Sync problem on WMDC 6.1 fixed by rolling back to WMDC 6.0

Hi all,

I caught the post by Copenhagen (a few posts before this one on the
PocketPc.ActiveSync forum) and I will have to agree that the only way I
could get my newly upgraded Windows Mobile 6 device to sync was to rollback
WMDC 6.1 to the original WMDC 6.0.

Here is my setup:
* Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit computer with Outlook 2007
* Dopod 838 Pro Pocket PC phone with Windows Mobile 6 (WM6)
* Dell Axim X51v Pocket PC with Windows Mobile 5 (WM5)

Since I am a developer in Windows Mobile, I use the two devices for testing
though I mainly use the Dell Axim for development testing and the Dopod
phone I carry with me everyday.

Up until about a week ago, everything was fine - I was able to easily sync
both devices on WMDC 6.0 when they both had WM5 on them. After coming back
from holidays, the ROM image upgrade was now available from HTC for my Dopod
phone so I decided to upgrade it. After that was upgraded, I (automatically)
downloaded the WMDC 6.1 (for 64-bit) update thinking that it would be
necessary for my Dopod WM6 phone but that is when I discovered that my phone
was not sync'ing now. However, when the phone was disconnected I then
connected my Dell Axim, it sync'ed quite OK. From these symptoms, it appears
that there is a problem with the WMDC 6.1 update and WM6 devices since my
Dell Axim is still working quite OK with WMDC 6.1 using WM5

After reading Copenhagen's post, I rolled back the WMDC 6.1 to the original
WMDC 6.0, since that was still available on the Microsoft website. In
following Copenhagen's steps. I too found that when I tried to manually
delete all files in the C:\Windows\WindowsMobile folder, some DLLs were
being held. I tried downloading the Unlocker program referred to in that
post but found that it did not seem to work on my Windows Vista Ultimate
64-bit setup. When I right-clicked on any of those files, the menu did not
have the Unlocker item listed. I gave up on it and removed Unlocker.

Here are the steps that I performed during this cycle of events that has got
my Dopod phone with WM6 sync'ing again with WMDC 6.0:

-- Uninstalled the two Windows Mobile Device Center 6.1 items from the
Control Panel > Programs and Features list
-- Manually deleted the contents of the C:\Windows\WindowsMobile folder.
Initially I could not delete some DLLs but once the two "Windows Mobile
device connectivity" services were stopped from the Task Manager, I was able
to delete the rest of the files in the WindowsMobile folder, except for the
en-US folder containing the *.MUI files. I could not delete them and so
decided to leave them.
-- Using Regedit, I deleted all entries from the following two keys that
related to my two devices:
* HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows CE Services\Partners
* HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows Portable Devices\Devices (I left
in the entry for my memory card)
--- Using Windows Explorer, I deleted all files in the following folder:
* C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\ActiveSync\Profiles
--- With my two Pocket PCs disconnected, I tapped on Start > Programs >
ActiveSync > Menu > Options, highlighted the Windows PC and tapped on and
the Delete button. Both of my PPCs had two entries in here so there could
have been some confusion on the desktop at some point, so I deleted both of
them. They do not sync with any other computer.
-- Rebooted (Restarted) my Windows Vista computer

-- Reinstalled WMDC 6.0 from the Microsoft Download website.
-- Recreated the two relationships from my two devices, and they each did
the initial long sync
-- I then tested each device that it could perform a sync not long after it
was reconnected, and they both now sync perfectly. I also tested that making
any changes to some contact details in Outlook 2007 would update the devices
after a sync. and it did.

I am now happy again.

I did notice that after I reinstalled WMDC 6.0, the C:\Windows\WindowsMobile
folder did not have the wmdSync.exe file, which I thought was unusual
because everything was sync'ing perfectly, even after another reboot of
Vista. I had thought that sync'ing was dependent on wmdSync.exe since it
replaced the WCESMgr.exe program in ActiveSync in earlier Windows operating
systems. This will be another thing to follow up at another time. Since I
had a copy of the file, I simply copied it into this folder, including its
sister file wmdSync.exe.manifest.

I hope this information might become useful to others who come across this
post and I hope Microsoft tries to find out why this problem has arisen in
the first place. I will await the next update of WMDC 6.

Regards,
Neville Lang

 

Hi all,

I should have mentioned in my previous post that the reason I did not want
to use the more common "End a partnership" feature of WMDC > Mobile Device
Settings is that I found that when this feature was launched, it not only
removed the partnership registry items and partnership disk files but also
automatically removed an important folder (to me) and that is the
C:\Users\<username>\Documents\Documents on <username> <device name>. I have
many documents and notes in this folder and, if I had not backup this
folder, all of my documents would have been lost. I did this in the past and
have now manually remove partnership(s) as described in my last post, hence,
my description of the removal of certain registry entries and disk files.

Regards,
Neville Lang