if the device turns out to be stolen (and it may), Garmin reserves the right to return it to the registered owner and you're just out of luck. I don't recommend anyone buying a GPS via EBay.
  • thanks, but is there a way, I just would like to know because i don't want to pay to fix that from garmin.com
  • No, and if there was we wouldn't tell people either as that would defeat the purpose for people that are legitimately using the feature. People being caught in the cross-fire is unfortunate, but sometimes necessary.
  • Two methods. Enter the PIN# or go to the user set safe unlock location. They call it something else but the name escapes me right now. Neither of these will help you without knowing the location the security code was set or the code itself. It's back to Garmin or back to the seller. No other option.
  • I think Garmin charges $150 for the unlock too, according to other reader reports in the past.

  • No, and if there was we wouldn't tell people either as that would defeat the purpose for people that are legitimately using the feature. People being caught in the cross-fire is unfortunate, but sometimes necessary.
    Upon reflection, it may be that he stole it. He claims the seller won't respond, but also that the seller didn't know it needs a PIN (which indicates that the seller did in fact respond).
  • Upon reflection, it may be that he stole it. He claims the seller won't respond, but also that the seller didn't know it needs a PIN (which indicates that the seller did in fact respond).
    I think the grammar is ambiguous-- I could read it either way. With the other grammatical errors in the post I'm not certain I'd read it that way.
    ebay seller wont respond and didn't know i needed a pin.
  • A $150 key to unlock the unit. That should be deterrent enough for those that are looking to use a possibly stolen nuvi.
  • the only way to get it unlocked is to send it back to garmin. i dont know if they charge a unlock fee . i doubt it but if it comes back stolen you wont be getting it back. i would let paypal know and how is this person's feedback on ebay? and also contact ebay about this also.
  • The whole point of the PIN is to disable the unit in the event that some lowlife good for nothing lazy moron decids to break the window of your vehicle and help himself to your property. While you still have to deal with the broken window and replace the GPS, you have the satisfaction of knowing that your unit is locked and maybe whoever winds up with it can work their way back to the theif and kick his a**
    Do I sound bitter?
  • Thst doesn't deter anyone.
    Offer like 10$ in a back alley for a 300$ GPS, there will be takers.
    Worst case scenario for the thief is dumping it in the garbage dump. Will he break a window next time ? You can be sure he will.
  • There are another two ways I know to unlock Garmin PIN.
    Easiest of them is to play with firmware.
  • There are another two ways I know to unlock Garmin PIN.
    Easiest of them is to play with firmware.
    Any further discussion of that would be beyond the rules of this forum.
  • Start at 0000 and go up from there. Or start in the middle at 5000 and go up/down. Play it smart and try obvious combos first like 1234, 0000, 1111, 2222, 3333, etc. Start at 1950 and go up in case someone used their birth year. Depending on how ambitious you are, I'll bet one can be unlocked quicker than you think. :wink:
  • I guess me adding in two weeks after the last post isn't as bad as four years..
    But it occurrs to me that the unlock location is probably the original owner's home. So if batzzz19 is still struggling through punching in all possible codes, he can push the home icon. Go there, and knock on the door. He will then be rewarded by the original owner either giving him the code, or giving him a modest reward for recovering the stolen unit. :)
    Ken
  • How on earth would he get to the Home icon if the device is locked? :roll:
  • is there a way to unlock my garmin nuvi 760. or should I say. I don't have the ability to gain access to the pin since I bought this from ebay.
    ebay seller wont respond and didn't know i needed a pin.
    can someone tell me what do next
    Never bought from ebay, but doesn't it have a way of policing sellers so they don't furnish bogus goods?
  • How on earth would he get to the Home icon if the device is locked? :roll:
    Hmmm.. I guess I didn't think that one through. :cry:
    Ken
  • Never bought from ebay, but doesn't it have a way of policing sellers so they don't furnish bogus goods?
    Yes, eBay has buyer protection policies and conflict resoluton procedures. If the product was misrepresented, the buyer has a good chance of a ruling in his favor. If the listing description clearly indicated that the unit had a unknown lock code it would be the buyers responsibility to bid accordingly and take the chance.
  • So the OP's first recourse would be to contact ebay, that is if the OP's legit.
  • Well that was back in 2008 so I suspect the OP has figured it out one way or the other. As Tim pointed out, any discussion of bypassing the unlock code on a Nuvi is against forum rules.
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(this page created 5/27/08)

 Enter your 25-code, which Garmin won't give you!

