Vista + Windows Mobile Device Center = An Exercise in Frustration?
Posted on 10 February 2007, at 10:12 pm, by Judie Lipsett
I’ll admit that the first thing I did after installing Vista was to try and figure out what I needed to do to sync my Windows Mobile devices, because of course – ActiveSync was gone and there wasn’t exactly a replacement tucked inside the Vista box. Oh yeah, I knew that the new syncing program was called Windows Mobile Device Center, I just didn’t know where I was supposed to get it – until I Googled.
And then…I found out that the device names already loaded on my Pocket PCs would have to be changed, since according to WMDC I already had PDAs named “cheeky_monkey” and “crossbow” syncing with my laptop. Well, yeah! It took going into the registry and futzing around a bit before I could delete those profiles so the names could be used again. I was comfortable enough doing all of this, but could the same be said about the average PDA user?
Evidently I am not the only one experiencing a few Vista / WMDC growing pains, as evidenced by Jerry Raia’s latest rant on Smartphone Thoughts.
Jerry says, “WMDC is no better than ActiveSync as far as I am concerned. Take a quick look at Kris Kumar’s post and thread for some sample frustrations. We have people first having to find it. Why isn’t it just part of the OS as they stuffed everything else into it? Yes it looks pretty.”
Jerry went through the same Registry song and dance that I did, and in his final thoughts he says, “Those of us, like me, who have push enabled devices and have an exchange server don’t really need this headache. I won’t even install WMDC on my laptop. I’d rather take out the storage card, put it into an adapter and then connect to the PC to transfer files.”
So for those of you that have Vista and have installed WMDC, how did it go? 
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The Cell Phone Junkie Show #40 « Mickey Papillon Says:
March 4th, 2007 at 6:25 pm[...] Question from Scott 1 2 [...]
February 10th, 2007 at 10:33 pm
Sounds like my Windows XP in Parallels on my Mac + Activesync 4.2 runs better
February 10th, 2007 at 10:44 pm
I followed the instructions linked from jkOnTheRun (btw, did he get in contact with you yet?) – here (instructions for using WMDC with OneCare, actually) and had no issues the first time around. I’m about to try again due to an error 105 in Partition Magic but I expect it’ll be as easy as it was the first time.
February 10th, 2007 at 10:48 pm
Hi Chris, yes – I’ve been talking to James, not about this though.
I have got it all running and syncing correctly now (with original names, I might add) – but that’s due to a good bit of patience and registry editing on my part. I worry that “Joe Blow” wouldn’t be as patient, or as comfortable messing with his registry, or want to sync as badly as I did.
I do wish it had been easier out of the box, but I want it all to work badly enough that I won’t give up until it’s perfect.
February 10th, 2007 at 10:49 pm
Mitchell, it runs great now; getting to that point was a bear, though.
February 10th, 2007 at 10:53 pm
Haha, that’s good to hear
February 11th, 2007 at 10:36 am
That’s really my point of course. That it finally works is great. That some have to be computer gymnasts to get it to work is not acceptable.
February 11th, 2007 at 10:36 am
I’m still wondering, Judie: does the “X” close an application now, or does it still just put it in the background for closing later and we still need to install “Magic Button?”
And personally I don’t like the green color scheme. I love green, but *that* color green should be reserved for lawns and baseball diamonds, not computer color schemes, in my opinion.
Of course, given that I’m a notoriously late adopter, I probably won’t be worrying about any of this for at least a year . . .
February 11th, 2007 at 11:42 am
It never ceases to amaze me how much trouble Microsoft has making their own products work together. It brings to mind the old adage about the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing, except that MS is more like an octopus.
February 11th, 2007 at 12:57 pm
Doug, you are such a grouch this morning!
I like deeper greens, so this one makes me happy. But there is also a blue “Windows Default” theme available just for people that don’t.
And in a year, when you are ready to get a WM6 device, hopefully all of the syncing issues will be ironed out. Hopefully. In a year. Yeah.
February 11th, 2007 at 9:47 pm
Sorry, Judie; it’s been a bad couple of weeks.
February 11th, 2007 at 9:50 pm
Doug, CYE.
February 12th, 2007 at 1:13 pm
I’m not sure why all this sophistication happens to the computer-adept people, but for me the WMDC was quite a nice experience. I didn’t have trouble with the name either. For the whole setup, I only had to enter the device name, which it has my device’s name in the input box automatically. It didn’t duplicate my appointments on first sync either (unlike ActiveSync 4).
Somehow I heard about WMDC before I even installed Vista so I guess I’m lucky.
February 28th, 2007 at 6:11 am
AAAAARRRGGGG!!!!
Just upgraded to Vista, and I am amazed at how all my apps and devices have actually picked right up with the new OS and got to work!
However, my Samsung i730 (Phone/Pocket PC) no longer sync’s to the storage card?! I previously used XP Home, Active Sync 4.5, and the sync method offered through Media Player 11.
Works great due to being able to sync playlists, music, etc. from Media Player to either internal mem, or storage card.
When getting started with the new Mobile Device Center, my storage card no longer shows up in the devices with Media Player, and I of course can no longer sync to the card.
Anyone else come accross this, or know of any work around?
I can access the card through explorer, and could always just copy straight to it, but losing the sync feature in Media Player is a big step down for moving to a new and improved app…