Those of you owning a Windows Mobile based device (where in most cases the very nice generic term “device” refers to a cellphone, I guess…) might wonder about the support in Windows Vista.
Unfortunately the statements you can find about Windows Mobile connectivity in Windows Vista are quite ambiguous and confused at least me while I was making the first steps with Windows Vista.
So this is to bring clarity to your mobile world:
1. Windows Vista (Ultimate) RTM ships with drivers which allow you to connect to a Windows Mobile Device. This means once you plug in your device Vista should be able to identify it and offers you access to its folders through Explorer. It does however not mean that you can sync or use Windows Mobile Device Center (WMDC)!
2. Windows Moible Device Center is the successor of ActiveSync, the Microsoft tool used under XP to sync your mobile device. It is considered a separate application, not an integral part of Windows Vista and as of this writing still in beta. You can download the Beta 3 release here. Whilte the page says it’s “Beta 3 for Windows Vista RC1” it’s actually the only Beta 3 version and it works perfectly well on Windows Vista RTM.
3. As mentioned before Windows Vista RTM ships with Windows Moible Device drivers. To make things even more confusing the drivers bundled with Windows Vista RTM are not up to date. However, as they are also still in beta you do not get updates once through Windows Vista Update. Download the drivers from Microsoft’s site and install them.
4. Let’s do a quick check at this point: Your device should be disconnected. You have downloaded the driver updates and installed them. You have downloaded Windows Mobile Device Center Beta 3 and installed it. Fine! Let’s go ahead.
5. The last thing to check is whether you have Windows Live OneCare 1.5 installed. If you do have it installed Windows Vista very likely does not recognize your device anymore. This usually only happens if you install OneCare 1.5 after you have installed Windows Mobile Device Center as the installation routine of the latter configures OneCare 1.5 to work with WMDC if it gets installed after OneCare 1.5. If you have installed OneCare 1.5 first or if anything went wrong during install, OneCare’s firewall likely blocks your mobile device. Here is what you need to do:
- Disconnect your device.
- Download and install:
- Open the following ports for all programs in the PC firewall:
- Port 990: Open Inbound TCP
- Port 999: Open Inbound TCP
- Port 5678: Open Inbound TCP
- Port 5679: Open Outbound UDP (Note: This is Outbound UDP!)
- Port 5721: Open Inbound TCP
- Port 26675: Open Inbound TCP
- Add the following programs to the allow list:
- C:\Windows\WindowsMobile\wmdc.exe
- C:\Windows\WindowsMobile\wmdHost.exe
- C:\Windows\WindowsMobile\wmdsyncman.dll
- Reconnect your device.
This is it. I hope it helped you to bring a bit more clarity into an almost perfectly Vista clarified world!