Garmin's Unlocking Maps is Difficult (and that's an understatement)

Garmin maps has the WORST unlock code license key experience of any product EVER in the history of time. Garmin's UI designers and programmers are clearly incompetent and should be fired immediately and then sued for fraudulently presenting themselves as professionals capable of building a product. This web page documents how very bad their GUI is, and documents the nooks and crannies of the license key process.

My main issue is that I can't even understand the METAPHOR the Garmin map unlocker is shooting for. The CD Package and my GPS provide me with 7 numbers of varying lengths and NONE of them is the number it wants. Not only that, but to get the number it wants, I have to create an online account with Garmin (16 more fields to fill out) and then I'm not allowed to use that online account to license the GPS! It's like the designers of this UI flow (Garmin engineers) have never built an installer before. No, wait, scratch that - it is as if the Garmin UI designers have NEVER USED ANY INSTALLER BEFORE! It's that profoundly bad. Really. See the screen shots below.

Oh yeah, if you think I'm alone in this opinion, check out these links:

http://www.mischel.com/diary/2006/06/29.htm - Jim's Random Notes with the quote 'Garmin's.. attitude towards customers is insulting.'
http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/000664.html - 'Stupid Garmin MapSource Installation' by Jeremy Zawodny
http://sci.tech-archive.net/Archive/sci.geo.satellite-nav/2006-05/msg00041.html - 'More MapSource unlock madness..' in a discussion group
http://www.buzzillions.com/dz_504884_garmin_mapsource_24k_topo_national_parks_reviews - 'Bad Experience so far.. The instruction manual says in the box there will be either a 25 digit 'unlock code' or a trifolded paper with an 8 digit 'coupon' code. My box didn't contain either one.'
http://www.mininova.org/com/1097618 - large discussion trying to figure out how to use the Garmin unlock manager. The FUNNIEST comment is suggestions on how to use illegal software keygen crackers to get the Garmin maps to work -> BECAUSE IT IS EASIER than using Garmin's installer!!! Garmin, are you awake? Does this bother you?
http://www.gpsdiscussion.com/garmin-gps/2563-unlocking-maps.html - More discussions around how hard it is to unlock Garmin maps and how bad Garmin support is.


What Am I Doing?

I'm travelling to Australia, so I'd like to load my Garmin Rino 530 GPS with detailed street maps. So I went to Amazon.com and bought the 'City Navigator Australia 2008', and I want to do is load it into my Garmin GPS.

Who is Brian, and why is he qualified to configure GPS units?

Download netcat windows 10. First of all, it shouldn't take a computer expert to load a map into a GPS. That being said, I know a lot about computers. I have a Masters degree from Stanford in Computer Science, and I've been a full time software engineer for the past 20 years, working up to my armpits in technology every day. I've formed several startup companies including my current one that is a network based online backup company called Backblaze. I personally have written several installers, including the completely custom one for my current product. I also like GPS units, I own 5 GPS units, each for a different task. I've motorcycled through Europe, through Canada, and all over the USA using GPS to guide me. Now it's time for Australia, so let's get to it..

Garmin Unlocker Alternative Location

Hey Garmin, WHICH NUMBER SHOULD I USE?

I bought 'Garmin MapSource City Navigator 2008 map' from Amazon.com and want to unlock it. Here are the numbers I found on the package (slightly modified so you can't use them):

Back CENTER of CD Jewel Case: A271000296 (Promising! 10-digit, In a big white square highlighting it as my City Navigator Australia important!)
Back of CD Jewel Case: 007-00157-04 (small, in the lower left corner of the case)
Back of CD Jewel Case: 171-00075-04 (small, in the lower right corner of the case)
Front of CD Jewel Case: 007-00336-04 (small, in the lower left corner of the front case)
Front of CD Jewel Case: 171-00149-04 (small, in the lower right corner of the front case)
INTERESTING: L2XPVZ7A -> (8 character code) This sounds very
plausible, and was hidden between two layers of cardboard in the shrink wrap!!
Not near the jewel case! I missed it for much of the time I tried other things, then went
back looking and found it! Unfortunately there is no location in the Garmin installer to enter it,
or is there?!
AND THE MAGIC GPS SERIAL NUMBER: 29415006 - not having to do with the maps, but hidden under
the battery inside my GPS to uniquely identify my GPS. This was important!

