How do I update the Southern Africa maps on my Garmin GPS unit?

If you want to update your present Southern Africa maps on your Garmin unit or, you already have the latest maps on your unit but would like them loaded onto your PC as well, please read the info below before watching the video.

First of all, you need to get your hands on the latest Garmap Africa Series 2008 DVD. Then please take note of the following:

  • Depending on your present mapset, you will be charged an unlocking fee when loading and unlocking the maps on your PC - Note: if you purchased your unit after the 1st January 2008 or you already have the latest maps (i.e. 2008) on your unit and simply want to load them to your PC, then this unlock is Free. For more info on the various unlocking fees please go to this page and then click on the “Unlock Code Pricing” link for each individual mapset listed on the DVD.
  • When you load and unlock the maps onto your PC, you will be transferring your map license from your preloaded memory card to your PC (this is known as changing from a “Plug & Play” user to a “MapSource” or PC user). This process will also invalidate the preloaded maps on your SD card so, once you have completed this process you must either upload the maps from your PC on to the internal memory of your unit and format the SD card, or upload the maps from your PC back onto the card (thus overwriting the invalidated maps). This process is explained in the video.
  • You can load your unlocked and registered maps onto as many PC’s or laptops as you want, but the process in the video must be followed every time (there is a slightly shorter way of doing this for the more “PC literate” amongst us but this will be covered in separate video a bit later on).

If you are an:

1 - Unregistered Plug and Play user: i.e. Your maps are still the original preloaded maps on an SD memory card. You have not previously purchased any Garmap mapping CD or DVD and loaded the maps to your PC. You have also not created a user profile and registered your unit on the Garmap website at any time.

Please follow the steps below before you do anything else!

Step 1:
You need to first create a user profile and register your GPS unit on the Garmap website.

  • Go to the www.garmap.co.za website.
  • On the main page, scroll down to “Registration Options” and click on the first blue bar (i.e. Plug & Play – Register here!).
  • Enter your email address in the box provided and click on the submit button.
  • Fill in the Personal Registration form and click on the Save button.
    • Notes: select a password reminder question and then type in the answer to your selected question, yourself, in the box below. If you ever forget your password when logging in, you can select the “Forgot Password” option and they will ask you this question. If you answer this password reminder question correctly, they will then give you your password to enable you to login.
    • The fields with red stars behind them are required.
  • On the next page, select your GPS unit model, the unit serial number, where you bought the unit and how much you paid for it and then tick the correct box indicating which map software package is preloaded on your SD memory card. Then click on the Register button.

Step 2:
OK, you have now created a user profile and your unit has been registered on the Garmap website. You can now watch the video, pop the Garmap Africa Series 2008 DVD into your PC and follow the steps in the video.

2 - Registered Plug and Play user: i.e. Your maps are still the original preloaded maps on an SD memory card. You have not previously purchased any Garmap mapping CD or DVD and loaded the maps to your PC. But you have previously created a user profile and registered your unit on the Garmap website.

Simply watch the video, pop the Garmap Africa Series 2008 DVD into your PC and follow the steps in the video.

3 - Existing MapSource user: i.e. You have previously purchased a Garmap mapping CD or DVD (or you have purchased a unit which came with the maps on CD or DVD in the first place and were not preloaded), you have registered your unit on the Garmap website and you have loaded the MapSource program and Garmap maps to your PC.

Well, you guys have been through this (or a similar) process before so, watch the video to remind yourself how it works and off you go.

If you are on a slow Internet connection you should pause the video as soon as it begins playing, and wait until it has fully buffered and loaded.

To view a slightly bigger screen version of this video, click here to open it in a new window.

So, What do you think? Please leave a comment and let me know.

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