Attempt #1: Clearly I do not have a '25 Char Code':

Read the screens below from left to right (use your horizontal scroll bar on your browser). They document my first attempt. Clearly I DO NOT HAVE a 25 character code, so choose the bottom Garmin unlock option 'No, I need to get a 25-character unlock code'.

What is strange about the screen below is that I have an 8 character code, this was one of the clear choices on the PREVIOUS screen, but now we are going in a new direction to go online with Garmin. Ok, fine, I can live with that. Just get it done Garmin!Ok, the screen below cracks me up. So I don't know my Garmin 25 character code, so now they are asking me to login to my 'my garmin' account with a username and password. Formerly I needed one code, now I need 2 more codes (username, password) to get the 3rd code (25 character code). But I'm holding an 8 char code THEY DO NOT WANT anymore even though it was one of the choices!!I hate Garmin. Utter failure. Again, I bought this product retail for about $100 from Amazon, I have an 8 char code, but Garmin won't accept anything I have, they wanted a login to their site, which I supplied, THEN THEY FAILED ME. They led me down this rat-hole and they failed me.

Yes, after logging into my 'online Garmin account' like the software asked me to, it says 'no coupon for you'! Garmin Rat Bastards! The Garmin website now knows who I am, I've successfully logged in, and I've been through this before several times in the past, but Garmin STILL can't get their online 'my garmin' accounts to work. So WHY do they push people to sign up to it? At this point I've provided several usernames and passwords and paid honestly for the product, I've got an idea for you Garmin-> LET ME USE THIS PRODUCT!!

Garmin must hate their customers to put them through this kind of hell.

Attempt #2: Maybe I do have a '25 Char Code'? Or maybe '25 chars' is approximate?

Ok, so if the above path failed, I'll try anything! Let's pretend I do have a '25 char code', I'll try all my codes above..

Iphone
My 'Garmin MapSource City Navigator 2008 map' came with lots of numbers (see above), but no 25 digit ones. But I thought maybe the installer was out of date (it CLEARLY is totally UI broken) and maybe one of my 10 digit or 8 digit numbers will work. So I select this option below and give a bunch of them a try.

After typing every number I could find, it would not accept any of them. But that makes some sense, none of the numbers were 25 digits long. Let's keep cranking on this, we can defeat this Garmin installer and get our map out!

Attempt #3: Maybe I do have a '25 Char Code', but it's hidden away in my GPS?

I noticed another path through the installer worth trying, maybe my GPS has the code hidden inside it?

Maybe my Garmin GPS telepathically picked up my license key when I bought the Australian map? Let's let the installer connect to my GPS, maybe it can figure it all out.

After connecting my Rino 530 GPS and letting the Garmin unlock software sniff for a minute, it popped up a dialog saying this device was not valid or did not have a key! My Rino has $900 worth of already licensed maps running in it, downloaded from this same computer, using the same software. And remember, I'm connected the internet and have logged into the Garmin online account with my information. What more could Garmin want? Garmin installation and unlock software just fails at every turn!

Who tests this software at the Garmin headquarters? When it is so horribly broken yet they ship it out anyway?! Somebody needs to be fired.

Attempt #4: Call Garmin Technical Support

Ok, at this point I gave up and called the 1-800 number the installer suggested 'if I'm having problems'. Problems? You bet I'm having problems. So next I navigated a phone tree at Garmin, and the Garmin message said 'Call back during regular business hours M-F 9-4, we laugh at you!' and then they hung up. Ok, I added the part about 'we laugh at you', but it feels like it. I'm getting pretty frustrated at this point. I have a job M-F 9-4, I'm installing this software I got in my SPARE TIME which is at 7pm on a Tuesday.

Attempt #5: Success against the *WORST* *INSTALLER* *EVER* by Garmin.

So I've got nothing to lose, might as well look around through the crazy Garmin hard to use installer for other options. And wow, I found a working path!! Here is the successful path through this terrible Garmin unlock wizard: an astounding 9 steps through Garmin crazy land:

Wandering along through crazy land..

Again, I've seen this screen before, it looks like the wrong path. To enter my license key, Garmin wants me to login to their website. So I log in to make them happy...

Now I've gone down the more sane (less insane?) path before, so now I'm going to try every last other option!! Look below, I'm actually claiming I've never been a Garmin customer before, even though I have had a 'My Garmin' account for several years and this particular GPS has 5 other Garmin maps installed and loaded into it and legally licensed: 'WorldMap', 'MetroGuide USA 5', 'City Navigator Europe v8', 'US Topo West', 'US Topo East'. But hey, I'll try anything to get past the *WORST* *LICENSING* *MODEL* *EVER* from Garmin GPS!!!

This next screen proves Garmin engineers have had a psychotic break but were still allowed to continue on working at Garmin. EVEN THOUGH I'm logged into an account at Garmin, they want me to re-enter in all my info-> and they want me to claim I'm new and have never used Garmin products before. I've tried everything, and THIS INSTALLER NEVER ENDS, it just goes on and on for no apparent reason. Garmin, you SUCK!

Wait, what is this? After entering in 22 fields of information, plus my user login to 'my garmin', plus a rejected phone call to Garmin technical support, they are asking for something new, something amazing, something called the 'External Serial Number' of the Unit. Hey, it's psycho user interface world built by Garmin. I have found the crappiest user interface on the planet, now I'm actually getting curious on what happens next.

Ok, after trying several things, I found my Garmin Rino's serial number UNDER THE BATTERY COVER. Yes, I removed the battery, and there it was. The correct number of digits. We're not done yet, because Garmin is a hateful, evil company, but I'm getting excited, this seems promising! I enter my Garmin Rino's 'hidden under the battery' serial number in the space below:

Oh my goodness it keeps on going! Below I am prompted to enter YET ANOTHER 8 digit code (not to be confused with the previous 4 codes?) But this one was a breakthrough -> it *FINALLY* allowed me to enter the Garmin 8 digit code FROM THE GARMIN SHRINK WRAP MAP SOFTWARE I BOUGHT. This comes hidden in the cardboard in the shrink wrap packaging of the Australian CD. Not in the CD Jewelcase. Not taped to the CD. Not printed on the front of the CD. But hidden in between this non-obvious brick of card board. But hey, I found it, and I entered it, and.. AND...

I have successfully defeated Garmin's licensing scheme! Or got through the labyrinth. And so, my dear readers, I leave you with this conclusion -> Garmin makes good GPS unit hardware, but their Map Unlocking wins the award of being the hardest to use licensing system I've ever seen in my whole professional career of being a software engineer.

Garmin -> you are terrible at installers! I'm serious, and I don't mean that in a small way.

That was hard. In a way that it shouldn't have been. I'm a networking and computer professional and IT WAS HARD to figure out, what does the average non-technical customer do?! I'm ready to abandon Garmin in favor of easy to use products. Garmin needs to be punished for that kind of horrid user experience.

Post-Mortem: Garmin Support gets back to me after 9 DAYS!

On 6/4/08 I got the following email from Garmin Tech support, an amazingly slow response for my rejected support request from earlier:


Garmin Unlocker Alternative Location Settings

------------ START EMAIL --------------

Garmin Unlocker Alternative Location Download

Date: 6/4/08

Garmin Unlocker Alternative Locations

Alternative

Thank you, Brian Wilson, for registering your Garmin product. Please check the information below to ensure it is correct. This is your registration confirmation. To make corrections, please send an e-mail to registration@garmin.com. If everything is correct, you do not need to reply.
Name: Brian Wilson
Address: PALO ALTO CA
Product Name: Rino® 530
Serial Number: 29415006
------------------ END EMAIL ------------------

So really Garmin NEVER RESPONDED to my pleas for technical help! Their incredibly slow automated system sent me a welcome email after 9 days, with information that would not have helped me navigate the installer! Garmin sucks so hard they blow.

Garmin Unlocker Alternative Location Iphone

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